Ranvir stroked Amalia’s hand with his thumb. The recently cleared windows filled the space with light, sounds of children playing filtering through the cracked opening. The room held a slight smell of stale air and human sweat. Ranvir could taste the hesitation on his tongue, bitter and frightened.

Amalia lay with her head turned away, eyes closed.

“How does it feel to be on the other end?” he asked.

She stirred at his words, glaring from the corner of her eyes. “What?”

“Usually, it’s me who’s bedridden.”

“I’m not bedridden.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What would call it, then?”

“I’m not sick or injured, I just…” she pulled her hand free and dry washed her face. “I don’t know.”

“I have an idea.”

“I’m not taking advice from a twenty-three year old.”

“Do you want me to run it by Kasos first?”

She glared at him, but something took the wind out of her before she could build up any steam. Collapsing into the bed, her eyes watered and she threw her hands up. Searching for words, she didn’t find them and simply pulled the blanket tighter around herself.

Ranvir looked down at the bed, eyes narrowing as he thought. Inside, he was fit to bursting with lights and energy, enough force that she would have to be moved by it. He ran his thumb along the bed frame. Grains pushing against his skin as he passed over. Again and again.

No amount of force could get her mind out of the bed, even if her body began running around. “After I first came here, even after Kasos trained me and I healed, I don’t think I really left that bed. Not for years and years. My body was going to work, and I tended as best I could to Frija, but she deserved better. We both did. Somehow, I still took three years for me to crawl out.”

He looked up at her. Their eyes met. Broken purple reflecting off her dark pools. “I can’t pull you out of the bed, Amalia. I don’t want to. But if you’ll let me, I’ll stay here in the room with you.” He touched the gold bracelet on her wrist, lighting up the dark stone set within. “I know Elpir will too. Kasos, your mother, and Kyriake.”

“You’re not actually talking about staying in here, are you?”

Ranvir winced and looked around. “Would be a little cramped. Besides, I got a whole heaping mess of shit to kick up. A new soul to master. A space to improve. A diplomatic… You know, the list goes on and on. I gotta get going. See you around?”

“If I have to.” She smiled faintly.

Ranvir ruffled her hair, earning a squawk of annoyance before he slipped out of the room. From a woman who’d been too long in bed, to a man who desperately needed it. Grevor leaned against the wall, his blond hair messy in an uncontrolled way, eyes red and baggy from lack of sleep. Days of beard growth lingered on his chin, fuzzy and pale.

“Come on.” Ranvir waved for him to follow.

Grev groaned but didn’t straighten. Instead, he turned the dark chambers of his eyes on Ranvir. “Why am I here? Why are you dragging me around? Do you think it’ll help me?”

“Yes. If nothing else, it will further exhaust you, making sleep more likely.”

“I see him in my sleep.” Grev’s voice shook over the abyss in his soul.

“Because I want you around, Grev.” Ranvir put a hand on his back and pulled him along. “I want you with me, because you’re my friend and I like you. Same reason I enjoy hanging out with Esmund.”

“I find that hard to believe.” Heavy-lidded eyes barely focused on Ranvir.

“The contrast is interesting. Sad and depressed versus covering it.”

“This is not a joke!” Grev pushed him away, eyes momentarily flaring white.

Ranvir shook his head. “It’s not a joke. But it’s not your fault and you couldn’t have done anything about it. If you want to honor Sansir, make something. Something that he will be remembered by.”

Grev hung his head, swaying on his feed. Ranvir gently took him by the arm so he didn’t fall. They said their goodbyes with Elpir and met up with Kasos outside the house.

“Are you sure about this?” Ranvir asked.

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“I’m too old to begin questioning my decisions now.”

Ranvir nodded and took them away. They emerged on wooden floorboards, running the length of the school’s first floor. Outside the door, light from a tiny portal glistened purple against the freshly treated wood.

Es, Kirs, Pashar, Kyriake, and Ayvir stood around the opening watching dirt pile up against the wall of the building. Ranvir guided Grev out to them. A ring ten feet wide surrounded the building, beyond which a grid of faint purple lines outlined the limits of the school’s new realm.

Ranvir gazed at the enormous pile of winter-chilled soil spewing higher and higher. “Isn’t that a bit much?” It was wide as a building and most of a floor tall.

“With our current depth?” Kyriake shook her head. We won’t even get all the way around before running out.

Ranvir shook his head and blew out a breath. A ripple passed through the limits of the space. An occasional artifact from expanding the space. He wished he knew what caused it, but he’d get there. So long as the space held steady, they could continue.

“You’re just in time,” Pashar said, handing him a paper. “You have just enough time to pick up the quartermaster and get her ready before the meeting.”

Ranvir nodded. The ‘quartermaster’ was Alexis, the merchant he’d met before gaining storm mana. She’d been in the fold with him and Amalia, when Mercy’s Redoubt tried to kill him.

When he stepped into her, and her father’s shop, she hesitated on seeing him. He’d only briefly confirmed it when he got her to agree on the job yesterday, but she sensed emotions from people the same way he sensed them within himself. An advanced or altered tether-sense of some sort. What did that make his spirit?

“Ranvir, are you okay?”

“Yeah, though unfortunately, I am running low on time.”

Her eyes widened. “Already? I figured I’d have at least another day.”

“I told you—“

“I know what you said. I figured it was hyperbole.” She ducked around back with a curse, emerging moments later with a folder and a bunch of unaffiliated loose leaf paper. “At least, I know the basics. Are we really negotiating with an Arkrotas?”

Ranvir nodded. “We really are.”

She shook her head. Before entering the fold as a merchant’s affiliate, she’d cut her hair and concealed herself as a boy. Her hair had grown out quite a bit since then and fell almost to her shoulders, though she kept most of it tied back, leaving bangs to frame her face.

She stared boggle-eyed as he took them back to the school. Kyriake had fashioned a rough-hewn circular stone table and set it up in the middle of the wall less building. Eleven chairs were sitting around it. Two groups of four, two that sat together and at last a single chair standing alone.

Pashar intercepted them immediately, noticing the mess of papers Alexis carried. “We have ten minutes to prepare a final outline of what we want to achieve.”

“Minutes?”

“Quarter flare,” Pashar said, impatiently leading her to the table and the two chairs.

Ranvir left them, turning to Kasos and Kyriake, standing off to the side. “They won’t be happy about seeing you join me.”

Kyriake shrugged. “The Sentinel’s position was never too strong compared to the others. They will play along.”

“Bacenor might throw a fit, but not in public, and the others will keep him in check.”

Ranvir nodded, turning back to look at the women working. “I’m still not convinced this isn’t a mistake.”

“You would never be allowed to run your school in quiet. Your existence is an explicit threat to anybody too close to you.” Kyriake’s voice had the rote turn of well churned conversation.

Ranvir sighed in stifled complaint.

Pashar and Alexis worked until their very deadline and Ranvir felt nine beacons ignite. “It’s time.”

They cleaned up in moments, a single neat folder resting before Alexis as Pashar scurried to join the others now standing alongside the wall. Ranvir strode over to the chair she’d vacated as he opened nine spaces leading to a respective beacon.

Power rocked the building. Space groaning at the force of their presences, strained but surviving. Phormos emerged first. Sodden hair hanging past his chest, the spikes of a golden crown peeking from locks. Though gaunt, hints of the man Morphos remained in his features. Power swathed him like a drowning blanket.

Next came a woman in flowing green silk. Lithe and tall, she walked with grace inhuman, floating across the floor toward her seat. Dark hair trailed behind her, pearls of shining light and water suspended in her hair and dress. Kaesera Isadora swept her spirit about herself like a dancer, accentuating her movements.

Bacenor, with all the fanfare of a rock rolling down the hill and all the incidental grace of a mountain collapsing. Tall, but wide enough to seem stout. His musclebound frame spoke of barely restrained anger. There was a vile light in his eyes that Ranvir did not like.

At some point, the fourth Arkrotas had emerged. The Sentinel wore heavy armor, yet was thin enough for it to seem slim on their frame. Androgynous, to the point of having no distinctive features at all, the suit of armor’s appearance almost felt unimportant compared to the others.

Strangest emerged from the four portals on the other side. A man with faintly blue skin, faintly purple veins glowing underneath. A pair of leathery wings were folded tight against his back and a tail, like a scorpion’s, curled crosswise across the chest, over the shoulder and under the arm. He wore tailored leathers, accenting broad shoulders and narrow hips. He turned purple eyes on Ranvir, clearly noticing the cracks.

The portal next to him revealed an older being of the same species. Gray skinned and wearing robes. He too had wings and a tail, though his veins had a faintly pale blue glow. His eyes were white ringed with a faint blue, scanned the room seeming to pay little attention to Ranvir, though he felt his deft tether-sense sweep the room, before Bacenor swatted it down. The man hesitated a step before following in his blue-skinned fellow’s footsteps.

Their third portal revealed the bandaged spirit that had arrived that day. Walking like a human, Ranvir couldn’t help but wonder how much of that was pretending for the comfort of others. Its silhouette had no appearance of wings or tails, yet he could feel the near physical presence of its tether-sense, leaving a slight shimmer in the air.

Their final portal revealed Saif, yellow eyes ablaze and trailing smoke. His features were carefully guarded and therefore impossible for Ranvir to read, except for a single moment when their eyes met. Molten hatred boiled beneath the control. Saif wanted to kill Ranvir.

The last portal, standing alone and leading to a single seat. Revealed King Ungor Stratos, the weakest of the participants. He strode in, butterfly wings spread wide as if he couldn’t tell the mountainous difference in strength.