Relia grabbed a pair of brass handles and pushed open the doors to her father’s study. This wasn’t the Cabinet Room he used for his official meetings. This was a smaller room in the East Wing of the residence, the place where he did most of his real work. Bookshelves lined three walls, and their spines were a mix of old leather and crisp new covers. Tall glass windows dominated the wall to her right, offering a view of the Inner Sea.

She stepped up to the walnut desk, stiff and formal like a soldier. “You wanted to see me, Prime Minister?”

Ashur Moonfire immediately glanced up from his computer and gave Relia his full attention. Elise had always described their father as absent-minded—more focused on his work than his family—but that was rarely true these days.

Too bad he hadn’t learned that lesson sooner. If he had, then Elise might still be alive.

He rose from his leather chair, and the wooden floors creaked as he stepped around the desk. “Have you reconsidered my proposal?”

Earlier this summer, he’d offered Relia several hours of personal instruction every week. Most young mana artists would gladly lose an arm for even a single hour of a Mystic’s time, but Relia saw this for what it was. This was a chance for him to worm his way into her skull.

“It’s a generous offer, Prime Minister, but I already have a teacher.” And no, she wasn’t talking about the tutor he’d assigned her. “Besides, I’d rather focus on school when the fall semester starts.”

Her father just nodded as if he’d expected that. Relia waited for his retort, but he simply stared out the window for several long seconds, deep in thought.

“I need to show you something.” He stretched out his left arm, and space mana flowed from his palm, opening a portal in midair. Several more heartbeats passed, then a container floated out from the opening, big enough to hold a sleeping person.

Ashur looked up and met her eyes. When he spoke, his voice was surprisingly gentle. “Prepare yourself.” The words filled the room despite his quiet tone, and Relia’s heart leapt into her throat. Somehow, she already knew what came next.

More mana flowed from her father’s palms as he ran a finger over the coffin’s smooth metal surface. The material turned transparent, revealing the person inside.

It was her sister, Elise.

Relia had seen her share of dead bodies over the years, and they rarely resembled the people they were in life. But Elise didn’t look dead. She still wore the same clothing and armor she’d worn in their battle against Valeria Zantano. She even sported the same red wound where the dragon’s claw had pierced her torso.

Akariel’s ashes. Hadn’t they burned her body before the funeral? This looked like no one else had even examined it.

“Is she . . .” Relia looked up and met her father’s eyes, unable to say the last word.

“That’s a complicated question,” he replied. “A soul with sufficient mana can cling to life for several minutes after death.”

“But she’s been gone all summer.” Relia’s voice hitched as she glanced back down at her sister’s face.

“This is a temporal Construct.” Her father rested his hands on the coffin’s hard surface. “I’ll spare you the technical details, but it’s far more advanced than any you’ve seen before. For her, barely a full minute has passed.”

“Why show me this?” Relia asked. “My aspect can’t save her. I already tried.”

“Life mana can’t save her,” he agreed. “But we might have a chance with Moonfire.”

Moonfire. That wasn’t just her father’s clan name. It was also the name for an ancient healing technique, powered by Angelic mana. Relia had witnessed it countless times from her grandmother, but no one had seen Lyraina Trelian in years. So why did he bring it up? Unless . . .

“Can you do it?” she asked her father.

Ashur swiped a hand over the coffin, and the surface turned opaque once again. “I begged my mother for that technique, but she always refused me.”

“Well, that makes two of us.” Of course, Relia hadn’t been an Aeon in those days, so she’d never had a chance to learn.

“She never taught you, but I suspect she used her pendant during your aspecting ritual.” When Relia didn’t correct him, he continued. “You carry the techniques of our ancestors inside your soul. You proved that when you fought Valeria Zantano.”

Relia felt her channels turn to ice. “So this is why you brought me here?”

“No,” Ashur said at once. “You’re my daughter, and I’ll love you no matter what happens.”

That was the first time he’d said those words. Needless to say, the words rang hollow in her ears. She’d heard of unconditional love in stories, but the parents in those stories would never abandon their children. Not for all the power in the world.

“What if I refuse to help you?” she asked.

“Then I’ll respect your decision, and we’ll let Elise go.”

“Just like that? Does your wife know about this?”

Ashur shook his head. “Even Angelic healing has a high chance of failure. Getting her hopes up felt . . . needlessly cruel.”

“Seriously?” Relia narrowed her eyes. “Since when do you care about other people? What about how you abandoned me as a baby? What about sending Valeria to kill us? What about Storm’s Eye?” She’d kept these arguments to herself all summer. Now, they poured out of her in a storm of righteous fury.

Her father held her gaze for several heartbeats, then their surroundings changed without warning. The ground jolted beneath her feet, and the dark sea faded from outside the windows, replaced with a violet sky.

“Um . . .” Relia blinked and took in the changes. “What just happened?”

Her father leaned back against his desk, resting his hands on the smooth wooden surface. “If you want to talk about Storm’s Eye, then we should do so in private.”

She stepped toward the window in a daze. “I thought we were in private.”

“Our home is safe enough for most purposes, but not this.” He raised both hands in a broad gesture. “We’re in the Ethereal now.”

Relia pushed open the nearest door and stepped out onto the balcony. Everything here teemed with mana, from the stone beneath his shoes, to the warm air against her skin. The sky shone with twice-bright stars, and a dozen glowing nebulas floated between them.

She’d heard of this realm from her grandmother, but this was more vibrant than anything she’d ever imagined. For all that, their immediate surroundings felt . . . underwhelming. Her father could have conjured anything, and he chose this? An exact recreation of the Palace Prime?

Ashur followed her outside. “You think I’m influencing Storm’s Eye.”

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Relia shrugged and leaned over the railing. Her hands still shook from the sight of Elise’s body, and she balled them into fists. “It’s kind of obvious, isn’t it?” He’d trapped the other Mystics during the Battle of Koreldon City, and he’d conveniently escaped that prison when he needed to rescue Elise. Not to mention how Storm’s Eye had killed their last prime minister, along with the next three people in line to take his place.

If anything, she was surprised the other Mystics hadn’t immediately revolted. He must have some secret leverage over them.

“You’re right,” Ashur said after a short pause. “I helped unleash the mana spirit against the world, but it’s not for the reasons you think.”

“Silly me.” Relia rolled her eyes. “Here I thought you murdered thousands of people to become the prime minister.”

He joined her by the railing, but he kept several paces between them. “Espiria has been growing weaker for years. Barely one in ten thousand people advances to the Master realm. It should be one Master for every hundred. We’ve raised the bottom line, but that only gives the people a false sense of progress.”

Her grandmother had once made similar claims, but it seemed like a useless tangent here. “How many Masters did Storm’s Eye kill?” she countered.

“If Storm’s Eye hadn’t attacked us, then North Shoken would have.”

“What?” Relia furrowed her brow. “They’re not as strong as us. They’re not even as strong as South Shoken.”

“They put on a show of weakness,” her father said. “But they’ve done this before. They train armies of young Masters in secret, then they take the world by surprise.”

“Yeah, but that’s—”

“Ancient history?” he finished for her. “Like Storm’s Eye?” He gestured to the fake marks on his palms and forehead. “Like pointless rituals that ward off evil spirits?”

Relia closed her mouth, and her thoughts drifted back to a certain ancient temple in the Cadrian jungles. The Yaxel high priests had once made elaborate headdresses to protect them from the storms. Now, people put sigils on their foreheads and hands, and modern scientists were the new high priests.

And as always, the “heretics” were punished.

She could accept that North Shoken was a threat, but how was Storm’s Eye a valid solution? He hadn’t even turned the spirit against North Shoken. He’d unleashed it on his own city.

“Espiria’s weakness is by design,” her father said. “It’s part of the game my fellow Mystics play. Younger generations are the greatest threat to their power, so they wield peace as a shield. They’ve built a world of luxuries and distractions. A world where no one wants to advance, much less challenge them.”

Clearly, pompous monologues ran in the family. But at least Lyraina had tried to teach her important lessons. Her father was just making excuses to justify his actions.

Still, Relia couldn’t argue with that point about distractions. She’d seen that firsthand with her school’s televised qualifying rounds, and how millions of people had tuned in to watch the drama and betrayals. Millions more had watched the interschool war games after that.

They all should have been training and making this world a better place. Instead, they watched other people train, tasting success from the comfort of their sofas.

“But Storm’s Eye changed everything,” her father continued. “Now Espirians are advancing faster than ever before. The collegiate games are paused indefinitely and students train to fight real opponents. Even duelists and surgeball players have turned to protecting their city. For the first time in centuries, we’re united against a common enemy.”

“You still let people die,” Relia said. “Pretty speeches won’t make that go away.”

“Have you heard of the soulpiercer?” he asked her.

Relia glanced toward the sky and thought back to her biology lessons. “It’s a Master-level beetle from the jungles in Southern Creta. It’s supposed to be the most dangerous insect in the world.”

He nodded. “Do you know why?”

“No, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t pierce souls.”

“It doesn’t. But its sting can pierce a Master’s skin, and it carries a deadly virus. This virus won’t kill Masters, but it will spread through the air, infecting every Novice, Apprentice, and Artisan they meet.”

Relia swallowed as the news stories came back to her.

“We thought the beetle was extinct,” Ashur said. “Then one day, a group of Espirian tourists explored a restricted part of the Cretan jungles. They were on the airship back to Koreldon City when a few passengers showed symptoms of the virus . . . ”

“I already know this story,” Relia cut in. “Prime Minister Salerian vaporized the airship before it could land.”

“Yes. Most of the passengers never set foot in the jungle. They didn’t even know about the jungle excursion until it was too late. My predecessor killed dozens of innocents that day. But if he hadn’t, millions could have died. Possibly all of Koreldon City.” He turned and met her eyes. “What would you have done in his place?”

Relia reached for another sarcastic comment, but she couldn’t summon the energy. Kalden and Akari could argue and trade quips for hours, but she wasn’t like them.

“I don’t blame you for dodging the question,” he said. “It’s never easy to take innocent lives, even for the greater good. And yes, that’s exactly why I unleashed Storm’s Eye. Because Espiria has been weak and sheltered for too long. A beetle should never have threatened us in the first place. We should be stronger, but everyone is too busy clinging to the status quo.”

“You destroyed a city.” Relia bit off each word as she spoke. “And most of those people were doing their best.”

“My mother wielded Moonfire,” he retorted. “The most powerful healing technique this world has ever seen. She could cure the soulpiercer’s virus with a snap of her fingers. But did the world’s healers embrace her with open arms? Did they try to learn from her and improve themselves? No. Healing arts are a multi-billion esper industry, and she threatened their livelihood. So they spread propaganda and called her a death artist.”

This time, Relia didn’t reply.

“I can name a hundred other stories just like that,” Ashur said. “Our government hoards knowledge out of fear. They decide who can advance, and they sedate the rest with distractions. Our enemy works hard to ensure no one reaches true immortality. ”

Relia blinked. “Our . . . enemy?”

He nodded once. “You know who I’m talking about. An enemy who works from the shadows, taking peoples’ memories and erasing their very existence. An enemy whose name I can’t speak aloud. My peers all serve him. It’s why they play the games they play.”

Relia crossed her arms, feeling suddenly cold. Her father was talking about him. The Mystic who destroyed Last Haven and sent her friends to the Archipelago. “What does he want?”

“To stop us from ascending,” he said. “To trap our souls in this world.”

“Do you work for him, too?”

Another nod. “I couldn’t oppose him openly, even if I wanted to.”

That seemed to imply a soul oath of some kind. And if the other Mystics had sworn the same oath, then it might explain why no one had opposed her father’s rise to power. This could all be part of some elaborate game.

“But I’m not powerless,” Ashur said. “Our enemy wants to keep us weak, but Storm’s Eye was a loophole. It weakened Espiria for a time, but it will strengthen us in the long term. I appeared to do the enemy’s bidding while acting indirectly against him.”

“You’re still killing innocent people,” Relia said. “I don’t care how mysterious or clever your reasons are.”

“You’ve killed before,” he countered. “You’ve learned that sometimes, taking one life can save many more. That same logic applies at a larger scale. Killing a thousand innocents today might save millions in humanity’s future.”

“What sort of monster even thinks that way?” Relia said.

Her father gave her a patronizing smile. “You might not be alive if Prime Minister Salerian hadn’t vaporized that airship. Many people judged that decision, but he gave them the privilege to judge him from a distance. I have no doubt posterity will see me as a monster, but it’s easy to look down on a man when you’re standing on his shoulders.”

Relia heaved a long sigh. “And you wonder why Lyraina never shared her techniques with you.”

He shrugged. “That was never about our philosophical differences. No success was ever enough for her.” He gestured toward the palace at their backs. “I doubt even this would be enough.”

“Maybe you missed the point,” Relia countered. “Lyraina told me that politics was just people cheating to get things they haven’t earned.”

He let out a low chuckle. “Yes, she thought personal power was all that mattered in this universe. It’s an inspiring sentiment, but reality doesn’t work that way. I have everything I want, and Lyraina was forced to flee this world.”

Relia raised an eyebrow. “Are you happy?”

“No, but neither was she.” He glanced down at the tides as they clashed with the rocks below. “No one’s really happy.”

“I was,” she muttered.

“You’re young.”

“My parents left me to die.” She fixed him with a glare. “But please, tell me more about how young and naive I am.”

“Fair point.” A thin sliver of a smile crossed his face. “You certainly looked happy tonight, dancing with Arturo Kazalla.”

Relia tried to keep her expression blank, but the muscles in her face betrayed her. So much for their attempts at discretion.

“Your friends are working on their own advancements right now,” Ashur said. “They have their reasons for reaching Mastery, and you have yours. What would Elise want? Would she want to keep living her life, or would she want you to delay your own advancement to spite me?”

Relia hesitated. She would never agree with her father’s so-called values, but he wasn’t asking her to agree with him. He was offering to train her—to help her learn her Aeon techniques and possibly advance to the Master realm.

She thought of her sister, lying in that small pocket world, clinging to the last embers of life. If there was even a chance to bring her back, then Relia had to take it.

What if she pretended to be her father’s student? He claimed to serve the enemy, even as he worked against him in secret. That put him in a position to get close and learn his plans. What if Relia did the exact same thing with her father? What if she took his lessons and his resources, but remained secretly loyal to her friends?

It was risky, but it might be the best way forward. A way to finally gain an advantage in this game.

“Fine.” Relia glanced back inside the office where the coffin had floated a few minutes before Then she met her father’s eyes. “Just tell me what I need to do.”