A month flew by. I was pretty shocked at exactly how quickly it had gone. Spending time with Chelsea and Nat, as well as wedding planning and helping with the construction. It occurred to me the next day that I really could use the money from working on the village, so I’d ended up pitching in to prepare for the Conclave.

It was being held on a big floating continent in neutral territory between three factions, which was pretty cool, and the place hosted a pretty big cross section of people from multiple factions and tons of objects to sell or buy.

That was all a problem for future Shane though, because for now all our time was up and we needed to get ready to go. “Alright, does everyone have anything?” I asked anxiously, sweeping my room to make sure I hadn’t left anything behind. “Because if you forget something it’s going to be ages before we can come get it.”

“Yes, MOM.” Said Benny exasperatedly. “We went over all our stuff, it helps that we use extra dimensional pocket spaces that can hold houses worth of items that sits in a ring on our fingers and weighs nothing.”

I just snorted. “You say that like you’ve never forgotten anything in your life. You’d forget your head if you didn’t have it stuck up your ass.”

He flipped me off and ignored as everyone else snickered. I gave Nat another hug, telling her to keep in touch and wishing her good luck. Then I turned to Zeke. “Ok so when are we leaving? Do you know when and where we need to meet up with the shuttle?”

“KIllian is in the system.” He nodded. “Told me when he’d be here about an hour ago. We still have a few minutes and it isn’t far from here. You have time to say your goodbyes.”

Nat shook her head. “He already did. They all did. I’ll miss them but they should go.” She turned to Celine. “I’ll take care of the valley for you, you’re already E-rank so you won’t need to collect the renown for a while. You can’t do it from a distance right?”

“If there’s a way, I don't know it.” Celine acknowledged. “Since it needs to be distributed to the residents. Just keep a stockpile of the stones they use to transport it. I’ll collect it next time I’m here. I appreciate you staying to keep an eye out.”

She nodded, and after one last round of farewells we all tromped out of the inn, headed for the forest where Zeke had indicated we’d be meeting our shuttle.

I fell in next to Benny. “So…going to be weird being in transit again. You thinking about buckling down on training? You’ve been getting some decent point income from renown based on some of our other adventures, but I’m not against helping you blitz a bit.”

“Nah.” he said with a laugh. “We’re going to be at E-rank for a while. I’m not rushed. I get why you might feel that way, but the Conclave is going to be full of people too tough for us. Might as well take our time, since even hurrying won’t bridge the gap.”

I made a sound of acknowledgement. I didn’t disagree. Plus D-rank was when my guardianship ended. After I became a master I’d be on my own. No more Zeke to keep me safe, though I wasn’t sure if he would leave or just keep hanging around as an asset. It was something I’d been afraid to ask him up to this point.

Now that he was A-rank, having him with us would be the safest possible thing. Not to mention I was kind of worried about him leaving and missing my wedding. I didn’t expect dad to be there, but I wanted Zeke to come. I needed him there, after everything we’d all been through. I knew I was being stupid, but it felt like him being my guardian was the best way to make that happen.

On the other hand, I was a bit worried about E-rank. This was the most dangerous time in my candidacy. The jump from E to D-rank was quantitative as well as qualitative, and killing up ranks with that gap between the two was all but impossible. Without Zeke being able to intervene, masters were a huge danger to all of us.

I shook off my thoughts. “I get that. So you’ll just let the passive income boost you? Going to spend some time with your lady?”

“Yeah.” he said with a mock glare. “Because SOME moron went out of his way to up the ante by proposing and made the rest of us look bad. Now I have to keep things fresh or else I look like an inconsiderate dick because I’m not writing her sonnets or some shit.”

I clapped him on the hand supportively. “Hey, don’t talk down about yourself like that. You’re perfectly capable of looking like an inconsiderate dick all on your own.” He rolled his eyes and slapped my hand away, and I just grinned.

“Be nice to see the puppies again.” He said after a moment of comfortable silence. “It’s been ages. I know Jessie has been missing them like crazy.”

I snorted. “Callie too. And I admit it’s great having Jin around to cuddle with. It’s sad we left them so far behind. I wish there was a way to rank them up faster. Bethy and Jessie have their power sets for that, but for us the pups are just pets.”

“Sucks.” Agreed Benny. “How badass would we look riding wolves everywhere?”

I laughed at that. “So badass. I actually tried that a few times. It’s pretty awesome. And they use Might better for travel than we do. I’m really jealous of Gabe sometimes, with his crazy starlight horse thing.”

“True.” Agreed Benny. “But hey, at least that means we get to send him to do stuff instead of going ourselves. That’s a plus.” We both laughed as we saw Gabe up ahead, turning to shoot us a dark look that didn’t really seem all that dark. He was pretty obviously trying not to smile, and it made it made us laugh all the harder.

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When we reached the clearing in question, the shuttle was already there, and to my surprise, Blake was there to meet us. Killian’s son looked us over. “You’re already E-rank? You bastards.”

“It’s ok.” I said kindly. “You too will someday be powerful and impressive like us. Instead of being a loser who lives in his dad’s basement.” I winked to show I was messing with him, and he laughed, rolling his eyes but not engaging.

Callie smacked my shoulder with a snort. “Be nice. Is Sasha still onboard, I was hoping to talk to her about…things.” She flushed a bit and I didn’t bother fighting a grin since no one could see it anyway. I like that she was so excited about everything.

Sadly, Blake shook his head. “Nah, she disembarked a while ago. She left word she’d meet up with you at the Conclave, she’ll be attending personally. She wasn’t sure about her father though.”

I wasn’t really sure if he knew she was my mom, or if he was just fulfilling orders as she’d left them. It was hard to keep track of that kind of thing. Zeke looked around in annoyance as we entered the shuttle. “Killian can’t even come and greet an old friend? I see how it is. No time for all us little people now that he’s a big shot spacefaring badass.”

Blake brightened. “Oh, he thought you might say that, so he left me a message to give you.” he pulled out an honest to gods scroll, unfurling it and clearing his throat. “He says. ‘Yeah, pretty much. Shut up.’ And nothing else.” He handed the scroll to Zeke, who took it and read over it before wadding it up and throwing it into a trash can.

“Someday.” he told Blake kindly. “You’re going to get older and end up more like your dad. When that day comes, I want you to remember something very important. Your dad is not funny. And you probably won’t be either. Even if it seems to you like you are. It’ll be an illusion, don’t believe it.”

I tried not to snicker at his obvious saltiness, but I failed, and he turned to glare at me. “Hey, don’t look at me, I thought it was hilarious.”

“Where did I go wrong.” He bemoaned. “How did I fail so badly in raising you.”

I didn’t even try to hide my snicker this time. “Being drunk most of the day and leaving me to my own devices a large percentage of the time might have been a bad start. Not that I’m complaining.”

“That’s how you teach someone independence.” He said loftily. “Plus it’s not like I didn’t have an eye on you from a distance. Even if you didn’t notice it at the time.”

The shuttle lifted off, and Bethy, who was standing by the open side of the conveyance near the transparent shielding, stared at the receding ground with a whoop of excitement. “That’s so cool! I wish I could fly like this.” At all of our deadpan glances she shrugged. “I mean like, high up. My kitty storm form only goes up a few hundred feet. Cats are NOT designed for high altitudes.”

That was fair. “So.” I said turning to the others. “Any big plans for the trip? It’ll be a few months on the ship. I’m probably going to relax aside from doing some points stockpiling. Well, relax and wedding plan. We have a lot to figure out.” I turned to Blake. “Speaking of, do you and your dad want to come to our wedding? I proposed to Callie back on Stratholme.”

She giddily showed off her ring, and he made the proper appreciative sounds. “Congrats man.” He finally said. “I’ll pass on the invitation. I know I’d love to come. Where will it be?”

“Callus.” I said without hesitation. “Our home planet. It’s kind of small, on the edge of Cult territory in the Conglomerate, but it’s a pretty cool place. Callie’s mom is there and we want her to be in the wedding, plus lots of friends. It’s going to be a big deal.” I knew just having my mom there would make it a crazy affair, now Zeke was A-rank too.

Chances were good the Unity would send someone to keep tabs, and if Killian came that would blow things up even more. A-rankers all over the place. It was going to draw all sorts of attention, and I really did like that Callie would probably get a renown boost of this. I would too, but that was less important. I had wishes after all. Making Callie stronger was what mattered most.

As we approached the hulking mass of the Necromedes, I couldn’t help but wish the Conclave was already over. I was ready to start my new life, to be happy for a while. But since that seemed unlikely. But hey, at least Callie was excited. She was insistent she was going to buy her wedding dress at the Conclave.

I glanced over to her, sitting happily chatting with my sister, and my heart warmed. I’d been through so much since becoming an Ascendant. I’d been in so much danger, lost people, been through agony I couldn’t describe.

But I hadn’t been alone. Not since that night in the scavenger hunt when she told me she wanted to be together. No matter what came next I’d be ready for it. We all would. Gods, monsters, whatever the danger. We’d face it together. As a family. And honestly? I felt kind of bad for whatever got in our way. Making my way over I sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulders, ready for the next step in our journey.