legendsofmyriad

[legendsofmyriad]

Legends of Myriad: Arc One - Chapter 42: Help Us

Chapter 41

Arc One Masterlist

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“The atmosphere there is curious,” Esther mused, lounging into the comfy sofa cushions. “There is a sense of both community and divide, like the people there aren’t sure which side they need to be on. They rely on industry for their livelihoods, but it’s also draining them of any kind of freedom. Each day is a test of their survival.” 

“Sounds as though the struggle is ingrained in them,” Lilith said. “But the woman who enlisted your help was unlike the others?” 

“Penelope? Yes, she doesn't agree with the severe regulations the other industry heads impose on their workers. She’s losing the battle, but she's not one to surrender. Frankly, it won’t be long before they start looking at what they can take from her territory. I only hope when that time comes, her district rallies around her.”

One leg crossed over the other, Lilith’s foot bounced as she mulled over Esther’s judgement of the home of industry. They veered towards anarchy, and from experience, that chaos only escalated into bloodshed and carnage. The working citizens of Delorem possessed no magic and no advantage over their governing rulers as the mages had during the war on Solgarde; they had guns and weapons, but so did the ruling families. “I’m sure your presence there gave her hope.” 

“She needs more than hope,” Esther said, snagging one of the crispy biscuits from the plate on the coffee table between them. “They all will. The tension there was just like before the purge. It’s going to kick off, there’s no doubt about that, and when it does, I can’t see it ending without a lot of blood.”

“Does Bartholomew know?” 

The crunch of the wafer treat slowed as Esther chewed and gulped it down, scraping some time to weigh her response. Should she tell Lilith what she had seen, the gargantuan monster he created and the pain he inflicted for the sake of protecting the gateways? “He’s aware of the situation,” she answered decidedly. 

“He won’t leave them,” Lilith assured her. “He practically ran to your aid as soon as he heard of the trouble you were in, and he’ll do what he can to ensure the people of Delorem remain safe.” 

I’m not so certain, Esther thought, the image of the Wrath plastered in her mind alongside the intense scar forming on Penelope’s wrist. “You’re right,” she said. 

From the balcony overlooking the nerve centre of the laboratory, Alek traded a glance with Esther, her natural confidence tarnished and her uncertainties silently conversing with his questioning glimpse. She had discovered something of the eccentric professor that disturbed her, and whether she decided to tell him or not what transpired on Delorem, Alek trusted her instincts. 

Oscar wriggled on the sturdy railing beside him, legs swinging aimlessly and his tired eyes far away. 

“Hey,” Alek whispered as Esther continued her stories. “Are you doing okay? Esther won’t mind if you wanted to rest.” 

Oscar faced his worry with a smile too broad and stretched to be anything other than false and picked at the dry skin flaking on his fingertips. Alek’s reassuring touch persuaded him to stop. “I’m all right,” he said. “It’s just taking a bit to get used to being here again. The lab was a mess when we left, but Professor Spark and Professor Bevan have cleaned it up nicely.” 

“That lie may work on anyone else, but not me. What’s going on?” 

A nauseating, sticky clump pulsated in the back of Oscar’s mouth, threatening another sob. Blood flecked his fingers where he’d bitten his nails down, and his stomach somersaulted with every anxious thought. “I keep thinking about what would have happened to me if Angelica didn’t make that sacrifice,” he confessed under his breath, almost ashamed to admit it. “I was lucky that the Phoenix clan took me in, but… but I couldn’t help wondering if I’d ever see home. If I’d ever see you, and Esther, and my parents. It’s stupid, but I began to contemplate what I would do if I was stuck there.” 

“That’s not stupid to me,” Alek told him. “You were making do with the situation you found yourself in.” 

“Doesn’t matter now,” Oscar decided, coughing to impede the sickly feeling. His knuckles whitened on his sketchbook, the pliable fabric cover and the paper compressed together in his grasp until the edges began to curl. 

“It does.” Alek eased the journal from his clutches before he damaged it. The pages appeared thicker than before, the spine ridged from the continuous open and close and extra sheets sticking out. “Looks like you added to your work while you were away. May I?” 

“Sure.” 

Situating himself on the bench by his friend’s dangling feet, he leafed through the new sketches, appreciating every detail and the style so wonderfully Oscar that his beam deepened involuntarily. Distant lands put on a remarkable performance in those splendid renditions, faces given to the names he had mentioned and notes in the margins accompanying the architectural depictions. “I’m glad you had people that you could rely on,” he said. “I would like to meet Lysander and Demetrius and shake their hands.” 

He flipped the page onto a spread of mountainous peaks and outer buildings. When he tilted the book, the landscape transformed from day to night. “You’re just showing off with this one,” he chuckled, roving the intricacies of the magic rooted in the lines and fixating on the dedication in the corner. “For me and Esther?” 

“I’ve never missed anyone as much as I did you two when I was drawing this,” Oscar said. “The view from my room was beautiful, but all I wanted was to be at the Academy, sat beneath the blossom tree laughing with you both like we used to and trying to talk Esther out of another bonkers plan to investigate something she’d read about.” 

The memories bathed him in a comforting summer breeze, awake with the powdery scent of prospering petals and the brine of the sea. “Truth is, I never wished to stop her. Just didn’t want her getting into trouble or ending up hurt.” 

“That’s why we went with her.” Commander Cleaver’s words resonated in Alek’s ears, like an outlying gleam that solidified the closer it came. His thumb rested on the cursive letters of Oscar’s dedication. “We don’t leave our own behind. You know we wouldn’t have left you trapped on Lucarian, right?” 

The absence of his friend’s ardent faith had been noted during his stay with the Phoenix clan, the persistence and perseverance of a worthy soldier that cloaked him in surety and instilled a lasting courage. “I know.” 

Alek struck his thighs and pushed himself up to interrupt Esther mid-sentence and present her with the open sketchbook. “It appears our Oscar has been exercising his creative talents while he was off adventuring,” he said.

With a curious “oh”, Esther absorbed the precision and artistry she never failed to find inspiring. “He has always had an eye for detail.” 

“Check out the dedication at the bottom,” Alek instructed. 

She dipped her attention to the four angled words in the lower corner of the piece. Her heartened gaze met with the artist’s as he plonked himself down beside her. For the months she stayed in Lumen, she shouldered everything herself, every burden, every duty. But now, in the supported and comforted contentment of her friends, she never wanted to part from them again. 

From the armchair, Lilith watched the reunion with warmth in her heart. Their reports only skimmed the surface of their experiences, and she identified the weight of being separated from the people most precious in life. Time and duty cared little for love, but it made the homecoming all the sweeter. 

“What you have done in the service of Solgarde and Myriad will not be forgotten,” she promised them, rising from her seat. “I am so proud of all three of you.” 

The trio regarded her with a thankful flush and a fulfilled lift of the chin. 

“When I return to Mora, I plan on having a word with the council to inform them of your adventures and what you discovered,” Lilith said. “It’s likely you’ll receive accolades, but if you would rather, I can arrange for them to be given discreetly.”

“That would be appreciated, commander,” Alek replied. “I think after everything, we just want to get on with our studies.” 

Esther and Oscar nodded in exhausted agreement. 

“Discreetly it is, then,” Lilith promised. “I’m certain you will all achieve wonderful things, but if you ever need any advice or support, my door is always open. Even greatness needs a bit of help now and then.” 

* * *

Keys clacked and levers clunked. Metres alternated in their measures and in the clear dome of the cultivation controls, the blend of temporal essence, mirror pool water, Ocher Ore, and Lytus feathers coalesced into a silvery substance. 

Altair folded his arms over his chest, scratching at his bearded chin and tracking the swirling concoction. All had been calculated and mixed to the specific instructions, hours of preparation and no small amount of danger coming together for this precise moment. 

“Haven’t seen that much doubt on your face for a while,” Lilith commented. His arms released from their tensed pinch as though reflexively seeking to alleviate the uncertainty, and she slid her grasp into his. “Have faith, professor. We will prevail, by dust or by gold.” 

Heartening as always in critical situations, Altair squeezed her hand. The light she bore for Solgarde would forever burn, her legacy one of hope and her strength an inspiration to those in their darkest moments and deepest doubts. She felt as they did, the loss, the heartache, the emptiness in the silence, and yet she still reached out to those in need, pulled them to their feet again and consoled them with an offering of sentiment and surety. 

“Farina and Azra are waiting by for word,” he told her. “Let us hope we can deliver some good news.” 

At the desks, Alek, Esther, and Oscar huddled closely, animated in their conversation. Cleaned of the dirt and their adventures, they resembled Citadel students again, but no amount of water could wash away the bruising on Esther’s neck, the exhausted smudges under Oscar’s eyes, or the slashes on Alek’s arms, thread binding them as they healed. 

“You spoke to them about their experiences,” Altair said. “How are they doing?” 

“They’ve all been through quite an ordeal,” Lilith replied. “I can tell they’re putting on a brave front, but they have wounds inside and out that are sure to leave scars.”

“They seem strong. They will grow around them.” 

“But they are too young to suffer that sort of grief.” 

Professor Bevan hummed. While he might have agreed with her assessment, there was nothing they could do now. “Grief does not care for age. You were much younger than they are when Tiveris collapsed,” he reasoned. “Yet you survived.”

An agitated roil flipped in the pit of her stomach and she swallowed the restless memory. She steered clear of thinking of Tiveris, her first home, that quaint mining village where she was born, buried under rubble. The rumble of the world and the fearful day her father vanish pealed in a far off part of her mind. She shoved it aside. It did no good to dwell on matters she couldn’t change. 

“You have braved the murkiest depths again and again, and you endured,” Altair continued. “So will they. Sometimes, we do not have the luxury to choose or the time to consider any other option than the one placed before us.”

“You don’t need to tell me about a lack of options in desperate circumstances,” Lilith said, harsher than she intended. She gnawed on her lip and defused the irritation. “Sorry.” 

Altair bent his head in remorseful concession. If he could rewind the clock and change what transpired when they’d met, the impossible position he and the council put her in, he would without hesitation. “You do not need to apologise, Lilith,” he said sensitively. “I do not blame you for feeling how you do.” 

“It’s… it was tough,” she afforded. “No point dragging it up again now.” She relinquished his hand and strayed to Bartholomew, hip against the console and head tipped until her loose raven curls swung over her shoulder. 

“I am almost done,” Bartholomew confirmed. 

“How sure are you that this is going to work?” Lilith asked. 

The professor’s deliberate movements slowed, barely perceptible to any who had not been watching him meticulously. But Lilith had. She spent much of their ventures learning his behaviours, as she did with most she encountered. 

“In theory, nothing should go wrong,” Bartholomew said, “but…”

“But?” she pressed.

“As with any experimentation, there is always room for setbacks and failure.” He examined the finished product, the starlight glow in the glass containing so much promise and yet suffused with fear that their tribulations had been wasted. If this did not work, he was unsure what their next move was. “Everything is ready.” 

At his dubious announcement, Altair, Alek, Esther, and Oscar shuffled closer, eager to witness the result of their labour. 

“The items we collected create a dust that was used in forming The Starlight Path,” Bartholomew explained, “the visible connection between our worlds. It is my hope that the gifts The Core gave to Prosperia, Skuld, Eternity, and Delorem will be the stimulant in waking it.” His knuckles tightened around the release lever. Now or never. 

He shoved the bar upward into the discharge mechanism and the silver stream leaked into the tubes and the adjoining hatch in the roof. In a sprinkle of glittery raindrops, the concoction made landfall, seeping into the tracts of soil and ash. He had witnessed what many came to call star shedding before, those mesmerising spectacles when parts of his Starlight Path jettisoned large clumps of light to regrow it anew. The natural moulting happened every few decades or so, harmless to any planets it fell upon and admired by stargazers across the nine worlds. 

This, though, was different. Observing the mixture sink and fade, his faith plunged into the ground with it. Wake, he urged the planet he befriended and trusted to guide him. Wake and join us once more. Myriad needs you. 

“There!” Oscar called, scrambling to the window and jabbing his finger on the glass at a verdant blotch sprouting by a toppled ribcage. “That wasn’t there before.” 

Bartholomew fastened the additional lenses over his glasses and magnified the speck. Like the first flourishing buds of spring, a patch of green climbed out of the mud. More followed, minimal and yet growing. “Grass,” he affirmed. 

Around the laboratory epicentre, secondary systems stirred, stretching their mechanisms and greeting them with bleary eyes. At the surveillance screens, Bartholomew explored the transmitted reports. A swell of encouragement flowed through his veins. “The Core is awake,” he reported, jovial and celebratory. “Only just, but our plan worked.” 

Esther, Alek, and Oscar embraced each other in a tight-knit circle, jumping and laughing in their elation. Altair rested a hand on Lilith’s shoulder before she launched herself into his open arms. 

Bartholomew closed his eyes for a moment, drinking in that pleasant harmony from the planet. I have missed you, old friend, he confided into the world. Welcome back. 

Breaking through the excitement and joy, an escalating series of beeps distributed themselves into the circular space. The amusement ceased, trickling into silence. 

“What is that noise?” Lilith asked, her smile erased and her senses alert.  

Bartholomew hunched over the communications network, working at speed to reveal the signal piercing into his laboratory. All at once, the clamour lowered into a consistent pattern. “It’s an old transmission from the end of the war,” he said, the message usurping the entire system until he was powerless to stop the spread. 

Two words presented themselves. ‘Help us,’ every monitor screamed. ‘Help us.’ 

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[legendsofmyriad]

Legends of Myriad: Arc One - Chapter 41: A Vow to Fate

Chapter 40 | Chapter 42

Arc One Masterlist

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Frayed thumbnail worried between his teeth, Oscar continued his moseyed strides. He reached the opposite wall of his room and swivelled on his heels again, chewing as though a splinter had taken root in his skin. His mother always reproached him for biting at the tiny fragments when they got stuck, instead smothering the irritated area in a paste and bandaging it up until the mixture drew it out. 

It was no longer a splinter that he tried to coax out but the all-consuming dread that closed in around him. Each pop of anxiety set a spark to his nerves, lighting them like an incendiary and leaving him to watch the flame chase the cord to the powder. 

He was stuck. He avoided the notion of being trapped, that sounded far too caged, too permanent, but his efforts stalled. The excursion to Bloodtide River proved pointless and while Demetrius and Lysander seemed undeterred, decoding more tomes and journals for a scrap of information, Oscar suspected they were looking in the wrong place. What was happening to the gateways now had never happened on Lucarian, at least not according to the history books. Demon magic and Fate intervention flourished in abundant supply hundreds of years ago. Nobody considered the possibility of that power waning, and so a solution to such a problem never arose. 

His eyes itched with the unmistakable herald of tears, but he denied them the chance to fall, not when there was still work to be done. “There has to be something we’re not seeing,” he muttered. “There must be.”  

Esther and Alek rested at the forefront of his contemplations, their enthusiastic smiles spurring him to find the means back to the coastal air and Efros flowers of home. 

Professor Spark will know how to sort this, he told himself. But how long would he be waiting? What if the professor couldn’t reactivate the Lucarian gateways without Fate magic? They relied on a dual mechanism to power them, and if no substitute existed, what then? 

He withdrew his thumbnail from his mouth and wiped the spit on his top. Thinking like that only drove him to torment, and he needed his wits about him to act, even if that action was merely transmitting a message to The Core. The demon stronghold gateway connected to the laboratory, and while closed off, it was a start. He had no clue if a solution might be offered or if he would receive instruction on how to proceed with his mission, but without Professor Spark’s input, the prospect of returning remained uncertain.

Snatching the satchel dangling from the ornate chair, he stuffed his notebook, pencil, and a bottle of water inside. Sturdy hands guided the clasps of his cloak into their fixtures once the weighty fabric draped neatly over his shoulders. Before any hesitation planted doubt in his mind, he abandoned the room.

Along the private corridor, dusk began to swallow the meagre daylight afforded to Lucarian and the last feeble rays retreated into the windows. Oscar pursued the receding wedges to the grand staircase, taking the steep steps two at a time and all but slamming into the distracted figure strolling by the obscured bend.

“Apologies, Lord Alaric,” the mage stammered as he stumbled to give the man some space. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“No harm done. I was not particularly aware of my surroundings either,” Alaric replied, tapping on the open pages of the ledger balanced on his forearm. “You haven’t seen Lysander, have you, by any chance?” 

“I think he went to see Lord Bertram, and he said something about a Phoenix guard meeting this evening.”

Alaric inspected the timepiece on his wrist. “Ah, he’ll be in the meeting.”

With a hasty bow to the first lord of the clan, Oscar headed for the decorated entryway. He constrained the impulse to hurry, the door a mere breath away as Alaric’s voice snatched him from freedom. 

“You seem like you are ready for an adventure,” he called. “Heading out?” 

Oscar wavered. Alaric would not prevent him from leaving, would he, if he suspected the truth of his outing? 

After a stretched silence that undoubtedly only heightened any suspicions, he turned back and pretended to pluck a piece of loose lint from the trim of his cloak. “I spent all afternoon reading and forgot to get some drawing done before we lose the light. I still have some pages left in my notebook and the views from the parapet are magnificent in the evening.”

“They are,” Alaric agreed, with an attentive glint in his eyes. He soundlessly closed the registry in his hands and tucked it under his arm. “There is a pleasant view of an ancestral outpost that Professor Spark took an interest in during his many visits. It is rather difficult to miss. Bertram and I would use the gateway there to visit him, back in the day. The last location it went to was his laboratory.” 

Nearing the mage, he handed him an embroidered handkerchief from his coat pocket. “It is much closer than the demon stronghold you arrived in. If you discover an answer to your problem and decide to depart, leave this behind. I can make a trip there later in the night to recover it.” 

“Thank you, Lord Alaric,” Oscar said, running the soft fabric through his fingers. “For everything.” 

“Get home safely. That is all the thanks I need.” 

Oscar flung the door open, hesitating as the growing evening air rustled his curls. “Will you tell Lysander and Demetrius goodbye on my behalf? And that I wish them all the best?” 

“Of course,” Alaric promised. “You should go. The light is fading.” 

Certain that his farewell would be passed on, he descended the stone staircase with a vigour in his stride. While Alaric decided not to hinder him, others might. Loyalty and hospitality formed the roots of Phoenix integrity, but this mission he had to complete alone. 

* * *

Alaric had not been mistaken; the outpost jutted from the cliff face, the bleak structure balanced on artificial struts buried deep into the rock and protruding at a measured angle to point directly at the Phoenix manor. He wondered how he’d missed it before. 

The signal on his tablet shepherded him along grubby hallways and through decomposing galleries, candelabras sagging from the corroded brick and dirt choking the once glorious architecture. 

Steering by orb light, he ascended a looping staircase, up and up, hopping over distended gaps and testing the more precarious footholds before placing his full weight on them. 

At the top, a glass room unfurled, puncturing the low cloud line. An askew ladder scaled the grand telescope angled at a loose window, the rasping wind snagging the fragile frame in a rattling shudder and permitting a papery ice to coat the exposed surfaces. The stars shone in all their splendour and glory, greeting him with a delighted glitter and a promise of home. The Core was out there somewhere, Solgarde just beyond. Almost there and yet still too far. 

Oscar bumped the radiant sphere into the air, and the octagonal space manifested. Emblem-emblazoned walls bearing the symbols of the other worlds safeguarded the platform in the centre where the etched and painted map of Lucarian strove through the dirt and frost. A mechanical whine whimpered within. 

His tablet pinged, and he tested the strength of the gateway. While inactive, the signal here appeared stronger than the readings at the demon stronghold, protecting the meagre energy that remained. 

“I know you can’t get me home,” Oscar spoke to the toiling machinery, the information he had typed and retyped waiting on the screen, “but can you at least deliver a message to my friends?” A trembling thumb prodded the send button. Seconds advanced sluggishly, as though dragged by the hands of time, his efforts ending in a red error notice over his carefully curated words. “Please. I just want to tell them I’m safe.” 

“The gateway cannot hear you,” a sympathetic tone divulged from the murk. “I am sure if it could, it would heed your plea.” 

Strands of peculiar power and a far-off chime acknowledged his own magic with an airy brush and an uplifting warmth. The Heart of Lucarian stepped into the outer ring of orb light. Her pearl-grey robes glided by her bare feet and her inquisitive regard softened at his surprise. 

“What are you doing here?” he asked, searching for her intimidating companions and finding them absent. 

“After we met at the river and your friends offered me refuge in their lands, I spoke with the leaders of the Phoenix Clan,” she answered. “They kindly granted me safety here, as a temporary shelter until they find something more suitable, but I rather like it.” 

The dormant portal called to Oscar within the deserted chill. Alaric had no reason to prevent his journey once he had set him on a path to the outpost or insist he take someone with him because he was already protected by the one person able to ensure his return home. 

“Your friend, the guard, was right: I am a Fate,” The Heart confirmed. “My name is Angelica. There were once millions of my kind on Lucarian, but after the gateways closed, people grew angry. They thought that the demons and the Fates were attempting to seize control, and so turned against us. But we understood the truth. We tried to explain that they had been sealed for their protection, that more of those monsters could not be allowed to reach our world and they would reopen when it was safe, but they refused to listen.” 

Angelica wandered further into the observation room, stalling at the base of the gateway podium and charting the decorated posts with hovered fingertips. “The majority of demon catalysts fortified themselves inside their strongholds, but we Fates had no such shelters. Necromancers saw a chance to gain more influence, and so agreed to hunt us and persuade us to reconsider. We refused, and they plucked away our power in the most painful ways imaginable, took it for themselves, but none of them were catalysts and so could not restore the gateways. Massacres spread across Lucarian until my people died out.” 

A familiar tangle lodged itself in Oscar’s chest. He recognised the horrors of that butchery all too well. 

“I got captured and tortured, pieces of my power taken from me until little remained, but I was lucky,” Angelica said. “Mal rescued me and was one of the few demons who tried to aid the Fates. I rallied an army, earned my name as Heart of Lucarian for my part in our struggle, but in the end, it was not enough. The damage grew too severe.” 

“There are surviving Fates out there, right?” Oscar reasoned. “Others who can support you?” 

“Perhaps, but I have not met them. If they are out there, they are hiding, and I cannot say I blame them.” 

“Loads of people must have passed by that river who could help, yet none reported seeing you.” 

“I did not wish to be seen.”

“But we saw you.” 

Angelica inclined her head. “I grew curious,” she admitted. “I had the privilege of meeting many mages in the past, all compassionate and selfless in the assistance they gave, expecting no reward or profit in return. Now, I would like to repay that kindness by helping you get home.” 

“If you have met mages, then you know that we believe a child has no right to blame or benefit due to the actions of a predecessor,” Oscar pointed out. “We all begin with blank slates and allow our own deeds to speak for our nature.” 

“I suppose I should add stubborn to that list of mage attributes,” Angelica ruminated.  

With a sweep of his boot on the scattered dirt, he shoved his hands into his pockets. He refused to take the little she had left, regardless of how saintly or heroic his ancestors may have been. Their efforts bore no semblance on what he deserved. 

“I do not suppose you would accept this as a gift?” Angelica tried, but the sway of his head provided his resolute answer. “Then how about a promise? A terrible power stirs, one that has hibernated for a long time, and when it wakes, I fear Lucarian faces a great danger. Should you promise to aid us, I shall consider your debt paid.” 

No rejoinder or reason for refusal presented itself. Angelica’s offer seemed reasonable, but ominous clouds surrounded her words. He had faced terrible power before, and it ended in bloodshed and war. 

“You need not answer straight away,” Angelica said. 

“No, a promise sounds fair.” Oscar steeled himself and mustered his courage. If his promise ensured peace and safety to innocent lives, he fulfilled his duty as a mage. Irrespective of their area of study, all those who possessed magic on Solgarde vowed to wield their powers to protect and defend. Angelica was willing to make a monumental sacrifice, and only a substantial act would ever repay her. 

Feeling in his satchel for Alaric’s handkerchief, he withdrew the flimsy fabric and looped it around the gateway controls. The instant he accepted Angelica’s outstretched hands and sealed their agreement, he locked himself into the vow, a solemn oath that would loiter on his horizon. Nobody could predict when the day of repayment would come, only that it would. 

He planted his own hands on top of hers, their magic melding for a brief beat as he agreed to her terms. The pledge clasped tight, and the machinery reverberated into life, the portal glow overtaking his own orb light and banishing the remaining shadows. In a startled jolt, his grasp slipped from hers. 

“I will do all I can to keep the gateway open long enough for you to get through,” Angelica said. “Now go. Return to your friends and remember your vow.” 

* * *

Oscar hauled a tremulous breath into his lungs. Cleansed air rebounded down his windpipe as the Starlight Path compelled him into The Core laboratory in an undignified buckle onto the floor. The nauseating stir in his stomach mellowed once he pressed his forehead to the cool tile, sweat beading and clammy hands clawing across the cracks. 

On his initial trip to Lucarian, his body cramped, and he’d floundered until a dusty chair offered him some refuge from the spinning. Much of his first hours in the home of the undead had been spent reeling and occasionally vomiting. This time, the dizzying whirl subsided swiftly and the sickly churn allowed him to keep his dinner. Small wins, he thought, inhaling the vague whiff of damp and steeped fruit teas. 

The call of his name and the duo of familiar voices wrapped him in a blanket so dear and warm the dam inside his heart shattered. A sob and spittle joined the dust on the floor, and two pairs of arms eased him up into safety and comfort. 

“Oscar,” Esther soothed, a consoling touch to his curls and her cheek pressed firmly to his. “You’re back.” 

“Hey, it’s all right, buddy,” Alek said as he wound them both into his grasp. “We’re here. Breathe. That’s it.” 

Oscar’s hands clenched into fists, cleaving to his friends as though he would vanish without them. Not quite home, not yet, but enough to satiate the pining for Solgarde. 

Alek wiped the wet streaks with a fresh tissue from his pocket and Esther swept the specks of dirt from his forehead, fighting the line of tears on her lashes. 

“I didn’t think… I had no idea if I’d make it back.”

“For a while, we thought you wouldn’t either,” Alek admitted. “Professor Spark and Professor Bevan have been working on a solution, but they couldn’t find what was causing the system failures.” 

“It’s a long story.” 

“While I’m curious about what happened, let’s get you cleaned up first,” Esther said, supporting his elbows and aiding him to his feet. “You all right? We can help you if you need it.” 

“I’m good,” Oscar breathed, the spin and sway of the room subsiding. Once his vision settled, he clocked the inflamed patches on Alek’s bare arms and the deep-set, purple marks encircling Esther’s throat. “Oh, stars… Esther…”

“What?” 

“Your neck. Who did that to you?” 

“Picked a fight with a guy five times my size,” she said, striving to sound detached, but the rasp betrayed her. “I made sure he came out of it worse than I did. Commander Cleaver was not happy when she saw. Didn’t think Professor Spark was capable of flinching, but he looked ready to bolt.” 

A panic flared in Oscar that she had been impelled to fight alone, that she hid injuries he couldn’t see and painted a brave face on it, just as she had during the war. “Wait.” His mind reeled. “Did you say Commander Cleaver? She’s here?” 

“Uh-huh.” 

“Mother of Modern Magic. Sunbreaker. That Commander Cleaver?” 

Esther’s beam broadened, and she jittered in excitement. 

“Oscar!”

At Professor Spark’s elation, three sets of eyes attended his arrival into the central hub.

“It is a pleasure to see you have returned,” Bartholomew said with a clap on the shoulder a little too rough for his slender size. “What happened? How did you get back? Professor Bevan and I have been searching for a way to contact you.” 

“The gateways on Lucarian have no power left to sustain them,” Oscar explained, rubbing the sore spot on his arm. 

“In what sense?”

“A massacre after the gateways shut wiped the Fates almost out of existence. There was one who helped me. She barely had anything to give, but she still wanted to get me home.” The vow snuggled into the recesses of his mind, but he remained quiet on that part of the deal. It was his promise to make, his to fulfil when the time came. 

The professor acknowledged the news with a contemplative hum, but it did not hamper his high spirits. “The situation is far from ideal, but at least we know what is causing the issue.”

“Here.” Oscar handed over the tablet from his satchel. “All my findings are on there including readings from three separate gateways in Phoenix territory. I’m not sure if there’s an immediate solution, but the people there are going to need help to get them working again.” 

“Not to worry. Once The Core is awake, it will be my top priority to fix this mess,” Bartholomew said, browsing the list of reports with interest. “Myriad must be united, and that cannot be done without Lucarian.”

-- -- -- -- --

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Legends of Myriad: Arc One - Chapter 40: Wrath

Chapter 39 | Chapter 41

Arc One Masterlist

-- -- -- -- --

Traversing the fine fog of Lumen’s broad pavements, Bartholomew repressed a cough. Delorem’s climate clogged in his day, but now it choked, suffocating in a bracing grip that kept its victims alive long enough to be useful before it brought them to their undignified end. Death wandered in the wake of the misery on bloodied feet, feeding off the scraps the governing families discarded in their goal for more and quicker. Three-hundred years had not softened this world into kindness; it made it worse. 

A discomforting twinge tunnelled into his chest. Could he have prevented Delorem from reaching such stifling levels if he had woken from his sleep when planned? Had his grave miscalculation caused this grief and the escalating hostilities? He would never know. And that marked fact irked him more than he cared to admit. 

He evened the wrinkles in his waistcoat and loosened the pent up pressure in his demeanour as he drew near the commotion of city folk amassing by the river. The barriers barely hampered their efforts as they craned their necks and aired their confusion in whispered theories and rumours. 

“Are we going to be without water again?” an oily man asked his friend. “This’ll be the third time this month the filtration’s gone bust.”

“I think it’s a bit more serious than that,” the woman beside him answered, snooping over the people in front of her and almost tripping over her curiosity. “Look, they’re rounding up district guards.”

Hearing her observation, the few surrounding her rose to their tiptoes, some scaling the riverside railings to watch the proceedings. Agents sporting night vision gear and long-nosed rifles escorted the apprehended officers to a cluster of unmarked vans. One of the agents removed his goggles and conversed with the woman overseeing the operation. 

When her focus diverted to the increasing crowd, Bartholomew distinguished the stern, if not slightly rosy, features and gradually advanced between the gathered bodies towards her. A couple muttered their protests, but he ignored their grumbles and stuck to the rusty river barriers to remain unobtrusive to the process of arrests and eager gawping. 

“Esther,” he called, capturing her attention with a signal of his cane. 

She allocated the agent his orders and addressed Bartholomew with a brisk nod. “I wondered when you’d show up,” she said. “Or if you even would. We had to lock some of the gateways to be on the safe side. Miss Kingsrose has agents in most of the active ones now.”

“That is good to hear,” the professor affirmed. As she assessed the river boats patrolling and the dusky, inky hue of the night manifested in the water, he noted the splay of finger-shaped bruises folded around her throat. While she appeared unaffected by the attack, he promised Lilith she’d come to no harm. If he had known how dangerous Delorem had grown, he may have reconsidered sending a student there. 

From the pouch on her belt, she extracted a clear packet and handed it over to him. “Are they the right feathers?” 

“They certainly seem to be,” Bartholomew replied. He inspected the fibres and the repeating patterns. Satisfied with their shape and design, he slipped them into his inside coat pocket. 

“Shame,” Esther sighed. “I was hoping for a reason to smack that smug grin off Ralph’s face.”

Bartholomew had little time to ask her who Ralph was and what this mystery man had done to agitate her. “Exactly what actions have the industry families undertaken in their attempts to hold the gateways?” he queried. 

“Only what I told you on the call,” Esther said, arms crossed tightly over her chest and her analytical stare studying the ongoing convoy of captured officers. “Penelope doesn’t want any part of it, she warned me about what the others were planning. She wants the gateways free for all to use, but she’s one against four.”

“She may declare she does not wish to possess to them, but many carry an ulterior motive for their altruism.”

“I can assure you she really isn’t interested in laying any sort of claim. She runs her district differently to the others.”

While Bartholomew sought to take an optimistic view whenever possible, especially if somebody with power on Delorem served with a candid heart, his experiences warned him to proceed with caution. Trust with vigilance for now, but prepare for difficulties along the way. 

“You have done remarkably, Esther,” the professor commended. “Your thorough reports provided an interesting insight into the issues here.” 

“Just doing what I can,” she replied, but the unmistakable grin she tried to bury betrayed of her satisfaction at a job executed well. “Did Alek and Oscar get-”

A cry from the steady flow of handcuffed officers stole her question, and she charged into the unfolding dilemma, Bartholomew close behind. 

Above his head, an Ironstrike guard brandished a shock grenade, pin intact and bloodshot eyes bulging from his skull. The gawking crowd scurried to the refuge of nearby doorways and bus stop shelters, some fleeing the scene completely in a flurry of shrieks and wails. 

“You can’t do this to us,” he screamed. “I won’t let you!”

One look at Esther and the agents obeyed their silent order to retreat. Refusing to be pacified by the withdrawal, the Ironstrike guard bolstered his position, but his morsel of hesitation was enough for the mage to worm a spell around his ankle. With a firm twist, he buckled onto his face. The explosive tore free from his grasp, and Esther rescued it from the air, depositing it in the care of the Kingsrose agent beside her while the others rushed to restrain the guard. He continued his tirade, promising that Ironstrike would never permit them to get away with the arrests. Whispers broke out from the smaller crowd that remained to see how the spectacle played out. 

“Good catch,” Bartholomew said. 

“You grow used to splitting your attention here,” Esther shrugged. “Stuff kicks off all the time with no warning.” 

“In any case, I recommend you go back to Miss Kingsrose once your duties are finished here. Rest if you can,” Bartholomew suggested. “I shall contact you when I am ready to leave.”

The prospect of leaving Delorem both delighted and disappointed Esther. Home occupied her mind whenever she wasn’t sorting problems, but a feeling of unfinished business crept in. Her presence gave Penelope another ally, and Lumen another set of hands to aid in their struggle for liberation. But she had yet to complete her studies, to learn all she could of her power and how it might be best utilised. 

She tracked Bartholomew’s departure through the crowd, pondering what he planned to do to dissuade the industry heads from their path. It would take more than a stern talking to, that she was certain of. 

* * *

“With the feathers in Professor Spark’s care, I’ll be going soon,” Esther said, loitering by the windowed door of the upper library. The lambent fire buried the room in a cordial warmth, the glass cabinets overcrowded with books and family tomes mirroring the spirited pop and pirouette of the embers. 

Since the assassination, Penelope exhausted much of her time in the library, secluding herself within the stained mahogany and discoloured pages her father failed to dissuade her from as a child. Attended by the musty smell of mottled paper, pallid ink, and rudiments of dust, she protected the continuous burn inside the fireplace at all hours and nursed more tea and coffee than a student on a stringent deadline. Esther accompanied her for the most part, and while quiet, she couldn’t argue with the lengthy stretches tucked away when they offered such a wealth of new knowledge at her fingertips. 

“I hope your time in Lumen has not been completely awful and that you won’t judge us too harshly,” Penelope admitted, the toe of her slippers shaving the flowery rug. 

Esther listened to the dainty telltale clink of a porcelain cup meeting with its matching saucer and strayed from the silhouette of the city. “With people like you here, it is difficult to make a condemning assessment of Delorem. There are bad influences everywhere, my own world included, but it is the actions of the good and the rise of their voices that matter most.”

“So you do not criticise me for bringing you into Kingsrose territory for a tactical advantage over my competitors?” 

Head and heart in agreement with the answer, Esther’s response dangled on the brim of freedom. She viewed her differently in light of the new information, but in the aftermath of the riverside attack and on proper reflection, was it truly a deplorable act? While Penelope concealed her intentions, she had done so with no malice or acquisitive intent. She required an upper hand, and Esther did not blame her. “Is that the only reason you brought me here?” she asked. 

“Does any complex decision really have a singular reason?” Penelope returned. “No. It is true I requested your assistance so that the others could not use your power against my district and myself, but I do not wish to control your gifts either. Delorem is dangerous at the best of times, and I wanted you here to bring you under my protection and keep you safe. You have a good heart and the courage to stand up for what is right.”

“There then,” Esther reasoned, as though nothing more on the subject needed to be discussed. “You did not request my help for egotistical reasons. I probably would have done the same if I were in your position.”

“Thank you, Esther. My father always taught me to look out for those like you, and I hope to one day be able to pass that teaching onto Gabriel. If he lets me.”

“Give him time. I’m sure natural curiosity will get to him soon enough.” 

As Penelope took in her fearless posture and mettle-laced bearing, she acknowledged that her life would slip into loneliness again once Esther returned to her world, fenced in by nodding heads and bottling those worries that the daring mage so kindly helped her to unpack. If she had found a friend like her as a teenager, perhaps she may have stood up for herself more, married her love, raised her son without a care towards what anybody else thought. Instead, she resigned herself to isolation. “Your absence will be noted when you leave,” she said, standing from the crescent armchair. 

“I can always return,” Esther said. “When I’ve finished my studies.” 

“I am certain you shall do splendidly.” Penelope straightened the pin on her lapel that she animatedly informed her over dinner one night represented the outstanding institute of The Citadel and her chosen school within the Academy. “You are very astute. I dare say you will graduate at the top of your class and be the envy of them all.”

“Just getting through my exams is fine by me,” Esther admitted with a shaky chuckle. “But perhaps now I have other options after graduation. Maybe I could learn more about the gateways and put my knowledge to use there instead of archaeology like I’d planned.” 

“No matter what you decide, you have my support,” Penelope said. “Whatever you need and whenever you need it.” 

Not acquainted with heartfelt praise, Esther flushed, a swell of potential fulfilment fluttering within the uncertainty. 

Blazing white engulfed the room. Esther stationed herself by the Kingsrose director in anticipation of another attack, but when the library remained standing and silence fell, she compelled her racing mind to hush and heed the rational thoughts fighting to overcome the initial alarm.

“What was that?” Penelope breathed, trailing after the mage as she slipped out onto the balcony to observe the ashen sky. 

Seething rain clouds waded through the factory plumes and resolved into a gargantuan humanoid form. Ruby firebolts discharged in its eyes, mini storms contained within the sockets that synchronised like a natural eyeball. To that monstrosity, they probably appeared as dots of dust, flicked aside with the merest effort. 

A threatening rumble wound tight inside the behemoth’s throat before its booming voice rocked over the city. “What power do you hold to assume command of my gateways?” the creature roared. “None!” 

Esther stilled. 

“Beings of little consequence would dare to wrest my creation from me? I, Lord of Adventure and Navigator of the Starlight Path, will not suffer such insolence.” 

“Is that the man you called to help us?” Penelope whispered. 

“He was much smaller when I last spoke to him,” Esther replied, attending the performance in equal parts horrified and awed. 

Her amazed rapture shattered once the protective spells she nurtured as the gardeners did the roses ruptured and split. The magic that guarded the house fractured, and in a final, apologetic breath, withered into oblivion. 

Penelope blanched and recoiled, grasping her right wrist. Droplets of tears wavered on her lashes and a strangled gasp shivered through her lips.

By her side in an instant, Esther gingerly turned her arm over. A red, ovate impression simmered, boiling on her pale skin as though something sought to crawl out. 

“To the industry families of this world, I have marked you and your descendants as a warning,” the storm declared. “If you do not cease in your bid for my gateways and dare to challenge my authority again, I will wipe your lines clean from Delorem.”

Esther paid little attention to the clouds as they thundered and dispersed, occupied in striving and failing to counteract the potent spell searing into Penelope’s arm. The inner windings of the charm dug deep, not only into her skin, but the fabric of her being.

Increasingly flustered thumps ceased by the open balcony door and a disconcerted maid stared at Esther’s trail of magic attempting to pacify the raw marking on her employer’s wrist. “Miss Kingsrose, the guards are asking if they are to mobilise?” she panted out. “What was that thing? What do we do?” 

“Go fetch me clean water, some ice, and as much gauze as you can,” Esther said firmly, shocking the maid into action with a severe glare and returning to comforting the injured woman. “It’s all right, try to keep as still as possible.” 

Penelope muttered something, a word so quiet and so fearful it was more a breath than an actual sound. 

“What did you say?” Esther asked. 

“Gabriel.” 

“What about him?” 

“He’ll be marked too. If anybody sees it, they will know. It won’t take the other heads long to figure out he is my son once rumours start to spread.” 

The mage met Penelope’s terrified gaze. It wasn’t as though he could pass the blemish off as a birthmark; the stain was far too devised for that. “Oh shit,” she muttered.

“What am I going to do?” Penelope panicked. 

“I don’t think there is anything other than what you did for me,” Esther said, little hope in her tone for a covert resolution. “Bring him here and protect him. That is all you can do now.” 

* * *

As she descended into the tangle of channels beneath a deserted Wrenlow warehouse, a luminous sphere bobbing above her upturned palm, Esther directed her indignation into her assignment. 

Why had Bartholomew marked the industry families? Why commit such a callous act when his own imposing form would have been enough to persuade them to retreat from the gateways? 

Despite every compulsion to stay, to find Gabriel and apologise, she resisted. What good would an apology do for him? The only hope remaining was Penelope’s final vow to bring him into the Kingsrose district and shield him from the other industry heads and potentially angry rebels. 

Coming to the underground gateway room, tucked behind an assemblage of charms and enchantments, her temper boiled again at the sight of the busied professor. 

“You are late,” he noted, pausing in his restless shifts at the flare of her nostrils and inching by the waist-high globe of Delorem. “Did you not receive my messages?” 

“I thought it best to help Penelope with her new wound first,” Esther replied, taking long, slow strides into the room and extinguishing the guiding orb with a clench of her fish. “That seemed more important.” 

Straightforward and concise, like her reports, Bartholomew deemed it wise to keep his mouth shut. Not that any sign of tenacity would persuade him to concede on the matter. He performed a necessary action to ensure the safety and integrity of his gateways, and in doing so, protected Delorem too. 

“What was that?” she demanded. “That… thing wasn’t you, but it had your voice.” 

“It was a Wrath,” Bartholomew explained, undeterred by the rigid lift of her chin and resuming establishing a link to The Core. “My kind can create them. It takes the form of whatever we choose, and as the name implies, unleashes our rage.” 

“You didn’t need to injure them,” Esther hissed. Try as she might, she couldn’t stay quiet, not when honest people had ended up hurt because of him. “Scare them a bit, sure, but this? Really?” 

“The marking will not trouble them further, but it ensures they think twice before attempting to cross me again.” 

A scream bristled like thorns in her throat, withheld with a bite. She doubted he realised the danger he brought to Penelope and Gabriel. Two innocents caught up in a plot they had no part in. “What you did was cruel,” she asserted. “Do you truly believe that will stop the industry heads? If anything, you’ve only incensed them more.” 

“My solution affords me more time to enact extra protocols and protections on the Delorem gateways,” Bartholomew insisted. While ready for a challenge, he would not tolerate impertinence. 

Concern for Penelope and Gabriel converged on her conscience. They deserved none of this. Stars, even some of the industry children did not deserve this punishment. Many were too young to comprehend the atrocities of their world, and yet they had been tarnished for life, their bloodline with it, fated to pass the scar to their descendants. 

“You will understand one day,” the professor said. The gateway swirled and fixed a stable connection to the laboratory. “Now, let us get those feathers to The Core.” 

If this is the way of Myriad, I don’t think I’ll ever understand, Esther locked behind the tight press of her lips as he sauntered into the uninterrupted flow of light and allowed it to swallow his form whole. 

Beneath her feet, the churn and vibration of Lumen stirred, steady and persistent. Hesitation pursued her steps up to the gateway, an invisible rope tied around her waist and making each footfall heavier than the last. “I’ll come back,” she muttered to the unseen outstretched hands and the pleading, coal-smeared eyes begging her not to go. “I swear it.” 

-- -- -- -- --

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[legendsofmyriad]

Legends of Myriad: Arc One - Chapter 39: Temporal

Chapter 38 | Chapter 40

Arc One Masterlist

-- -- -- -- --

Clearing the gap between the car door and the uneven cobbles in one confident hop, Alek welcomed the cover of Azuris’s streets. Out in the dunes and outer ridges of Eternity, nothing abated that baking heat. The capital at least provided some protection and comfort, and after the scorching return journey, he silently thanked the recycled wind flow cooling the sweat on his brow. 

Military personnel and numerous senior members of the ruling government flocked the avenue, splayed trees providing adequate shade from the beating afternoon sun and the half-broken buildings supported with netting to prevent more mortar from falling. At the double slam of the vehicle doors, every face shot to their position, eager gazes standing by for some indication of success or failure. 

“What are you all gawking at?” Rhena called, undeterred by their rapt attention. “Does it look like we failed?” At her triumphant laugh, the stares eased into relief, consoled smiles exchanged and victorious cheers spreading through the younger recruits until barked orders from their superiors jarred them into action. 

Mere seconds separated the moment between Rhena spotting Cas and landing into her waiting embrace, squealing at the elated spin before arriving on her feet again. Tight arms held her close. “You haven’t twirled me round like that in a while,” she jested. “Maybe I should go on dangerous adventures more often.” 

“Don’t even joke,” Cas warned her, retracting enough to encourage her to tilt her chin. She examined her freckled skin, sweeping aside red, coiled curls to check for signs of injury. 

“Stop fussing, I’m okay. The plan worked. Those buzzing bastards are gone.”

Cas cradled her in loving hands and pressed her lips to her sandy forehead. “Let me fuss,” she muttered. “I was worried.”

“I always come back,” Rhena assured her. “You know that.”

“This was different. There were so many things that might have backfired. You could have been hurt or worse.” 

“You worry way too much.” Lifting to her tiptoes, Rhena pulled her in for a kiss. “See. I’m perfectly fine.” To further prove her point, she presented a toothy beam that earned her a fond smile in reply. 

The hours of concocting dire, distressing situations ebbed at Rhena’s playful spirit. Cas would never dream of hampering her adventures, but it didn’t lessen the worry every time she suggested another perilous feat. And this, the endless stream of danger over the past couple of days, revived the uncertainty and imminent threat from the civil conflict. 

“I see that now,” she said reflectively. Beyond the mass of military uniforms, Alek digressed from the stationary vehicle and closer to the hubbub, hands stuffed into his baggy trouser pockets and innocent eyes roving over the proceedings as troops dispersed to release the concerned citizens from the shelters. “How’s the kid? Doesn’t need medical attention, does he?” 

“I checked him over before we got in the car,” Rhena replied. “I think he’s okay. No bleeding, at least. He was real quiet the whole journey. Kept looking out the window like he expected those things to come back. Tried talking to him, but he didn’t seem in the mood.” 

Cas wasted no time in dragging him in for a squeezing hug as soon as he was in range. “Are you hurt?” she asked. To her relief, he appeared unharmed, if not despondent. 

“Only my pride,” Alek responded sheepishly. “All of this was my fault.”

“Mistakes happen, but you put it right.” Cas dusted a speck of dirt from his eyebrow with the pad of her thumb. “Who is to say something else wouldn’t have woken those creatures up in the future? Your knowledge and your bravery ensured we kept the casualties to a minimum and successfully got rid of them. Remember that, soldier.” 

Alek inflated from his slump at being deemed a soldier, especially coming from someone like her. At her precise salute, he returned the gesture with the vigour of a faithful trooper, right fist clenched and striking his left shoulder before bending into the traditional bow. A mage symbol of respect, not a military standard, and a custom that never failed to encourage a slightly higher lift in his chin when he rose.  

“That’s the spirit, kid,” Sergeant Darilen chuckled as he joined them, clapping him on the arm. “Commendations on your victory.”

“It was a joint effort, sir,” Alek said. He tidied his posture and tucked his hands at the small of his back, remembering himself as he addressed a superior officer. “I wouldn’t have got anywhere without the help of Cas, Rhena, and your troops.” 

Eyebrows arched, Darilen’s grin widened, and he bent his head in concession. 

“If I’m required for a debrief, I can have a report written and sent to you,” the mage offered. 

“That won’t be necessary,” Darilen assured him. “You were successful, and that is all I need to know. Right now, our focus is on containing the damage and rebuilding.”

Short fingernails plucking at the knot in the cord tied to his wrist, Alek freed the twine and presented his Eventide crystal to the sergeant. The depleted stone dangled and rotated. “On the way back, I was thinking of how I could make up for letting the laycrawlers out,” he explained, “and while I can’t do much, I can offer you this. It’s a little drained, but in time it will heal. Put it in the care of whoever maintains the shield. It should give it a healthy boost.” 

Darilen withdrew a step. “While the engineers would have a field day with that kind of technology, I can’t accept such a gift.” 

“Sure you can,” Alek said. “If you think it would be of some use in keeping Azuris protected, I want you to take it.” 

“Do you not need it for your magic?” 

“I’ll get another when I return home.” 

Warily, Darilen accepted the gracious offering, turning the surprisingly light crystal over in his palm. He anticipated a spark or an electrical shock, yet all it did was cool his skin. 

“You’ve done your people proud, Alek,” the sergeant commended, dropping the translucent stone into his top pocket for safekeeping. “Your kindness will go a long way in defending Azuris for years to come. If you ever wanted to join our military, you know where to find me.” 

“I have my studies to complete first, but I’ll keep that in mind.” 

“See that you do,” Darilen said. “Have a safe trip home. And remember us when you’re a fancy mage officer.” 

Alek saluted as the sergeant retook his position with his troops, that tiny word spreading hope in his heart. Yes, he thought. Time to go home. 

* * *

Sunbeams bounced from the decimated ceiling and covered the mosaic in enduring pools of warmth. On the tiled walls, suspended forest frogs capered from floating timber to motionless leaf pads. Splits in the facade reached the border of the patchwork and chipped many outer tiles, but the overall picture prevailed untouched. Further up, a spread of aquamarine and off-white plates composed alternating motifs above the arched woodland designs. 

“Looks like there used to be water running down these passages,” Cas observed as they ascended the alabaster stairs. Natural dips in the floor on either side ran down and met with the symmetrical architecture beneath the bridge. Spiky fronds invaded from the cracks to wave at the sun and drink in the glorious rays. 

Scattered about the bedraggled garden, smooth-plumed fowl pruned their lengthy feathers and skipped on the jagged remains of the temple. A few took flight as they wandered by, landing in their nests where squalling fledglings vied for their parents’ attention. 

“I wish you could stay longer,” Rhena said, nudging the mage beside her with her elbow. “There are so many places in Azuris you’d love, and you have got to come to a Vector race. A real one. Not those shoddy imitations in Requiem.” 

“They’re not that bad,” Cas reasoned. 

“They don’t even use proper track techniques and make up their own rules as they go along,” Rhena countered. “It’s an insult.”

“I never thought I’d see the day you wanted to play by the rules.” 

“The customs of Vector racing are a sacred tradition. The sport would be nothing without them.” 

“I’ll remind you of that the next time you insist on a grappling hook as a tactic.”

Rhena made to defend her claim before she encountered the tease in the sunny hazel of Cas’s eyes and the tickled inclination of her head. “In any case, we’re going to miss you, Alek. You’ll keep in touch, won’t you?” 

“Course I will,” he assured. “And there’s nothing stopping me from visiting again once I’ve graduated.”

“A fully fledged soldier,” Rhena said, features alight and beaming at his bright prospects. 

“If the past few weeks are anything to go by, I think he already is,” Cas asserted. 

The side room containing Bartholomew’s personal gateway lay tucked aside from the rest of the magnificent structure where it could neither bother nor hinder the natural flow of the place. Trimmed in accordance with the decoration outside, grimy tiles furnished the floor and mosaic creatures padded the walls. The dust over the windows prevented much of the sunlight from invading, but enough weathered through to ricochet from the mirrored brackets and illuminate the space. 

Rhena marvelled for a split second before her innate curiosity refused to remain still for a moment longer. She cleared the three stairs onto the lower tier of the room in an effortless bound and admired the cylindrical glass case in the centre, the floor to ceiling shelves displaying neat lines of trinkets and curios. Cas accompanied her, albeit calmer, appreciating the enthusiasm in Rhena’s questions and letting her mind wander to the worlds these items came from. 

At the controls of the gateway jutting from the far wall, Alek mused over the instructions he’d written before departing from Professor Spark’s laboratory and ensured he executed each one carefully before moving to the next step in the list. He flicked between his tablet and the slightly askew control panel, working to decipher the faded keys. Identified and decoded, he prodded at the buttons to select the correct destination on the monitor. 

“Will you visit me on Solgarde?” he asked, uncurling from the controls as Cas’s interest sailed to the inactive gateway. 

“Just you try to stop us,” she replied. 

“There’s so much cool stuff in here,” Rhena enthused, dragging herself from a riveting puzzle box. “How has this place not been ransacked?” 

“Protective charms,” Alek answered. “Spotted two as we entered the temple, three more in the gardens, and another outside the room. I noticed a few warning spells too when I first got here, but detached them so no alarms would be raised at the lab.”

Having summoned the strength, the sleepy mechanisms inside the platform clicked from their holdings and into their connectors. After a brief spark and splutter in protest at being woken up, a temperate gleam levitated above the podium. 

As the initial rush of electricity eased, Rhena’s excitement waned and her complexion paled. 

“Thank you for looking after me,” Alek said. “It was an honour to meet you both. I hope one day to be able to repay your kindness.” 

Rhena squeezed him into a tight hug and brought Cas along into the embrace. From the moment Alek wandered into their lives, she had a new soul to show the wonders of her world, an adventure to heed, and she vowed to teach him more about Eternity when he next visited. “Get going or I’ll start tearing up,” she told him, loosening her grip and sniffling. 

“Don’t be a stranger,” Cas said as he jogged up to the plinth. “You’re welcome here anytime.” 

“Make it soon, though, okay?” Rhena added. 

With a final farewell wave, he sank into the portal light and the mechanism ferried him onto the Starlight Path. The rhythmic thrum decelerated, and the system shut itself down. 

Silence trailed in, and Cas contemplated the fascinations of the room. “We should get going if we want to get to Azuris before sundown,” she said, urging her admiration from the antiques. “I did not like the look of those clouds rolling in.” 

Rhena made no attempt to move, staring at the empty air where the swirling glow had transported their new friend home moments before. Hands balled into fists and trembling, her chest rose and fell in deep waves. 

“Rhee? Are you all right?” Cas asked. “If you’re worried about Alek, he’ll be okay.”

“Yeah, I know,” Rhena muttered. “I’m fine.” 

The dapple of sweat coating her usually rosy cheeks and jittery flicker of her eyelashes suggested otherwise, and Cas placed herself between the inactive portal and her partner. 

At Cas’s pleasant touch to her chin, persuading her to look at her, Rhena jarred back into the quiet side room. “I could hear it again, those whispers when the gateway switched on. Just like at the racetrack. Was only there for a moment, but I swear I heard it.” 

“It’s probably the stress catching up with you, sweetpea,” Cas assured her. “Let’s get you home.” 

Rhena nodded, but she wasn’t wholly convinced. The acuate murmurs loitered in her ears, words seeking to communicate, yet she understood none of it. They may as well have been the wind. 

“How does a hog roast casserole for dinner sound?” Cas offered, guiding her from the office of the long-forgotten professor and out into the listless halls. Outside once more, the dried up courtyard received them with a surge of sunshine. “Oh, and how about some of your favourite chocolate cake from the bakery?” 

“Sounds perfect,” Rhena replied, resting her head onto the taller woman’s arm and letting the sunlight of the overgrown garden wash away the haunting whispers. 

* * *

In the stillness of Professor Spark’s laboratory, the equipment droned freely, a distant rattle developing from the server units as the gateway shrank into the podium. A few empty mugs lining the surface by the stretch of windows and the desks bearing the weight of opened tomes served as the only signs anybody had been there recently. 

Dusting the sand from the creases in his clothing, Alek wheezed into the back of his hand. After months in the dusty, scorching atmosphere of Eternity, he’d almost forgotten what fresh air in his lungs felt like. 

“You all right there?” a good-humoured voice came from the double doors beside the ground level bookshelves.

“I’m-” He cleared the rest with a throaty hack and swallowed the bile that rose with it. “Getting used to cleaner air.” 

“I take it you’re one of the adventuring students.”

Rubbing at a sore spot on his neck as the rough force of the rasp grated up his throat, he lifted his head to regard the woman who greeted him, taking in the black and white fitted attire usually worn by Sunbreak soldiers when out of their protective gear but still on duty. Only this soldier kept some of her carapace, the material over her abdomen and chest made of lightweight metal. 

At the blink of her vivid violet concern, he stuttered into an upright position. “Apologies, Commander Cleaver,” he spluttered. “My name is Alek. Thrulian Academy. Second division. Your speech last year on mage tactics was inspiring.”

“I remember that one,” Lilith mused, her stroll fluid and floating as she neared the accumulation of desks and books. “Your class were quite rambunctious.” 

“I’m sorry for that.” 

“Don’t be. I’d had an awfully dull morning and a bit of a challenge did wonders for the tedium.” She tossed the book in her grasp onto the pile with the others. “At ease, soldier. You look like you’ve seen some scrapes.” 

Alek relieved his aching shoulders from the rigid stance and flexed his fingers to avoid wringing his hands. “All of my own accidental doing. Citadel training kept me sound, though.” 

“A true testament to our teachings, if ever I heard one,” Lilith said. She discerned he was attempting to conceal his fatigue, mind still in battle mode. She understood. It required time and a conscious effort for a soldier’s senses to settle after an ordeal. For the younger ones, their heads took a lot longer to ease, to realise they were out of danger. 

“Oh, I should hand this over,” Alek said, fishing in his satchel and plucking out the temporal essence. The energy in the glass vial writhed in flowing tendrils, neither liquid nor gas, but a separate element entirely. Rather like their magic. 

The swirls evoked memories of his early discipline at the academy, mastering the basics of spell casting and the thrill the first time he successfully cast a charm. His veins carried his power and connected him with his inner strength, maintaining the feeble glimmer that coiled about his wrist in a wobbly spiral and warmed his skin. 

Lilith accepted the vial and held it up to the natural light, the modest viridian pulsation staining her fingertips and burrowing into the spaces between her fingers. “I hope you didn’t go through too much trouble getting this,” she said, depositing the narrow flask into a rack by the console panel. 

“Only a trip into a cave system with deadly laycrawlers, accidentally waking them up and setting them loose on Eternity’s capital city where they merged into an enormous creature, and a shaky plan to get them to an empty world so they couldn’t do any more harm.”

Lilith’s lips opened to deliver a meagre ‘what?’, but she all she managed was a drawn out hum. She composed herself enough to make a mental note to have a strict word with Bartholomew later for sending the boy on such a risky mission. “At any rate, you’re back here safely,” she reassured. 

While Alek learned much from Eternity and the hospitable people of that sandy world, the prospect of home called now that he was one step nearer to the cool coastal breeze of Mora and the inspiriting magic of Solgarde. “Have Esther and Oscar returned?” he asked. 

“Not yet. You’re the first.” 

Alek sagged, having hoped to be the last so that he could reunite with his friends. 

“Bartholomew is on Delorem with Esther sorting out a spot of trouble, and we haven’t been able to speak with Oscar. Messages and communications aren’t going through, but his tablet is still active.” Tracking the worry on Alek’s features as it spread from his tired eyes to the droop of his lips, Lilith withdrew from the flashing buttons of the console. “I’m sure he’s fine. Professor Bevan has been troubleshooting the problem and thinks it’s something to do with the gateways on Lucarian. It seems they’re too weak to function, which may be impacting on the signal between the lab and Oscar’s tablet.”

“He has a way back though, right?” Alek pressed.

“We’ll get him home,” Lilith promised, her staunch resolve easing the abrupt tension in his posture. “We never leave one of our own behind.”

-- -- -- -- --

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Lore of Myriad - Lilith Cleaver

Lilith Cleaver made her name as the Mother of Modern Magic at just eighteen years old when she reactivated the four major crystals of Solgarde and restored magic to the land. A masterful mage and an accomplished warrior, she went on to form the Sunbreak Army and led them into war against the Exalted Administration during the purge. Her courage and her mastery of magic earned her respect across Solgarde, and secured her a place in the history books. 

Lilith was raised in the mountains and fields of Tiveris, a mining village on the outskirts of Celestria’s capital, Mora. After surviving an explosion during a miner’s strike which killed her father and brought the mountain down on the village, she was rescued from the rubble and taken in by her neighbour, Krista. The survivors journeyed to Mora for sanctuary and were permitted to build a settlement in the tract of dried-up land below the city bridges, naming the place Lowtown. With Mora refusing to provide any money or resources for this venture, The Syndicate, a criminal organisation, agreed to help fund the construction of houses and businesses and claimed ownership of the town.

Lowtown became a hotbed of illegal activity with The Syndicate in charge, and Mora took an interest in ensuring it didn’t overrun into their streets. Wardens were soon stationed to ensure peace and safety, and wishing to care for Lilith to the best of her ability, Krista joined them. During a confrontation with members of The Syndicate, Krista was killed. Left to fend for herself at a tender age, Lilith began travelling into Mora and working as a pickpocket, funnelling the money into helping the people of Lowtown who depended on Syndicate funds and keeping herself alive. 

In her later teenage years, she noticed a friend’s involvement with the criminal leaders. Deciding to confront him, she crept into their headquarters and accidentally knocked over a stack of expensive wine. To recompense them for the destruction of merchandise and for trespassing, they gave her the chance to recoup the losses by stealing an inactive Eventide crystal believed to be in the possession of Professor Altair Bevan. With no other choice, she agreed to retrieve the crystal. As she was sneaking out of Altair’s office, she got caught by his laboratory assistant, Azra Quinn. 

But Azra spotted something when she was close to the crystal; it briefly began to glow. After hearing of this, Professor Bevan gave her an ultimatum: she could go to trial, which would undoubtedly result in a long prison term, or she could help him with his research into the Eventide crystals. Lilith accepted the latter option.

A part of the upper city and with expectations placed upon her, Councillor Farina Canaris agreed to become Lilith’s guardian in this new chapter of her life. Lilith needed an appropriate education and so the council allowed her a spot at The Citadel Academy. At the choosing ceremony, she selected Eternos Academy to continue her studies.

Her schooling was wrought with misadventure and targeted attacks, with multiple incidents arising from the broken deal between Lilith and The Syndicate. At eighteen and after much extensive research, she revived the Eventide crystal belonging to Professor Bevan. Piece by piece, magic flowed once more into Solgarde, and she activated the other three major crystals to herald a new era. 

The Academy transformed into a school for mages, as intended when founded by Isadora Celeste. Lilith played a major role in the rejuvenation of Mora and earned herself the title Mother of Modern Magic. 

Over a decade passed by in peace, with magic climbing in aspiration and innovation bringing new inventions to assist the people of Solgarde. But some grew wary of the influence gained by mages and some of the tragedies that resulted from magic, and the Exalted Authority wormed its way into power to monitor them. They spread their ideals, claiming mages to be dangerous, and ordered a purge, making magic illegal. 

Years of civil war brought destruction and ruin, but in the end, Lilith founded the Sunbreak Army to protect Mora and united the leaders of the two other kingdoms to dismantle the Exalted Authority. During the war, she studied the Temporal Gateways, and following the conclusion of the conflict and the mage victory, used her magic to call out to The Core for help in restoring Solgarde. Unbeknownst to her, she possessed the power of a catalyst and her signal opened Temporal Gateways across Myriad. 

-- -- -- -- --

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Legends of Myriad: Arc One - Chapter 38: Prosperity

Chapter 37 | Chapter 39

Arc One Masterlist

-- -- -- -- --

A comfortable chatter, not dissimilar to the informal conference of councillors in Mora, sailed about the hexagonal stateroom, swarming the elevated interior terraces and the pearlescent ornamental thrones sojourned atop. Imposing and lustrous, Bartholomew’s family stood as testaments of time, honed and perfected by the tick of the clock. Many tipped their heads in greeting, unbothered by the Solgardian in their midst, others far too engrossed by their sparkling beverages and pleasing conversation. 

“Do not believe their feigned indifference,” Marcia said, pinching in the cuffs of her lace gloves. The coronet in her loose curls breathed gracious glints of magic as she strode within the congregation of relatives, distant and close alike. “Almost three centuries have passed since they last encountered a mage, but they do not wish to be the first to approach. They fear their interest may be perceived as desperation.”

“Sounds like the council back home,” Lilith commented. “Stars forbid an emotion ever crossed their faces.” 

“You are well acquainted with polite company.”

“If that’s what you want to call it. Personally, I find it rather dull.” 

“Then that makes two of us. As a child, I always wondered where their spirit and curiosity was.” 

“Where their stories were hiding?” 

Marcia’s rosy regard sloped to the mage as her vigilance roamed the hall, deliberately determining where she cast her contemplation. Her observation traversed aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, deciphering each flawless face. “Here,” she offered, “you must take a look at our state windows. Each of us has one. This is mine.”

In a field of frosted snow and iridescent sun, Marcia’s glass likeness shone, a sprouting scarlet flower in her left hand and a veneered dagger in the right. Tresses of curls wound to her knees and the lilt of a smile beamed to every onlooker in the room. 

“Love can both hurt and delight,” Marcia explained, “and we accept the warm with the cold. Engaged in that glorious feeling, darkness may still invade. We must retain our fortitude through it all. Appreciate good and bad with equivalent approach. That is where the true balance of emotion lies.” A reverence endured in Lilith, collecting in the air between the glass visage and the spectator. “I sense I do not need to define such things to you.” 

“We all have people we love who we don’t want to lose,” Lilith replied, admiring the refined contour of the petals and the biting edge of the dagger. “It’s not always in our power to stop the worst from happening. But we walk ever on. Through hail, and storm, and high wind until we see the sun again.” 

Marcia recognised the old mage proverb, touched to discover that their song of inner spirit survived the ages of uncertainty and turmoil, boosting the morale of those who called that enchanting world home. 

Snared by her own emotion and snagging the sinking in her gut, Lilith drew from the window and moved to the next. The lean figure stood within a black pane, shrouded by constant night. Unlike the other glass depictions who faced the party as though to judge the worthy and the undeserving, this man remained lifeless, eyes sealed and head angled to the side like a pendulum. 

“Who is this?” she questioned. Marcia’s joy floated from her, taken by wind only she felt, and she almost regretted asking. 

“That is my twin brother, Marcus. His window was replaced when he passed at the end of the war.” 

The glassmaker presented the fallen Prosperian in such a peaceful manner that Lilith didn’t dare gawk for too long for fear of disturbing his eternal rest. Yet she struggled to deter her gaze. The isolated countenance called to her, and she refrained from reaching up to press her palm to the pane. “Are you gods?” she inquired. “The way Bartholomew speaks, it’s like you are.”

“Not as such, but we do possess what some may call a divine influence.” Marcia peeped at her youngest brother tucked aside in a corner, likely sulking that she requested a mere dash of his precious time. “Come,” she encouraged the mage. “There are other members of my family I would like you to meet.”

Sweeping her away from the melancholy window and to the shimmer and sway of her relatives, she paused by a discerning man draped in sable and gold, the parallel strip of buttons on the tail of his elongated jacket proudly proclaiming his emblem. “Luceras, may I introduce you to Commander Lilith Cleaver of Solgarde? She has come a very long way to visit us.”

Luceras diverted from the pockets of conversation he idly tuned into, angling the rim of his glass in greeting to his sister. His stubbled beard swirled in trimmed waves by his ears, each aspect of his bearing clipped to perfection. The faint ruffled line of his shirt sunk into his belted trousers, and the clasps on his tailored waistcoat boasted sculpted aquatic creatures. “So this is the point of intrigue for the evening,” he greeted, bowing low to their guest. “It is a pleasure to welcome you to Prosperia, Commander Cleaver.”

“Luceras is the Lord of Creativity,” Marcia said. “You should see the marvels he weaves into being.” 

“Flattery, sister, really? I did not think it was your style.” He slung her a spirited grin and swilled his wine. “If only our dear brother would take an interest.”

“What is Bartholomew the lord of?” Lilith asked. 

Luceras snickered into his glass. “Why, adventure, of course. What else?” 

“That certainly makes sense.” Professor Spark sought exploits with a rigid determination, although she suspected that on occasion, it found him through no intervention on his part. 

Interspersed with the festivities, fluctuating rivers of translucent glints coasted in the wake of the guests. Particles of saturated sapphire and radiant yellows coalesced with a host of emeralds, and violets, and blushing reds. The streams adhered to individual bodies, sailing with them as they moved and relocated themselves around the room. Within it all, Bartholomew’s form remained bare of the iridescence. 

“You see it, do you not, the gleam that attends us?” Luceras said, tapping the lip of his fluted glass to her arm. “Mages have always been able to distinguish the pulses of our power. It unnerves some.” 

Lilith’s chin rose to the lord, her own figure almost eclipsed by the dazzling shiver of his magic. 

“Do not look so surprised, commander. I occasionally glimpse the creation of thought.” 

“I can’t see Bartholomew’s magic,” Lilith pointed out. “He is one of you, isn’t he?” 

“Of course,” Luceras answered, eyeing his brother as he crossed the streaked marble, tucking his shoulders in to evade passing assemblages of relatives. “But Bartholomew decided he was better and wanted more than Prosperia, and so he lost his sparkle in all but name.” 

“You always were jealous of me, Luceras,” Bartholomew jibed. “Even as children.” 

A tickled vibration tremored in Luceras’s throat. “Jealousy is an ugly emotion, far beneath us. It may surprise you to know that I am actually quite proud of my little brother.”

The professor grunted, the crinkle on his nose flaring at the endearing term. 

“Lighten up, Sparky,” Luceras laughed. “It is a party. I thought a man of your intelligence would be able to discern that from the delightful dress and the wine.”

“Like you ever needed a reason to drink.” 

Amusement growing, the Lord of Creativity yielded with a tip of his non-existent hat. “Well played.”

Bartholomew accepted the gracious surrender and withdrew his communication tablet, draining the last of his syrupy beverage in a steely gulp and discarding it on the table behind. “I have to take this call,” he muttered. Long-legged strides took him into the vacant corridor beyond the domed entryway and veils of petals.

“Any excuse to get away from us,” Luceras huffed, claiming a fresh glass of wine from a roaming server. 

Marcia straightened at the comment and inspired her natural serenity. “Bartholomew informed me you are known as Sunbreaker on Solgarde,” she said to their visitor. “You did not break a sun, did you?” 

“No,” Lilith replied. “Not quite.” While she strangely relished the opportunity to speak of her past to Bartholomew’s siblings, if only to find out more of their histories, her concern dawdled on the pacing figure of the professor outside the reception hall. A furrow drove into his features, and his jaw stiffened as he communicated with the mystery caller. “It’s a long story.”

As Bartholomew’s prolonged conversation wore on, the feigned disinterest in her proved itself to be a convenience. No disturbances to distract her from endeavouring to read Bartholomew’s lips as he talked and no questions to address. She identified a few words, but he spoke so hurriedly and turned aside at inopportune moments, leaving her struggling to keep track of his side of the exchange. 

With Marcia and Luceras distracted by a cluster of curious cousins, she sidled from their company and meandered to the glass overhangs dividing the hall from the walkway beyond. The flimsy fabric covering the open windows beat floral scents into the building from the gardens outside. 

Bartholomew nudged his glasses up to massage the bridge of his nose, tablet limp at the end of his dangled arm. 

“Who called?” Lilith asked, slowing as she neared the perturbed man. 

“Esther.” 

“Is she all right? She’s not hurt, is she?” 

“No, she is unharmed. She has informed me that the industry families of Delorem are trying to gain control of the gateways.” Lifting himself up from his slump, Bartholomew rebuilt his unruffled facade. “She managed to thwart one attempt, but fears more may be imminent. If they wrangle that authority from me, they could hold that power hostage, or even close the planet off, which, amongst other problems, would leave Esther trapped.” 

A muttered expletive slipped between Lilith’s gritted teeth, the pleasant smile painted onto her face for the party stolen away by the disturbing news. 

Guiding her further into the hushed corridor, Bartholomew slanted over her to survey the accumulation within the stateroom, thankfully oblivious to their plight. His eyes caught Marcia. “Perhaps you should take an extended stay here, just for a few days, before you return to The Core,” he suggested. “You have helped me tremendously, and you deserve a break.” 

“As grateful as I am for your consideration, I don’t think now is an ideal time for a holiday,” Lilith returned. “If there is a problem to solve, I should go with you.” 

“All will be well. Are you not curious about my home?”

“Yes, but Prosperia isn’t exactly going anywhere.”

“Not to worry. The industry families shall see reason soon enough. This is a mere detour. The mission has not changed, commander.” 

In a couple of steps, Lilith stood within breathing distance of him, considerably shorter in stature but certainly not in will. “Do I look like a fool to you?”

“There is already one mage in trouble on Delorem.”

“I can handle myself.” 

“That is not my concern.” Bartholomew steepled his fingertips and gnawed on his lip to prevent an outburst. Although sympathetic to her position, he had little time in which to act. Time he could not waste debating the issue. “It is important that I have no distractions while I rectify this. Powerful you may be, but there are things out there stronger than you.”

Lilith’s staunch stance softened, and in a huff of reluctance, she ceded the argument to him. 

“Please offer my excuses to my siblings,” he requested. “I would say they will understand, but I doubt that. Unfortunately, the time for explaining matters shall have to wait.” With a bob of his head in farewell, he hastened into the afternoon shade on the fringe of the hallway. 

Resigned to a brief break on Prosperia while Bartholomew resolved the rising tensions on the industry world, Lilith collected her composure, energised her smile, and rejoined the congregation in the reception hall. Quizzical glances tracked her. 

“I wondered where you had vanished to,” Marcia said at a glided approach, surveying the deserted corridor. “Where is Bartholomew? Still on his call?”

“Delorem is getting unruly and the issue can’t wait,” the mage replied. “He suggested I stay here for a few days, but he hasn’t abandoned us. He will come back.” 

The graceful gleam deteriorated slightly, and Marcia’s eyebrows constricted. “That has yet to be seen,” she said quietly, almost to herself. “He has a habit of leaving people behind.” 

* * *

An electrical wind and a mechanical buzz swept Lilith into the restrained cold of the Spark laboratory, heeled shoes snagging on the bottom step as she materialised from the light. She glowered at the offending stair. 

“I did not know when to expect you back,” Altair said, capturing her by the shoulders and dragging her into a warm embrace. “Bartholomew told me you would be taking some time to relax on Prosperia with his relatives. How was it?” 

“Definitely entertaining.” 

The laboratory appeared tidier in her absence. Altair frequently kept himself busy, a particular type who swore an uncluttered environment encouraged an orderly mind. When left to his own devices and with no research to conduct, he neatened a place or spruced up his surroundings, especially if stressed about something or other. His office had never been so clean than at the prelude of the purge. 

“I stayed mostly with Bartholomew’s sister, Marcia,” she told him as she took an empty seat at the observation monitors and picked at the half-eaten bowl of grapes on the side. “Lord Luceras was with us too. The day after the party, their cousin, Idaran, came to visit. He could teach our soul mages a thing or two. Oh, and yesterday, I went on a hike with their other sister, Niruna. You would not believe the tactics she has for finding out secrets.” 

Busying himself at the gateway controls as he listened to her recount her visit, Altair occasionally interjected with a question and savoured the returning smile before her answer. 

“Have you heard from Bartholomew?” she asked, grape bowl empty and swaying in her seat. “I thought he’d be back by now.”

“Professor Spark is still on Delorem, as far as I’m aware,” Altair replied from the power units. With a grunt, he wriggled loose the secondary connector and slotted it into the adjacent valve. “He did say it might require a bit of work to resolve the problem.” 

“Funny. He told me it wouldn’t take him long.” Bored with sitting, Lilith roamed, poking at the pens on the desk until they rolled and parted from each other. “Not that I believed him.” One of the markers stopped by the side of an opened notebook, Altair’s recognisable cursive flitting in neat lines. “I see you have been doing some research of your own.” 

“Some light reading on the gateways.”

“You never do light reading. You disappear for three days into the library and emerge stinking of coffee and rambling about your latest discovery. And then you lock yourself in your lab.” 

Altair finished recalibrating the system and awaited the telltale click and whir. Eight seconds exactly, as expected. “You have a fair point, but compared to my usual research, this was simply a bit of casual study.” 

“What did you uncover?” 

“While tracking readings in gateway activity, as Professor Spark requested before he left, I have also been studying how they function on other worlds. We have our crystals, Lucarian uses a combination of demon and fate magic, and Skuld utilises natural water energy.” 

“Intriguing.” 

“There is no need to pretend to be interested.” 

“I mean it. This is all new to us, and the more we know, the more prepared we are. Knowledge is a weapon just as much as spells and swords, right?”

Contemplating her analogy and uncovering his own belief in there somewhere, he noted the faraway glimmer, the search in her as she strolled. “Azra returned to Solgarde,” he said, placing his bets on who she hoped to find. “Since the storm is not a problem anymore, he saw no reason to stay.” From the drawer to his right, he handed over a recording disc, the surface newly imprinted and the glass in the centre yet to relay its message. “He asked me to give you this.”

Lilith retreated, flickering eyes loitering longer than she would have liked. “There is still work to be done.” 

“Forgiveness is not about forgetting what happened or the harm caused,” Altair said tenderly before she outright refused the gift. “It is choosing to let go of personal pain and move forward.” 

Annoyingly, Altair made a valid point she could neither argue against nor contest. She grasped the disc as though it might explode in her face and shoved it unceremoniously into her pocket before she played the damned thing out of curiosity. “I stand by what I said. We can’t waste time on sentimentality until The Core is awake and Myriad is safe.” 

“Yes, commander.” 

Free of muddied wind and ardent flurries of ash, she regarded the calm outside. How many people once built their homes, their businesses, their livelihoods there? And look at it now. Empty. Desolate. Silent. “It looks likes a completely different place with the storms gone. I never realised the scale of it.” 

“Neither did I,” Altair sighed. “Azra did a good job clearing it all up, and those souls may rest after their centuries of torment. Poor things. I dread to imagine what they felt.”

She agreed with that at least. The dead of The Core would slumber in their eternal night, free from the pain and the misery tethering them to the central world. 

In the caverns of her soul, the darkest corners she did not dare stare into for too long, he remained there, whispering to the recording disc pressed to her chest. It barely weighed more than a sunburst fruit, yet on her mind it held the weight of an ocean. It didn’t matter. Whatever Azra wanted to say to her, whatever words crawled unheard in that metal casing, it would have to wait. 

-- -- -- -- --

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[legendsofmyriad]

Legends of Myriad: Arc One - Chapter 37: Choices

Chapter 36 | Chapter 38

Arc One Masterlist

-- -- -- -- --

Factory horns pealed within the fog, sonorous and pouring into the cracks and crevices of the city. Lumen thrummed, and murmured, and once the misty pillows above parted to grant the stars a view of the shrouded world below, fell into stillness again. 

To Esther, the sky bore promise, and presented a picture of history outside of the exhaust fumes and the stranglehold of industry. If only the citizens were permitted to look up and dream. No doubt the ruling families would stake a claim on those too, charge by the hour to merely visualise a better life. She hedged her bets on Ironstrike being the first to enact such a ludicrous enterprise. 

Edgar’s territory crammed every inch of accessible residential street until the houses sloped up on themselves to provide further lodgings. Derelict structures perched on earlier resident quarters, teetering over the precipice to prevent any housing overspill onto monied soil. 

Gabriel steered Esther into a confined passageway between two slanted properties. Sodden clothes hung from gaunt, bony figures huddled near the stonework, bundles of belongings cradled close and bruises framing wearied, blood-shot stares. 

“It’s worse on the outskirts,” he said, noting Esther’s sorrowful expression as she met with every shivering, damp soul. “Higher-ups have started dismantling it to build a luxury nightspot, and more arrive here almost weekly.”

“Is there nowhere for them?” Esther questioned.

“Look around. Where can they go? Nobody gets a transfer here. If you’re born here, you’ll die here too. No escaping that.”

A smoke-suffused sting needled the inner curve of her eyes, a discrete cough clearing the clump deep in her throat. Hopelessness made a home in those filth-ridden, despondent streets, reconciling and acclimating while life suffered, and struggled, and strove. Hard work meant nothing, compassion long since dead, deserting the impoverished souls to mourn in the merciless cold. 

Down the distant end of the patched alley, Gabriel extended a hand to assist her over a collapsed post. She accepted his offer with a gracious clasp, treading one careful foot at a time across the debris. The walkway thinned, most of the entrances shuttered with wooden boards, all apart from the furthest, splintered and green paint peeling, but unbarred. 

Esther waited as Gabriel freed the latches and waved for her to enter first, inching by into a sparse, dim kitchen. A few loose cupboard doors hung slightly open where the hinges could no longer support them and the scant lamplight ghosted the jars on the tiled windowsill. A small square table draped with a threadbare cloth and two fold-out chairs nuzzled the wall at an orderly angle. Gabriel stocked and stored everything aptly, not a single item out of place. 

He set out a pair of chipped cups and filled the kettle, observing the mage as she neared the scattered accumulation of photos on the pinboard above the table. Careful fingertips unrolled the curled corners of the older pictures, her teeth softly snagging her bottom lip and a wrinkle crinkling between her eyebrows. 

“Is this your father?” she asked, tapping the grinning man in a discoloured photograph.

“That’s him,” Gabriel replied. “This is the house he raised me in.”

“Alone?” 

“Yes. Alone.” 

Popping bubbles permeated the water in the kettle and steam billowed from the cups in climbing wisps as he poured and mixed the coffee granules. He invited his guest to sit and placed the mugs down. “So, what is this important message you came to give me?” 

From the inside pocket of her jacket, Esther withdrew the neatly folded letter and delivered it into his hands as instructed. He clocked the petal-speckled seal and flung it onto the surface. The envelope rotated as it flopped down. 

While she predicted as much, she did not bank on him reacting so decisively. “You might want to read that,” she advised, seating herself and angling her legs to the side when her knees almost bumped the underside of the table. 

“I don’t think I do.” 

Patiently, Esther encouraged the teaspoon to wade into the ebon depths of her drink. “Why did you try to assassinate Penelope Kingsrose?” 

Gabriel sat but slowly, staring at the movement of the spoon in her coffee. A cluster of foam bubbles swayed on the surface. His dad swore to the stars they signified luck, not that he ever believed him. One of many superstitions he invented to elevate his hopes. “Went to a rebellion rally, out of curiosity more than anything else. An advocate recognised me from the prison and asked me to act as a decoy. Promised me freedom, and I… It’s all anyone wants round here. You wouldn’t understand. Your world is all magic and wonder.” 

And blood and pain, Esther reined in before it slipped from her mouth. “The kingdom I was born in, Cavell, breeds tall, elegant warriors capable of tipping scales in battle and crushing armies twice their size. I was never that. I’m smaller than average for my people, and nowhere near as strong as others my age. As a child, they were planting me on my backside and kicking dirt in my face a dozen times a day. My mentors told me I would never be a noble fighter like my parents, my grandparents, my forebears.”

“You can still pack a punch,” Gabriel said with a sip of his drink. “Witnessed it myself.” 

Esther slouched in the chair. Surprisingly, it neither creaked nor squeaked as she assumed it might. “It wasn’t until I was accepted into The Citadel and applied my time and energy to knowledge in place of combat that I discovered myself. Found where I belonged. We all grow up in certain environments, fed all sorts of stuff, most of it nothing but smoke so that we can’t see the truth. But our situations do not make us who were are; it is our choices that show our nature. What we do. What we are willing to fight for.” 

Releasing the constricting grip on his mug, Gabriel relaxed the tension twisting in his core and welcomed the spark of hope in the mage. From head to foot, she radiated promise, whether she intended to or not. Strength was her birthright, but she placed it where she wished, and he acknowledged the mettle and grit she commanded to relinquish her upbringing and sculpt her own path from nothing, to refuse to bend to the will of her heritage. 

“So, I understand better than you might think,” she said. “I do not blame you for accepting the rebellions offer. I believe in their cause. It is only through action, through acts of uprising, we see genuine change, but there are pieces of information about yourself you are lacking that may alter how you approach things going forward.” 

Esther slid the pastel envelope towards him, the tilt of her head precise and the quirk of her lips confident. “It is up to you who you become. But first, arm yourself with knowledge. It is sharper and more useful than any weapon could hope to be.” 

* * *

Peeling off her jacket in the dead air of the lobby, Esther discarded the flimsy coat over the empty hook and wandered to the fireplace to thaw the frost in her bones. The raw chill in her fingertips bled into the warmth, and she shuffled on the spot to curb the cramp in her muscles. 

On the trek back to Kingsrose territory, her mind scrambled to fabricate the possible aftermath of Penelope’s idealistic move. Logic occupied a meagre space in the equation, and sentimentality always provoked incalculable risks. In the end, she accepted there was no guarantee Gabriel believed the letter. Supposing he marched straight to the rebels peddling it as a lie, as a ploy to weaken them, she wagered it might only incense them more. And should they accept it, she didn’t dare speculate on the potential dangers he exposed himself to. 

Regardless of the gambles he took, his true heritage made a liability of everything he did moving forward. If not rebels deeming him their enemy, the industry heads would contrive to use him against Penelope. The revelation squeezed those walls around him further, isolating him to the point of forced solitude, but he deserved to know, if only to forewarn him about a truth that should have been imparted years ago. 

Yet she understood that people hid truths to protect those they held dear, concealing secrets and towing them into their graves to defend their loved ones. It never ended well, but she recognised the fear, the roiling panic that accompanied love. 

Contained heel clacks descended onto the waxed flooring, murmurings tagging along as Penelope’s entourage conversed behind her. Esther retreated from the welcoming warmth of the fireplace and tidied her posture. 

“You have returned to us,” Penelope said, fond yet hesitant. “How was your walk?”

“Productive,” Esther confirmed. The retinue proceeded with their murmured conversations, conducting business while faithfully primed to attend to their employer’s requirements. “I received a message from Ralph on my way back. It appears rather pressing, so perhaps I might steal a moment of your time.” 

Penelope dismissed her staff of councillors and advisors with a promise to commune again later. With hasty bows, they sidled off, several loitering on the mage before heeding their orders. “What does Mister Gridley want?” she asked once the last of her attendants dispersed, a grumbled sigh hovering behind her gracious smile. “I thought you made it perfectly clear I was not accepting visitors yet.” 

“Oh, that was a lie to get rid of the gawp brigade. Do they think I’m going to shapeshift if they stare long enough?”

Withholding a snicker at her remark, Penelope contained anything indignant. “Mere curiosity, I assure you.” Her usual unruffled disposition waned as she directed her to the quieter galleries upstairs. “Did you deliver the letter?” 

“He has it, but what he does now is up to him.” 

“Perhaps I should have gone to see him myself.” 

“And give the assassins another pop at you? No chance.” 

While the mage had a tendency to put matters bluntly, Penelope respected that facet of her. She rebuffed sweetening a burdensome situation with a solacing confidence if it altered nothing. She withstood and stomached whatever loomed over her path, ever walking, never hesitating. Devoted to the road ahead. 

“Did you have any problems?” the Kingsrose head asked. 

“Nothing of note. Got in and out before Edgar could wrinkle that massive nose of his.” 

“Good, good.”

The bracelets on Penelope’s wrists chimed with each fretful fidget and her eyelashes flickered as her unblinking focus roamed the upper levels. 

A riled unease seethed in Esther’s stomach at the disquiet, a turbulence in her composure like electrical jolts in a normally steady charge. “Has something happened while I was out?” 

“A message came through on my private channel,” Penelope replied, scratching at her cheek with a manicured nail. “My informants have reason to believe the other heads are close to acquiring control of a Temporal Gateway. I suspected they were scheming since they have escalated their attempts at enforcing new policies on my workers.” 

“Shit,” Esther grunted. Industry weight leaned so precariously in opposition to Penelope it was a wonder her own authority had not already bent and buckled under the duress. She held on, adamant and driven in her compassion, but she needed more than that now. An uncontestable claim to the gateways catalysed chaos. As much as she relished a brawl with the other ruling families, the previous actions undertaken by them against the rebels would look like a bar scrap compared to the havoc they could inflict if they obtained that power. 

“Shit!” She struck the black and gold railings overlooking the entrance lobby. Knuckles smarting, she cradled her marred fist and flexed the aching digits. 

“That was not exactly clever now, was it,” Penelope said with no scorn in her tone, taking Esther’s bruising fingers and smoothing her thumb over the reddening marks. 

“Sorry.”

“Don’t apologise. I understand the sentiment, but do not hurt yourself for them.” 

“There’s nothing I can do until Ralph concludes the contract,” Esther said, wincing at the genial touch to her injury. “I’m under the jurisdiction of the industry families. If I get arrested, it would jeopardise the agreement.” 

“Only if you’re caught.” Given a moment to safely flounder, Penelope’s innate courage recovered, and her directed calm restored. They had not failed yet. They still had time. Not a lot, but perhaps enough. “An informant tracked activity in the waterside gateway. It is heavily guarded, but I have officers with special military training who can help.” 

“If you have trained agents, why did you hire me to protect you?” 

“To bring you here with no suspicion. I have been fighting this battle all my life, you could call it an inherited contention. Had I not chosen you, one of the others would, and your power would be theirs now. In tactics, do you allow your enemy the advantage, or do you act first?” 

Cammie’s warning flashed in Esther’s skull. The rich of Lumen all collected oddities in order to boost their position, and what in their world was rarer than a mage. 

Penelope nearly laughed at her astounded stare. “Compassion is an emotion and a tool when used correctly. What good would I be if I did not use it for the good of the people in my care? Do what you must, Esther, and do not hesitate. It is time for action.”

“If I’m spotted, I can wave those Lytus feathers and any sort of protection for Myriad goodbye. There is more than this city at stake.” 

“You will get what you require,” Penelope promised, relaxing her tensed posture. “I swear it, on my name.”

Begrudgingly and conscience reeling, Esther conceded. The more they debated, the more time they granted their enemy to prod their greed into the gateways. “I’ll leave at nightfall. Have the agents meet me by the waterside gateway. The industry heads will not get a sliver of that power. Not now. Not ever.” 

* * *

Before landing in Lumen, Esther believed her days of confrontation to be over. She did not consider she might find herself hunkering in a constricted duct, crawling on her knuckles to a prickle of artificial light. She expected days exploring and researching, delving into the industry world and writing detailed reports for Professor Spark. Not packing herself through a stinking tube that hardly accommodated her broad shoulders and acting as a glorified bodyguard for the families who wrung life in a throttlehold. 

Agitation simmered in the pit of her stomach that Penelope chose her not for talent or ability, but as a strategy against her adversaries, that Cammie had not been mistaken in her advice. Carelessly, she surmised from the matriarch’s placid repose that she reserved no interest in participating in their games, counteracting their cruelty with honesty, but that was not how battles were won. Assuming such only left her open to manipulation, and Esther understood better than they realised how to attain victory. Greed always consumed itself when abandoned to starve for long enough. 

To their credit, the Kingsrose agents attended to her every word as she selected various tactical locations on their blueprints of the waterside facility. She took on the task of venturing in alone, electing to enter via the water recycling system and scope out the situation using grates and interconnected ventilation networks. More than once, the creak and squeak of the pipes nearly revealed her position, blood pumping so loud she heard it vibrating through her veins. 

The barred hatch at the far end stuck fast and blocked her attempts to budge it. Beyond the opening, numerous guards policed the vaulted walkway, their shadows arresting the bracket torches and elongating up the bowed brick. She counted four, but the footsteps resounding from further along the line suggested more. 

Ironstrike, Wrenlow, and Featherheart sigils decorated their lapels, the handles of their batons trimmed with identical motifs. Drowned in their regalia, they resembled a hive, and if provoked, the nest would awaken. 

A balding officer delivered his orders, and with the others preoccupied with their duty, Esther wedged her mace handle into the gap between the hatch and the frame and slammed her fist down on her weapon. The hinges submitted with little sound, and lifting the grate, she ensured she had ample space before swinging her legs underneath and jumping down. 

Two guards broke off to comply with their instructions. Esther crouched, drifting with their silhouettes towards the stationary pair and waiting for them to cross paths and part. 

Jade particles shivered from her mace as she shot from the darkness and wound the chain around the officer’s neck, wrenching until he folded to his knees. The second guard reared her weapon and met with an invisible stream constricting her throat, ragged nails scratching at a rope that wasn’t there. 

Esther felt the fear before she saw it, ripe panic hitting her senses before wide eyes pleaded for mercy. She brought her magic down in an instantaneous swoop and the two crumpled, immobile and slumbering on the damp cobblestone. 

She uncoiled the mace chain from the officer’s collar and scurried into the serpentine maze, sticking to the route she’d mapped from the Kingsrose diagrams. Senses alight, she sidestepped into shaded shelters and obscure alcoves at nearing noises, sinking into her surroundings for an all clear before abandoning her hiding spot. 

Inside the main hall, the gateway rose, a pillar of credence in the gloom and murk, electronic drones wailing into the cylindrical stonework like a cry for aid. None of the security personnel cared for the influence sustaining the portals, only that they contained it for their employers. 

Exhaustion swarmed in her magic reserves. Given little opportunity to replenish after constructing and preserving the barricade spells protecting Penelope, her supply ebbed dangerously low. 

Get the job done, she implored her waning strength, scouring the beads of perspiration from her cheeks with her sleeve. Rest later. 

She drew upon the tempestuous power in her veins and delivered a sonic boom into the chamber, coaxing it to bounce off the stonework for a second wave. Kinetically infused charges slammed the custodians backwards and forwards again in rapid succession. Her magic tuned in to the helpless hum of the gateway and she upheld the pressure, moving within the vibration to overcome the guards obstructing her goal. Their valiant bids to best her only saw them hit the cold ground quicker, incapable of remaining steady and responding to her attacks in the same instant. 

Seven sunk to the flagstones in the first minute. A tottering guard careened for the warning system and made himself the eighth to fall. 

Air escaped her in lively gasps, sweat dripping to her chin and loose blonde strands bonding to her forehead. Besting another wobbly adversary with a swinging kick and a jaw-cracking punch, she confronted the final obstacle. 

The man’s form eclipsed almost a quarter of the lofty chamber. She rallied, bolting for him and veering along the grime, mace revolving, pinwheeling, and crushing into his chest in a gush of jade sparks. He recoiled, but stayed upright, scarcely a wince in his stony bearing. 

Esther skirted and swiped out with her weapon whenever an opening presented itself, but he rebuffed every assault, amassing hit after blistering hit as though she was throwing pebbles at him. His skin singed underneath the pops of magic searing into him from the incensed sphere, yet he never buckled. Weakened and wearied from her enraged attacks, he lashed out too quick for her to dodge and tightening fingers compressed her throat. The sonic waves ceased and disturbed dust sprinkled. 

For a moment, Esther floundered, kicking and thrashing as the bend in his arm stiffened to lift her to eye level. Laboured heaves jammed in her chest, powerless to get any further. The withering dregs of air departed in coughed splutters. Her legs flailed, and vision fleeting, she instilled her weapon with drizzles of magic and rotated the ball on the chain. Several orbs burst free and breached the ceiling, rupturing above the waterside compound in viridian fragments. 

“Pretty light show,” the hulking officer mocked, her weight a meagre inconvenience as she writhed in his relentless hold. “Green Flame isn’t so tough now, is she, huh? Just a little girl playing revolutionary.” 

I didn’t fight a purge for a lump like you to take me down. One hit. That’s all I need. 

A scream cleaved free, primal and frenzied to join the dolorous whine of the gateway. Esther tore into the deepest recesses of her soul, rooted out her strength, and rammed her hand into the side of his face. Excruciating light radiated from her palm and like heated glass, the fire spell shattered. Bone cracked, skin blighted, and with a roar he surrendered his grip. 

She tottered and wheezed, and conserving her footing, drove her knee into his cheek to send him sprawling with his comrades. Respirations rasped and the green lustre in the crystal on her wrist expired. In a dying choke, the symbols on her mace extinguished. Used and drained to depletion, her magic receded, and she dusted the residue from her fingers before it could burrow into her skin. 

As though to herald her victory, the Kingsrose agents announced their arrival with hefty, sprinted stomps, the torches on their rifles criss-crossing as they searched the outcome of the carnage. Standing undefeated, Esther blotted the dirt from her lip and spat out a glob of blood. 

“You’re late,” she scolded, massaging the bruise developing on her pale throat. 

“Apologies, ma’am,” the scruffy-bearded leader offered. “Ran into some trouble getting in.” 

“Scout the rest of the complex and round up the other security personnel. Bind their hands and separate them. Any of them cause a problem, make sure they know who they’re dealing with.” 

The group divided to obey. A couple loitered to monitor the immobile guards and constrain their wrists before they woke. 

Esther’s body thrummed, alive and cognisant, as she parked herself on the gateway steps and extracted her tablet. Paltry cracks splintered the corner of the screen where it had spared her from a few nasty strikes. Hunched over her knees and wiping the blood dripping from her nostril, she brought up the communication panel and dialled the only transmission line available. 

-- -- -- -- --

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[legendsofmyriad]

Legends of Myriad: Arc One - Chapter 36: Heart of Lucarian

Chapter 35 | Chapter 37

Arc One Masterlist

-- -- -- -- --

“The road forks in about half a mile,” Lysander spoke. “If we take the left track, it brings us straight to the river, but I think there might be a gorge in the way.”

Demetrius trotted to catch up and bent over Lysander’s shoulder, inspecting the map for himself. How he read it was beyond him, the pallid ink washed out to such an extent that a mere scratch would remove it from the treated leather and dust moth holes peppering the layered fabric. “Where did you find this thing? It looks older than Orenda.”

“There aren’t a lot of maps in the Phoenix libraries that chart this section Kraken territory,” Lysander told him. “This was the best I could get at short notice.” 

“Did the others have anything on them at all?” 

A muttered gripe bristled in the back of his throat. “Left road. Head to the ravine and then the river. Agreed?”

“Is that a ravine?” Demetrius shifted, almost nose to faded print to discern the symbols and the curvature script. “Looks like a mountain range to me.”

“No, there’s the dip.” With a precise fingernail, Lysander pinpointed the plunge in land and steered him onward to an estuary.  

“You sure that’s a dip?” 

As the two argued directions and suspected drops, Oscar pored over the pale trails and monuments on the outline. “Hold the edges tight,” he instructed, hovering his palm over the ink and saturating the struggling lines with magic. “Keep it still for a second.” 

Plucking from his power reserves, he coated the pigment in a regulated heat. Scant sparks exposed the original design, clear channels and divisions sinking in, defined as the day meticulous hands etched them. Whiffs of smoke rallied, and he retracted the spell.

“That’s nothing,” he shrugged at the two awed expressions. “I’ve seen professors lift ink from paper and transform it into gold.”

“You’ve definitely made it easier to read,” Lysander said, beaming at the renewed precision. “Ah, see! It is a ravine!”

“It’s obvious now.” Demetrius clicked his tongue as he contemplated their course. “If we head left at the split in the road, but then aim for this trail here, we’d cut out the problem of crossing the gorge.”

“Nice catch. It would take us a little off the path, but the forest doesn’t seem too dense.” 

With the map situation resolved and his hosts debating the next steps, Oscar took stock of his environment. Life strained, moss dousing and boughs contorted in glutinous cages like a petal bearing a dew drop. Some of the porous pearls lodged themselves in the trunks, eyes open but dead to the world. 

When he mopped the sweat on his cheekbones, the beads broke off sticky. A respiring breeze repeated within the murk as he detached them from his sleeve. Slogged steps skulked in the gloaming shadows and the sparse wind began to stink of decaying fish and stagnant water, rasped, cumbersome wheezes creating the illusion of a natural draught. 

Lumbering, lanky legs broke into the scant light, bough-like limbs slinking forward and dozens of crimson eyes blinking simultaneously as though mangled trees had fused and revived. 

“Um, what is that?” he hacked, colliding with his companions in his stumble backwards. “Please tell me it’s friendly.” 

Lysander snatched hold of him and stilled his careen. Weapons drew from their holsters slowly and nerves steeled. Neither moved, observing the ungainly obstacle as its flat nose wrinkled to sniff at a tangle of vines and recoil in a shudder. 

“We’re not in Lumbernix territory,” Lysander muttered. “What is that thing doing here?”

“Why don’t you ask it?” Demetrius replied, mouth parting at the graceless mass of twitching arms. 

Had the situation not been so dire, he might have taken his eyes off the creature to glower at his partner, but to remove his gaze from a Lumbernix was to invite death. 

“Shouldn’t we run?” Oscar suggested. Lysander’s steadying grasp on him loosened, and he swept him back. 

“Lumbernixes have poor eyesight and detect their environment using sound,” Lysander whispered. “And they’re fast. The moment we move, it will be on us, but it flounders in close combat. Only option is to fight.” 

Gigantic branches carried the bulk with the fluidity of agitated smoke and smaller roots suckered into the dirt. If anything, it seemed more inquisitive than provoked, smelling the air and shoving mossy logs with its spiky head. Oscar’s gut churned to kill it, not if they might sneak away. 

A flock of fire birds barged from the outgrowth of a disturbed tree and plunged at the trio to evade the bumbling beast. From deep within its chest, the Lumbernix discharged a harrowing roar, its attention snatched from the fleeing feathers and to the three forms scuttling for cover. 

Wings flapped and slammed, shoving Oscar onto the ground in their haste. Reacting on frightened instinct at the pursuing monster, he curled in on himself. Was this how he his life ended? Torn apart on a distant world, never to see home again? But the rapid thuds slowed for a fraction, a mere second, and he peeked out over his arm and met with disarming curiosity. 

“Now,” Lysander shouted, sprinting at the preoccupied brute with Demetrius hot on his heels. They moved like a pair of lightning forks, striking, and dashing, and piercing tough hide with blade and bullet. 

“Stop!” Oscar screeched. The Lumbernix’s fright cut the depths of his soul as it contended to throw them off. Lysander directed the long-barrelled gun again, and he spurred his magic beneath the chamber to glance the blow. 

“What do you think you’re doing?” the guard demanded, ducking to avoid a swinging branch. 

“Stopping you from killing an innocent.” Twinges in his ankle and dirt in his throat, Oscar straggled to the downed, whimpering creature. He buckled to his knees, gingerly reaching out and petting a quivering, elongated limb. “It was slowing down. Don’t you understand, it wasn’t going to attack.” 

Harnessing the energy of his Eventide crystal, he conveyed a soothing crest over the Lumbernix, a blanket of sympathy and care. Several wounds wept and lacerations gushed black and boiling. 

“Oscar, your actions are noble, but that thing is dangerous,” Demetrius said lightly. “The safest course of action is to eliminate it.” 

“You are dangerous to me, are you not?” the mage countered, sustaining the steady flow of Eventide and hushing the creature’s pain. “And I am a danger to both of you. You have no idea what my magic is capable of. Yet here we are, working together, choosing to trust each other.” 

The Lumbernix turned its multitude of eyes to him. Laboured pants abating, it whined, the discarded leaves and feeble twigs spurred away with each deteriorating exhale. 

Oscar’s head hung in defeat at the final rattled wheeze. From the moment he perceived the creature’s aura melting fast, he acknowledged his endeavours were a lost cause, but he’d had to try. Magic could produce wonderful acts, yet his power fell short enough to save a life so close to death. He doubted many held such a gift. Only soul mages practised such feats, and he was no soul mage. But he sensed them all the same, the lives of those around him, animal and person alike. 

“I’m so sorry,” he said to the fallen Lumbernix, withdrawing and letting the body run cold. 

The forest stilled, his spirit with it for a fleeting second, before he pushed himself up and patted his grimy hands on his trousers. A considerable time had passed since that stinging loss tormented the roots of his being, not since the war and all those lives blundering as the everlasting dark snatched them away. He’d blanked out how it felt. 

“We, um…” He coughed the queasy glob from his throat and sidestepped the felled Lumbernix. “We should keep going. There’s not much light left.”

In the guarded repose of the forest, the whining boughs sounded like screams and the vibrating echo their everlasting cry into the boundless abyss. Lashes of muddied wind dried out Oscar’s eyes, but the gnawing sorrow at the Lumbernix’s passing remained to ensure a lasting bite. Other lives simmered in the underbelly of the wood, peeping and retreating as though they understood what befell that mighty creature. 

The closer to the waters they trekked, the more the woodland thinned until a split clearing unfurled from the measly mist. Free of fog and surprisingly clear, Oscar stooped over the bank to glimpse the rocky bed tens of feet below the crystalline depths. 

To the east, slanted bridges and walkways clawed up the surviving hillside, hoisting in vain to reinforce the ruins of a rotting crossing fortress. River water and time showed no sympathy, stripping what was perhaps once a magnificent intersectional structure and mocking the remaining bricks for daring to endure. 

“I presume we’re looking for a gem or an artefact of some sort,” Demetrius supposed, squinting at the low light after hours in a dingy forest. “Are there any pulses?” 

“I can’t see anything other than water and dirt,” Lysander replied. “If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say it’s probably up there.” With an upturned finger, he beckoned to the ramshackle ramparts. 

“Well, unless someone left us a boat or a bridge, we’re not getting to the other side anytime quick. For all we know, The Heart is in the river.”

On the opposite bank of the watery tract, a squat harbour poked out from the precipitous land beyond. Oscar inched closer, his toes paddling into the edges. Wistful song danced about his ears from the silver-draped figure, one bare foot shaving the water and the other snuggled beneath her on the planks as her faint melody bled into the raw chill. 

Her movements suspended and the lamenting tune dissolved with it as her daydreams wrested from the temperate waters to the mage watching her. With an awkwardness at his staring, he pretended to occupy himself with the loose stones on the bank. Her persistent gaze studied him as she drove herself to her feet.

He suspected she might run, flee into the hills behind, but instead she fluttered her fingers and strips of frozen water rolled, solidifying into a narrow pathway. She assisted the icy trail forwards as she strolled, unaffected by the cold on her soles and the manifesting haze of ice.

Amusement peaked in her keen features as the three travellers gawked at her leisurely progression. “What are you doing at my river?” she asked, an ethereal chime and a multitude of voices in her words. “Are you lost?” 

“Not quite,” Oscar said, recovering himself within the intense aura. “I don’t suppose you have any idea where we might find The Heart of Lucarian.”

The friendliness that greeted them hardened as swiftly as the water, her welcoming beam dropping into a snarl and her dampened footsteps propelling her into an urgent retreat. “Why do you want to know?” she demanded, heels on the ice and rearing up. “More rapacious people in search of power they have no right to?”

“No,” Oscar hastily replied, palms displayed in immediate surrender. “I’m just trying to get home. Please.” 

Her bright regard veered to the clearing behind him, two distinct presences surfacing from the treeline. He wheeled round, keeping his hands where the newcomers could see them. 

“Don’t move,” the coal-black, wispy cloud demanded before reconciling into the shape of a muscled woman, a slackened hood obscuring her identity and a cloth protecting her mouth. Two magenta eyes steeled. The lithe, half-clothed creature on her right growled, the controlled vibrations of his warning becoming a bark at the Phoenix heirs. Fierce, dripping canines advised them to reconsider any attempts at retaliation. 

“I told you to remain hidden,” the demon said to the silver woman. “Go. We will deal with these… trespassers.” 

“There is no greed or a desire for power in them, Mal. Lower your defences. I would like to hear why they have come here searching for me.” 

Oscar swivelled so carelessly he nigh on lost his balance in the slimy mud. Naturally, her aura seemed odd, she possessed a magic that moulded her being into existence. While she resembled a woman in her youth, her power was ancient, born inside of time itself and lasting all these centuries, just as historians claimed. 

“Of course!” Lysander blurted, jolting Demetrius. “You are a Fate. Oscar, do you remember the symbols in the stronghold, the ones below the balconies?” 

“You said they resembled demon writing, but they didn’t look quite right,” the mage recalled. “Like they were reversed.” 

“They were because they are Fate markings. Fates and demons create a kind of circle, feeding into each other, everlasting. Sustaining. Well, they used to.”

The Heart bobbed her head, impressed by his observations. “My kin surrounded the gateways with our symbols and matched them with their demon counterparts. Reflected, they channel enough energy to preserve them. Unfortunately, there is little power left in them anymore. Little power in me.”  

“What happened to your magic?” Oscar questioned. 

“Greed,” Mal spat, shouldering by him to shield The Heart, the werewolf pattering at her heels. “You boys must know your history.” 

Lysander and Demetrius acknowledged the remark in silent understanding, but the mage blinked between them. “I’m not from here,” he reminded them. “What am I missing?” 

“People did terrible things to Fates,” Demetrius explained. “Awful, unforgivable acts to hack pieces of their power and seize it for their own. Those massacres have stained Lucarian for centuries and it was assumed they were wiped out.” Inside the sorrowful pause that proceeded his words, the sickening stories his childhood tutor relayed about those once revered creatures of light churned. How demons strove to protect them, and died in their droves, mutilated and ravaged. Honoured to meet one, a solemn grief engulfed him. “Nothing could ever compensate you for what happened to your kin, but I can offer you any help you require. On my honour, you will be safe in our lands.” 

“Under what authority?” Mal challenged, thumping her spear into the squelching mud. 

“I am Demetrius, son of Lord Alaric Volkar and heir of the First Seat of the Phoenix Clan, and my partner holds claim to the Second. We have the jurisdiction to grant sanctuary and aid to anybody.” 

Mal’s anger eased, and a grumbled puff of air shivered behind her mask. 

The Heart advanced on featherlight steps and hesitated near Lysander. The power in his blood writhed, sealed inside gracious, gold eyes and clawing for freedom. She wondered if he comprehended it, if any of them did. 

“The power remaining within me is meagre,” she said, unfurling her fingers to the mage, “but this should be enough to accomplish your task.”

The lustre billowed in her grasp, the key to getting him to his friends and his home right there. All he had to do was reach out and accept the gift.

But he stayed frozen.

His soul pined for the sea-fresh air of Mora and his exuberant city, but not like this. A selfish gnaw chewed at him, and he reigned in the sting of starved teeth that begged him to take away what she couldn’t afford to give. 

“Your power is your own,” he told her, curling her cold fingertips protectively around the luminous shreds. “I’m sure there is another way. I apologise for bothering you.” 

Receding from the river bank, Oscar started for the forest line, abandoning the hope of a speedy, assured return to Solgarde. It may take Bartholomew months, years maybe, to restore the Lucarian gateways, but he would rather delay his arrival home than snatch a power too many had before.  

* * *

Wrists dangling from his knees and the ruptures and rugged peaks of the castle ruins jabbing into his backside, Oscar tracked the scatter of wrinkled leaves snagging in the hollows of the stone. 

Hours of silence stalked them to their rest stop, the hushed conversation between his hosts sinking to the background of his mind. To their credit, their wasted journey neither deterred them nor dampened their purpose, trading ideas and hypothesising on their next move as though no obstacle existed. 

“Here,” Lysander said, setting a full canteen onto the flattest segment of wall beside him. “How’s your ankle?” 

“Not too bad. Must have been a root I hit when those birds knocked me over.” Oscar sipped at the water, his mouth dry and the daunting prospect of a lengthy stay on Lucarian rankling his anxieties. He had never experienced homesickness, never been out of Mora long enough to notice that itch for home. 

He tuned into his memories, pictured the zedite grey buildings and the elegant avenues, the bumpy cobbles and the high pavements his tiny legs stretched to climb as a child. Vibrant gala banners swaying in the humid breeze and the smoky scent of celebratory fireworks. The hospitality of The Citadel galleries and the promising familiarity of the artist pavilions, woven in thriving ivy and open to the cliffs and the ocean. His family’s smiles, the laughs of his friends as they shared lunch, and jokes, and grievances. 

“We’re not the only ones searching for a way to reactivate the gateways,” Demetrius said. “The Banshee clan are investigating, and there’s every possibility we missed something.” 

“If they use demon technologies, I’m sure they’re looking into it,” Lysander added. “We could contact them.”

“Judging by the stronghold gateway and what The Heart suggested, Fate magic seems to be the carrier,” Oscar replied. Mist coasted the puddles in the enduring flagstone, seeking to freeze the water over as the river did at The Heart’s command. Her energy dwindled in those lands, striving to exist and failing. “Without something to transport the demon input to the right place, it won’t function. I’m guessing there was just enough left to open them for a short time, but the stockpiles are gone.” 

“She may not be the only Fate to have survived,” Demetrius asserted. “There could be others.”

“She was the only one mentioned in the Banshee vision.” 

“So? Visions are a pointer, not a definitive answer. Even Lady Amelda couldn’t decipher it.”

Chin held high, Demetrius crossed the vestiges and debris. “We are not giving up. Where would any of us be if we submitted at the first failure? If you dare contemplate such a thing, perhaps you’re not the headstrong, resilient person I thought you were.” 

Oscar’s jaw stiffened, and he picked the soil from his nails where the grains had compacted. “Who says I’m giving up?” he challenged, rising from the damp wall and greeting Demetrius’s proud smile with an unyielding one of his own. “The answer is out there somewhere. I just need to find it.” 

-- -- -- -- --

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Legends of Myriad: Arc One - Chapter 35: The Barren World

Chapter 34 | Chapter 36

Arc One Masterlist

-- -- -- -- --

Alek chewed on his thumbnail, scrunching his nose as he nibbled on a tough edge and triple checked the inventory on his tablet. Deep in concentration, he muttered each element, voice muffled by the finger in his mouth. Bartholomew guaranteed it would work in attracting the laycrawlers, and the professor’s confidence proved well-founded. Not long after he, Cas, Rhena, and Sergeant Darilen began mixing the concoction, the entire mass flocked to the cramped underground storage facility. The military leader distributed lookouts as soon as the mechanical screech honed in to survey the situation outside and confirm that the bugs relocated to their position. 

The consistent bashes above them served as the only proof Alek needed that the creatures were there. Frustrated droning and a series of bumps sifted through the clay blocks and rigid beams.

“What else do we need?” Rhena asked, sleeves rolled to her biceps and her dirtied hands on her hips. 

“Keep mixing it, I think,” Alek told her. He scanned the list of instructions and confirmed his assumption with a nod.

Several of the soldiers blending the mixture with ruptured wooden planks broke off to gape at the ceiling as another quake unnerved the room. 

“Who said you could stop?” Sergeant Darilen barked, continuing to stir regardless of the threat outside. “You want to give those things time to get in here?” 

“No, sir,” the three troopers replied, restoring their fortitude with renewed fervour.

Rhena curbed a snort. 

Bending his attention upward, Alek tuned in to the laycrawler mass. All he felt was their rage. There was not even a reason. They had been formed angry, and so that was what they were. Enraged and voracious. 

He fastened his tablet to the attachment on his waistband and elevated his hands up to the ceiling, roaming the restricted space to determine exactly where the creatures were. Once he locked down their location, he inhaled and exhaled slowly, and conveyed a chain of calming waves, attempting to smother the fury boiling in them. Nothing happened at first, no response to his spell, not even a paltry acknowledgement of his magic, but a violent pain drove into veins and he immediately retracted the soothing charm. 

In a hiss and a curse, and a dip of his head to Cas to assure her he was unharmed, he hoisted his palms again. This time, he dug deep into the temporal energy, grasping and absorbing drabs to impede their endeavour to merge again. An instant sense of euphoria inspirited him, light and joyous, like an embrace from a loved one not seen in years. He couldn’t have let it go if he’d wanted to. It drenched him in sunlight, in the blessing of stars, but just as swiftly as it deluged him with delight, it packed his soul with poison. The infuriated creatures deceived him with comfort only to cram him with rage, and with a low scream, he relinquished his hold on the link and caught himself on a shelf bracket. 

The uncomfortable sensation dispersed in swift trickles and Cas heaved him upright, one hand on his elbow and the other gently encouraging him to tilt his head. “Do not hurt yourself, Alek,” she said softly, examining him for injury. “Try to take it easy.” 

“I’m okay,” he said, gasping to alleviate his hammering heart. 

“Tell that to the sweat dripping from you,” Rhena commented as she slanted around a stirring soldier to check on the mage in their care. 

Cas tossed her a disapproving look and with a shrug she resumed her efforts in mixing the substance. 

“Here,” the driver offered, handing Alek a clean cloth. 

The soft linen absorbed the droplets and the current of air squirming in under the door dried the rest. He was never one for an outburst of rage, but the laycrawler’s fury chewed at his composure, dissipating reluctantly at the failed prospect of a fresh and willing host. His magic scurried, and it took a bit of persuading to return it to its usual flow. 

A foul aroma slid into his nostrils and he directed his disgust at the source. The gluey mixture in the barrel had not changed, but the scent had, stagnant and rancid like rotten moss on a long-forgotten lake. “That stinks,” he said, recoiling with a scrunched nose and a withheld wretch.  

“Can’t smell anything,” Cas replied. 

The confused looks of the others confirmed they could not detect it either.

“Okay then,” he breathed. “I think I can move onto the last part. Stop stirring and step back.” 

The military personnel and Rhena gave him a wide berth although curiosity got the better of them and many took to peeking to observe his skills. His hand wavered over the concoction, urging the final spell to sink into the mix. The eyes on him never blinked, directed at the trail with interest and awe. He supposed if he had not grown up accompanied by magic, he might have had the same sense of fascination. He only wished he could show them some of the more fantastical sides of it, the creation and the innocent wonder it could bring. Not the reactive. Not the fear-laden. 

With the concluding droplet infusing, he explored Bartholomew’s description of the expected reaction and found the result as specified. The laycrawlers outside doubled their efforts, frantic in their attempts to get in. 

Darilen’s keen observance floated upward momentarily. “Seems like it’s had the desired effect,” he mumbled, preparing to move. 

“How sure are you that this is going to work?” Rhena asked, peering into the mixture as a baker might their oven to test if the batch had succeeded. It didn’t look any different, but it certainly felt odd to be near. 

“I’m taking the advice of a man who has spent the last three-hundred years asleep,” Alek shrugged. “I’d give it a pretty decent chance.”

“If it’s done, let’s get it loaded onto the truck,” Cas said. 

“Did you park where I told you?” 

“I did. Got the timing coming into here good too, so as long as we are swift, your plan should go without a hitch.” 

Alek signalled to Sergeant Darilen, and the squad leader gave his troops permission to move out. Three soldiers hauled the barrel between them, positioning it securely before they headed for the connecting garage. 

Darilen oversaw the proceedings and halted by Alek, laying a reassuring grip on his shoulder. “We’re ready,” he said, firm and committed. “On your mark, kid.”

* * *

“Back on the road again,” Rhena said, clambering into the driver’s side of the military vehicle. The second the door shut, darkness engulfed them until the interior lights activated. “I’d never trade my car for one of these, but I have to say, the army sure know how to build a truck.” 

She patted the steering wheel as though pampering a well-behaved transport animal, but the mage in the passenger’s seat didn’t appear to share her sentiment. Guilt and hints of fear burrowed into his youthful features, entrenched in the lines between his eyebrows. 

“You doing all right there?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” Alek replied, locked onto the unnatural movement of shade beyond the parking compartment where the army aimed to distract the enemy and provide them with a head start. “We should go. The laycrawlers are close.” 

More questions teetered on Rhena’s tongue but they didn’t have time to burn on reassurances. As much as she wanted to hearten him with a hopeful word and promises of success, it would have to wait. 

She rotated the key in the ignition, a steady murmur streaming into the engine before it acclimated into a mellow drone. The truck bucked over the top of the ramp, but the etchings on the angled metal gripped the wheels to keep the downward roll smooth. Despite driving since her early teenage years, and competing in hundreds of Vector races where her life was always on the line, her stomach lurched. There were no medics on standby if they got hurt. Nobody would rush to retrieve their bodies from the overturned van. She had one shot at this. No second chances at the next lap, no next tournament. 

Gritting her fortitude and spinning them onto the road, she slammed her foot on the gas. Bursts of sickening hisses chased them like a starved alley dog tracking a trail of biscuits. 

They breached the main gate in minutes, the commercial lanes and avenues vacant and the fearless wind searching for people to pester. The streets hadn’t been this empty since the rebellion days. 

Rhena clutched the steering wheel until her knuckles whitened, the tremble at her wrist sneaking into her palms. 

“Maintain this speed,” Alek encouraged, monitoring the bubble of malicious magic that strove to catch them. Yet to regain their full strength, it would not be long before they might merge again. If the horde reconnected, he had lost. Azuris would fall, and the rest of Eternity with it. 

That can’t happen, he urged into his brain, systematically replacing every doubt with a soldier’s confidence and undying perseverance. You do not stop, even if you are crawling on your hands and knees, even if you have to rip your way to victory. 

“Is the barrel still secure?” Rhena asked. 

Wriggling his arm from under the seatbelt, Alek peered through the tail window at the bulky container. Despite the jolt and rough tracts bouncing below them, it remained an immovable force, refusing to baulk at mere movement. “Sergeant Darilen and his squad tied it in well,” he replied. “We might have a problem untying it.”

“There’s a knife in the glove box,” Rhena assured him. “Have you got the map?” 

Alek tilted the tablet. She inspected the route ahead and corrected their direction, hulking wheels shrieking as they rose inches off the sand and landed with a sober bump. “Once we reach the tunnels, we’ll have to take it slower. You good to keep the laycrawlers away from us if it gets bad?” 

“I’ve got some power left in the tank.” 

“Will it be enough?” 

I hope so, Alek thought, responding with a stalwart nod. 

As the isolated gateway materialised like a grasping hand, he opened a secure connection to the laboratory on The Core. The link spluttered as it latched to the network, and his heart plummeted. Everything hindered on a banded effort. They couldn’t fail before they’d even tried. 

Teeth grinding and breath held, the transmission strengthened, and he eased aside the momentary panic. 

“Alek?” Altair said, loud and distinct. “Are you at the second gateway?” 

“Almost,” the student confirmed. “Nearing the tunnels now.”

“All is prepared on my side. I await your signal.” 

Rhena restrained the curving grin at the sound of another magical being. How many wondrous things drifted beyond their boundaries? She had listened enraptured to the stories told by older generations, but they were fairy tales, far too outlandish to have ever been a reality. Their words were dreams to the younger souls who never knew such wonders. Now the opportunity arose, and despite their current plight, she still experienced a tinge of that same awe she felt when hearing those myths. 

Her focus floated in curiosity to her passenger, and his eyes met hers. “Another mage,” she mouthed, powerless to conceal her excitement any longer. 

“I’m a mage,” Alek whispered, brows knitting. 

“But he is on a different world.” 

He couldn’t deny her that slight thrill. He was barely toddling when magic restored in Solgarde, and he recalled little of life without it. For someone who had never spoken with such a being before, never mind two, he understood the wonderment in it. Spellcasting was a marvel to behold, capable of extraordinary feats, but as he clocked the approaching enemy and the potency within them, he was all too familiar with the cost of that right. 

Corrugated sheets and haphazard repairs bowed and split under Alek’s power as he blasted the barrier across the far tunnel opening and ducked to dodge the brunt of the debris. Fragments of timber splinters popped and lashed the side of the car in a flurry of pitter-patters and lightweight grazes. 

Inside the cramped corridors, Rhena wrenched the gear stick, and the wheels buckled as they slowed. Despite the urge to peer behind at the approaching cloud of death, she bolstered her attention on the meandering tunnels. 

“Take a left here,” Alek said, adapting to the rigorous rebound and roll of the vehicle. Blue lines painted their path on his tablet within the network of ancient channels, revealing any potential downward drops where the ground once sloped and had since filled with unstable rock and rubble. 

He clutched the dashboard as the car swerved, looping and springing ahead of the nearing shadowed horde. Sinister glitters ignited in the depths of the silhouette like a disease, bearing the threatening hiss through the cave system. 

“Is that the gateway?” Rhena asked. She motioned to the streaming puddle of silver leaking lazily into the main passageway. Murmurs swam in the billowing light and the adrenaline-fuelled flush drained from her cheeks. 

Alek craned his neck. “That’s the one. Stop here. This is close enough.” Before the car had the chance to brake, he vaulted out and scraped the hard grains. 

“Leave the barrel at the bottom of the steps and get out of here,” he instructed, scanning the descending cloud of dust in their wake as Rhena sliced at the straps securing the vital cargo. “Don’t wait for me.” 

The first and second belts snapped under the strain and she scaled the back of the truck to sever the other two anchoring the barrel in. Although agreeing to the plan at the hideout, she disliked abandoning him to complete the mission alone. This was no task for a boy not even out of school yet. “You sure you don’t want help getting it through?” 

“Yeah. I’ll meet you at the pickup point.” 

With the screeches nearing quick, he braced his courage with a salute to Rhena and dashed for the gateway hall, refusing to pause and acknowledge the patterned sprawl of rotting bodies and sprinting into the pillar of light. 

As the portal surrendered him, his boots sank into spongy ash and a grey expanse welcomed him to the barren world. Peaks rose beyond the weak mist, and dead trees slumped in their final rest. Thick air clogged his lungs, warm, and dry, and grating as it filtered down his throat. 

A low bank of clouds shifted on the horizon. Distended and bulging like over-inflated festival balloons, they appeared as though they would burst at any moment and drown the land. Nothing living endured, that he was certain of. His magic scoured for anything alive, but only silence answered. This was definitely the place the vampyre spoke of. 

Location confirmed and scouting done, he bolted back into the gateway hall. Tyre tracks marked where the car had been moments ago, and the laycrawler shadow swallowed the mouth of the corridor. At the base of the steps, the barrel waited, the substance within enticing the deadly machines closer. 

Alek poked reinforced strands of magic underneath the cylinder and hoisted it off the dirt. The solution sloshed and his reserves of energy strove to keep it aloft. He heaved it an inch higher, teeth grating and the whining scream of hundreds of motorised bugs rattling in his skull. With a resolved shove, the barrel disappeared into the nebulous white. 

The screeching mob smashed into the circular hall in a destruction of outer monuments and frenzied sand, and Alek concealed himself behind the collapsed statue of a time-worn figurehead of Eternity. Harnessing the last dregs of his energy, he tucked a shield around his hiding spot. More amassed and the room eclipsed.

He clamped his hands over his ears and squinted to keep his eyes open in the abnormal wind surrounding the horde. Minutes passed in daunting breaths as he blinked away the thrown sand and stifled a cough. If just one noticed him, it was all over. 

After what seemed like a lifetime, the last bug melted into the portal and a swaying echo sank into the foundations. 

“Professor! Close the gateway!” Static crackled in his earpiece. A voice endeavoured to wade through, but the words chopped and cut off. “Professor Bevan, can you hear me?”

A whine tremored within the fizzing feedback. “Connection trouble… repeat… Alek?” 

“Shut the gate!” he shouted. At the extended disturbance on the transmission line, he flexed his fingers into fists and loosened them. 

What do I do? Alek thought. How do I fix this? Question after question hounded his already flustered mind, and he crumpled before the gateway, unyielding eyes sealing on the silver post of light and body shaking. His fault. This was all his doing. His heart shot to his throat.

In slow, quaking gasps, the consistent warble deteriorated. The temporal energy descended into the platform and an unhindered hush placed a blanket over the dead and the fear-stricken. 

“Alek? Are you there?”  

Gulping down bile and dragging in a long, wheezing breath, he clicked the side of his earpiece. “I’m here, Professor Bevan. The gateway is inactive. We did it. They’re gone.” 

-- -- -- -- --

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[legendsofmyriad]

Lore of Myriad - Bartholomew Amias Spark

Bartholomew Amias Spark is known throughout Myriad as The Navigator and Lord of Adventure. As the inventor of the Temporal Gateways, along with numerous space routes, he is renowned for connecting the nine worlds. But not all applaud his accomplishments, and many in the past have accused him of using his intelligence and power for personal gain. 

Bartholomew was born on Prosperia in the Palace of Prosperity, the youngest of his siblings and the most curious. His appetite for knowledge grew as he did. He found a fascination with The Core and committed to finding a way to it. After years of experimentation and endeavours, he finally discovered a method using a rudimentary design, but it was a one-way system. He ultimately made the choice to leave, accepting that he may never be able to return. 

On The Core, he stumbled on a paradise beyond his wildest dreams, and embarked on researching everything he could. This led to his most significant breakthrough: The Core was sentient. 

For years, he aspired to talk with the planet, conducting experiment after experiment until he came under threat from a storm. Bartholomew acted swiftly and managed to rescue the majority of the animals and critters, using his own magic and braving the worst of the deluge to defend them. Among the creatures he saved were Spirits of The Core. For his bravery and kindness, they gifted him the ability to communicate directly with the world he had made his home.

From his laboratory, he had the perfect view of the sky, and every night would watch the other worlds of Myriad. Determined to visit each one, he worked on his initial transportation design, and with an infusion of magic from The Core, built the first Temporal Gateway. 

His adventures took him all over as he connected each realm in turn and gathered knowledge, but the biggest war Myriad had ever known put a stop to his expeditions. Years of fighting and millions upon millions of losses devastated the civilisations he cherished. With the enemy growing in number and the outcome looking bleak, he trapped as many of the monsters he could inside rifts, but it still wasn’t enough. Ultimately, he sealed the gateways and space routes, and lured the remaining attackers to The Core where he settled himself and the central world into a deep sleep, using every ounce of their combined magic and energy to defeat them in a razing pulse. His plan worked, but what was supposed to be a brief rest turned into a three-hundred year slumber. When he woke, the state of Myriad was very different. 

-- -- -- -- --

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Legends of Myriad: Arc One - Chapter 34: Assassin - Part 2

Chapter 33 | Chapter 35

Arc One Masterlist

-- -- -- -- --

After almost three hours of persistent questions and ceaseless bodies piling in and out of the crowded bedroom, Esther was more than eager to see the medics to the door, if only to unburden the space a little.

“Should either of you require further assistance or medical care, we are a call away,” the chief responding medic said as his assistants straggled out, one after the other in an orderly row, equipment trunks rattling and shoulders hunching to get by without nudging into anybody. Several officers followed, bundling evidence for the next step in their investigation. “What both of you need right now is rest.”

“I’m doing okay, but I will make sure Miss Penelope takes it easy,” Esther confirmed. Although she had endured situations far more chaotic compared to this, she wasn’t comfortable sharing with a total stranger that her teenage years mostly consisted of war and tumult. It would take more than a botched assassination attempt to unnerve her. Her system still pumped with adrenaline and the rush of the fight, the last thing on her list was sleep. 

Hesitation drifted in the medic’s eyes as he searched her brazen poise. Regardless of his doubts, he decided not to probe any further and with a dip of his head, he trailed after the rest of his team. 

Esther steadily shut the door to ensure the room remained as quiet as possible for the spooked woman attempting to converse with the officers pestering her for more details. While the medics had attended to her, Esther exercised her self-control to refrain from intervening during certain stages of the interrogation. She acknowledged that every shred of information was vital, but the law enforcement’s never-ending questions only served to harm her already frazzled nerves.

“Doctor Heaton has advised me to ensure Miss Penelope gets some rest,” she said in a definitive tone, impeding their inquiry. “Perhaps I may help you with your ongoing concerns?”

“No, we have everything we need for now,” the more seasoned of the two remaining officers assured her, scratching at his beard with the back of his pen. “For protocol reasons, I must run you through the safety procedures, and then we can leave you in peace.”

“Would it be possible for you to write up these measures for Miss Kingsrose to read once she has recovered?” Esther suggested, spotting the pale pallor in Penelope’s cheeks and preferring to clear the room of prying eyes before the first tears broke free. If there was one topic that every industry leader agreed upon, it was the necessity to protect their integrity regardless of the situation. 

A grumble rested on the officer’s lips, but Esther reinforced her confidence before he could voice his gripes. “I am ready and able to offer further protection, if required.”

While he would rather obey protocol, he was not beyond leniencies in certain circumstances. Having heard the accounts of the adept mage’s quick-reasoning during the intrusion, he conceded to her request. “I’ll deliver the copies to you within the hour, miss. Some of the special forces officers will remain for added protection. They are at your command.” 

“Your assistance is appreciated, officer,” Esther said as she led him and his deputy to the door. “I shall familiarise myself with the correct procedures as soon as the papers arrive. You have my word.”

The second the latch clicked into the gap in the frame, she triggered the locks and tested the durability of the spells on the windows. Bolstered in the corners and strengthening at the midpoint, they held rigid and invisible to all but her. Inspecting the last concealed spell, she loosened the edge and remade the structure to ensure it would not unravel until she commanded it to do so. 

“Are you okay?” she voiced, jabbing at the remedied charm. “Is there anything I can get for you?” 

Picking at the skin under her nails, Penelope’s stare dove into the carpet, mouth lightly agape as though a response persisted on her lips. No sound left her. 

“Miss Kingsrose?” 

“That boy who came through the window,” Penelope said. “Who is he?” Lamplight deepened the mottled blotches and dark patches under her eyes as she tore them from the floor to meet her protector. “It seemed for a moment that you… you hesitated like you recognised him.”

Esther controlled her expression, considering her reply thoroughly. For Gabriel’s sake and her own. “You don’t need to worry yourself with that,” she answered. “It doesn’t matter now. That is for the authorities to investigate.”

“Please, just answer the question. I want to know he’s okay.”

Esther drew herself aside from the secured entry points and her defensive spells. Penelope had demanded nothing of her throughout her stay, always gracious, always approaching her with appreciation for her security, but her tone held an order. Responding was not up for negotiation. “He’s a former Ironstrike guard on the run who seems to have got himself caught up in rebellion activity, so I wouldn’t exactly say he is in the best position.”

The first few tears spilled unhampered down Penelope’s ashen cheeks, glinting in the sapphire blue before shooting towards her chin. It was at that instant that Esther observed the resemblances between Gabriel and the Kingsrose director. The candid compassion in their eyes. The slightly upturned tilt of their lips. Even the placement of their freckles appeared almost identical. 

“He is Gabriel Vyner,” Penelope said, as though uttering the name of a ghost she feared to summon by speaking louder than a whisper. “Isn’t he?” 

Esther blinked, coming to a complete standstill. “How do you know that?” she questioned. “What is he to you?” 

“My son. Illegitimate, obviously.” 

The silence hit her like a shot to the face, and uncertain what to say for the first time in a long while, she seated herself on the pillowed bench by the veneer desk and tucked her hands in her lap. 

“Gabriel’s father, Ethan, was a Kingsrose guard. I found him a little uptight when we met, but the more I got to understand him, the more I saw his true self,” Penelope disclosed. With the heel of her hand, she mopped the damp splotches from under her eyes. “He was a serious man and preferred to apply himself to something with all his being. I respected that in him, and over time, I found myself drawn to him, and he to me. Our relationship had to be kept a secret, which exacted quite a toll, but ultimately, we planned to marry. I arranged everything to perfection, or at least I assumed I had. My family discovered our intention before we had even made it to the border of the district. Ethan lost his job, but my father agreed to provide him with a proper reference so that he could find work elsewhere.”

The nostalgic gleam in Penelope dimmed, and she smothered the wave of remorse as the recollection of her ephemeral love encouraged that mourning to the surface.

“A month later, I discovered I was pregnant. Knowing what my family would suggest, I went away on the pretence that some distance would help me put some perspective on my role as heir and got a message to Ethan about the news. He stood by me throughout the whole pregnancy and promised to raise our son when I had to return to my duties. The only thing I knew of him after he had been born was his name. Gabriel. Every day since, I have thought of him, remembered the image of that tiny bundle fast asleep in my arms.” 

The room settled into a penitent hush, and Esther realised that it had not been the assassination attempt itself that horrified Penelope, but who they had sent. The baby she had cradled in his earliest hours, the child she cherished in secret and the grief of the life she could have lived. “Did you try looking for him after you took over from your father?” she asked.

“I tried, but I hadn’t a clue where he was. The others watch me closely, and if they knew of Gabriel, there is no doubt they would use him against me. If it is as you say and he was in the Ironstrike district, it explains why I struggled to locate him. Edgar locks his lands away like a covetous dragon.”

“Now you know where he is, what do you plan to do?”

“With you here, I have someone I can rely on. I’ve already asked a lot of you, but since you act with discretion and haste, maybe I could ask one more thing of you.”

“Of course.”

“Would deliver a message to him? It is possible that his father withheld the truth about me for his safety, but I believe he should be informed. Especially now.”

“I’ll go to him,” Esther agreed, “but I can’t promise a joyous reunion. There is every possibility he will lay much of what he has been through at your door.”

“All I want is my son to have the facts,” Penelope said, grateful for the mage’s warnings but resolved to try, regardless. “The rest is up to him.”

* * *

Sucking in an impatient breath, Ralph glimpsed his reflection in the clock glass and rectified his tie, tidying the knot until it pressed perfectly into the centre of his collar. The hollowed hands ticked louder in the haunting quiet.

On his way in, he gauged the hesitant hush of the estate as though it were a physical entity he could reach out and touch. Where gardeners usually cultivated the latest crop of roses, the shrubberies and low hedge mazes lay deserted. Even the lobby remained unoccupied but for the doorman on duty. The assassination attempt on Miss Kingsrose breached the atmosphere to the degree that nobody dared make a sound. 

When the door to the sitting room feebly creaked ajar, he tore himself from his mirrored image and straightened up. Esther withheld a scoff at having caught him admiring his reflection. Her eyes tracked him, drained yet vigilant.

“I hear commendations are in order,” he said in response to her expectant stare. 

“I would not exactly call this an occasion for applause,” she replied, positioning herself by the dormant mantlepiece and holding her chin a touch higher than his. “A woman nearly lost her life, and I am certain you are going to do barbaric things to that assassin to get information. This is not a cause for celebration in my book.” 

Enclosed in her voice, he picked up a confidence he had not heard before, not even in the industry heads. Commanding. Poise incarnate. Clad more informally, but still in the Lumen style, she appeared more within bounds than she had before. No hint of the Green Flame or indomitable bodyguard. The mystery waned a little and strangely enough, he felt more comfortable in her presence. 

“How is Miss Kingsrose faring?” Ralph asked. “I hope she did not come to any irreparable harm.” 

“The assassin didn’t touch her, but she is understandably shaken by the ordeal. Her doctor is monitoring her, and the authorities have ensured she has everything she might need.” 

“Of course. Sometimes mental scars can be worse than physical ones.” 

Esther couldn’t contest that. She would have suffered a hundred more bodily scars from the purge over the mental effects she grappled daily. 

“I shall meet with her later,” Ralph said. “As representative of all families, I am committed to meeting her every requirement.”

“That won’t be possible,” Esther told him, strolling further into the room and pausing on the other side of the regal clock. “Miss Kingsrose is not taking visitors.” 

The corners of Ralph’s lips stiffened, and he bridled a scathing remark. Patience was the key to people like her, and he possessed an abundance of it. “You seem to have become quite comfortable,” he observed. “In that uniform, you almost look as though you belong here.”

Ignoring his opinion in favour of preserving her upper hand, she cast an eye from his head to his feet and up again, daring him to continue with his rebuttal. He made it his mission to chip away at her, and she would not allow him that indulgence.

“Do you have the footage I requested?” she inquired. She slid the sealed electronic frame from his outstretched grasp and clicked open the edges. A flat, holographic display expanded between the boundaries and a video played. 

Crisp and clear, Gabriel’s form dashed across the eastern lawn, almost hitting a shadowy tree trunk before he stopped short.

Poor guy never stood a chance, Esther thought as the transparent figure fled the estate.

Whether the rebellion was exploiting his vulnerability after fleeing the Ironstrike district or if he trusted in the movement, his parentage put him in a precarious position now. An illegitimate son of an undermined industry head, his life would only become more troublesome once he learned of the truth. 

“Who is that?” Ralph leaned in and Esther detected the subtle floral perfume diffusing from his clothes. Roses. Distinct and clean, like a summertide garden. 

“Not sure. He was just asking for money,” she said, skimming over the next minutes of footage. “Guards on duty gave him something to eat and sent him on his way.” 

“He seems intoxicated.” 

“Probably.” Refusing to ruminate on Gabriel’s situation, she revised the rest and pinpointed the segment she was hunting for. “There,” she muttered, scrolling backwards to a particular point in the video and slowing the speed. “Bottom left corner.”  

“What is it? What have you found?” He practically rested his chin on her shoulder to better see what she had uncovered, his eagerness bypassing any propriety. 

At that close vantage, the sprawl of freckles across his cheeks that the lights usually hid stuck out to her. Behind the sheen of his glasses, she noticed his multi-coloured eyes, one cobalt blue and the other as grey as the noxious clouds that bled from factory chimneys. 

“It’s uh… it’s the entry place that the assassin used,” she said, recouping herself. “See there? I assumed he may have entered via a window since the doors were bolted and there was no sign of damage. Seems like he found a weak spot beneath the foundation and got in through the basement instead.” 

“So it appears,” Ralph mused, momentarily anchored to the concentration on the mage’s face before he returned to his full stature and removed himself from her personal space. “You have done an immeasurable service to us. I will ensure you receive your reward soon.” 

“Once I have the feathers, I’ll remove that mark,” Esther vowed, motioning to his wrist where the contractual blemish poked out from his shirt sleeve. 

Ralph glanced down at the spot in question. “Ah. Yes. I had all but forgotten about that.” 

Sure you did, she thought with an astute smirk and flung the playback device to him. “Thank you for bringing me what I asked for. You’re free to leave.” With an air of purpose and a gleam of the intrepid, she sauntered by him and out into the hallway beyond the sitting room. 

A stillness descended again, the constant tick of the clock his only company. Pocketing the viewing device and neatening his jacket, Ralph shoved his shoulders back. The sooner Esther had her feathers, the sooner he could conduct his duty without having to worry what potential trouble she might cause for him and his employers now that she was almost released from her obligations. 

* * *

Revisiting to the hectic clamour of Lumen after several weeks of placid comfort was a strange but not unwelcome sensation. The stench of motor oil, and meat grease, and swollen vapours submerged Esther, flushing away the fragrant flowers and perfumed halls she had become accustomed to. 

After managing to extract some more footage from Ralph under the guise of providing better security for the Kingsrose estate, she tracked Gabriel to the outskirts of town. He hadn’t been subtle in his escape, roaming in the open for far too long in her opinion, but by some splash of luck he had evaded most of the cameras. 

Workers bustled by, paying no notice to another body in the mix. She gravitated towards the market alleys, drinking in the flit and flutter of life within the network of stalls and commerce. At the almost hourly rattle of pipes ventilating and cooling the machinery inside the warehouses and factories, she smiled. The symphony of the city, Esther had once thought to herself, keeping everything moving. 

A few faces recognised her as she meandered, scowls pinching at the edges of their eyes and their noses scrunching like she carried a foul smell in her wake. She expected rumours to circulate. She couldn’t engage in rebellious activities, start developing a reputation as a woman of the people, and not expect them to sneer at her when she returned from assisting their enemy.

Beneath the sway of lanterns and sandwiched within the hubbub, a welcomed sight crossed her search. “Mariane,” she greeted, hesitating by the textile stall. “Am I glad to see you.” 

Mariane barely spared her a glance and humphed. “What do you want?” she said. 

Esther’s smile paled. While she did not blame her for her reaction, it stung all the same inside the memory of the pleasant conversations they had shared not so long ago. “I’m looking for someone,” she replied, holding out her tablet on a paused piece of footage showing Gabriel’s face. “He comes round here fairly often. Just wanted to know if you’ve seen him.”

“Another poor soul to throw to the wolves?”

“Actually, I need to talk to him about a personal matter.” 

The merchant’s frown softened. Despite what she thought of her, Esther was not the enemy some had claimed her to be after discovering her consorting with the industry heads. If she learned anything about the girl, it was that she truly did want to help. Whatever she was doing up high, she doubted it was for selfish reasons. “He’s staying up near the river market. Last I heard, he’d got himself into a bit of trouble. You haven’t been sent to hurt him, have you?” 

“Of course not,” Esther said, meeting the scowls passing by head on before returning to Mariane. “It’s not the Kingsrose way, and I’m rather glad for it.”

“It’s Kingsrose you’re working with?” Realisation dawned, and she planted the cloth bundle into a wicker basket. “Some round here claimed you’d gone up to the bosses and offered to protect them. Didn’t want to believe it myself, but when you were spotted up at the headquarters, dressed to the nines, it was difficult not to.”

“They have something I need,” Esther told her. “Something that will help a lot of people.”

“Well, I wouldn’t hang around here too much,” Mariane advised. “Folk have their opinions, and I don’t think they want to change them, regardless of fact.” 

Esther understood. Betrayal hurt and even after learning the facts, some would always refuse to alter their views. “Thanks, Mari,” she said, hastening out of the alleyway. “I owe you one.”

Disturbed by the chilling wind, splashes of water foamed underneath the bridge railing as they soaked the concrete and rushed back into the fray. Esther narrowly avoided getting her shoes wet as she tuned into the hubbub, sweeping the array of baggy uniforms and downcast faces. She merged into the crowd, roaming and roving until she eventually sighted her target.

Not wishing to spook him, she approached gently. The moment his terrified gaze landed on her he broke into a sprint. After tracking him into the network of alleys behind the market, she launched a shield spell into his path. He careened into the transparent barrier and almost slammed into a mound of refuse bins. 

“Will you stop?” she demanded as he pounded on the boundary, staring at her over his shoulder as if she was about to rend his head from his shoulders. 

“No, I won’t go,” Gabriel panicked. “I’ve got no information, I swear.”

“I’m not here to take you to the authorities,” Esther promised.

Scanning the sincerity in her, he stopped clawing and turned to face her, chest heaving with every pant. 

“I know you’re scared, Gabriel,” she said softly. “I don’t blame you. The only reason I’m here is to pass on an important message. You’ll want to see it.” 

-- -- -- -- --

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[legendsofmyriad]

original writers and artists are the strongest creators on any fandom-oriented website. don't get discouraged. you gotta get so, so deranged about your projects. you gotta make that energy INFECTIOUS. YOUR AUDIENCE WILL FIND YOU.

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Bartholomew did warn you not to attack the book Lilith 😂

[legendsofmyriad]

Legends of Myriad: Arc One - Chapter 33: Assassin - Part 1

Chapter 32 | Chapter 34

Arc One Masterlist

-- -- -- -- --

“Please take the cars to the Kingsrose bay, but park them close to the canal,” Penelope requested. “Make sure the lights and engines are turned off, and stay alert.”

“Are you certain you don’t want us to find a closer spot for you?” the chauffeur asked.

Penelope answered with a decisive nod. “You are aware of the protocol if there should be trouble?” 

“Yes, ma’am. All your drivers have memorised and practised the codes. We are leaving nothing to chance.” 

“That is heartening to hear, Mills,” she replied, mustering a faint smile as the chauffeur respectfully tipped his hat to her and returned to the car. The row of vehicles pulled away from the curb and headed for the parking spaces at the rear of the headquarters. 

On the pavement, Esther waited. Despite the discomfort and limited flexibility of her new uniform, the advisers promised it would help her blend in. If it sufficiently masked her outsider status and allowed her to go unnoticed, she was willing to bear it for a few hours. But she did miss the balanced weight of her cape strapped to her shoulders. It had been with her from her first day at the academy, opting to mend and customise it as she matured instead of replacing it. Although she’d been given assurances that her belongings were safe at the Kingsrose estate, she felt their absence when she wasn’t nearby.

As Penelope ascended the gradual slope to the entryway, Esther fell in beside her, her array of advisers positioning themselves within in the procession. 

Five connected towers rose around a central courtyard, bleak structures leaking out water doused in an artificial viridescent glow. Esther craned her neck to get a better view, following the undulating lines. 

“It was once believed that the colour green represented power,” Penelope explained, watching as her bodyguard’s scrutiny scoured the industry hub.

Penelope’s glance at the mace on her belt didn’t escape the mage’s notice. Numerous individuals who had witnessed her fight at the Ironstrike prison would be there, and she anticipated their reactions would be anything but pleasant. It made no difference. Her purpose was to protect her charge, not concern herself with irrelevant opinions. Although she was itching for another tussle with them, she had a job to do. 

“How many exits are there?” Esther questioned, locked on to the looming structure. 

“Four downstairs, three on the upper level balconies where we will be holding the meeting,” Penelope responded, methodically combing down the list in her mind. “The only others would be the windows, but as you can see, there are hundreds of those.” 

A click caught on Esther’s tongue as she calculated numbers and odds. People were unpredictable, but their choices were not, making her task slightly less challenging. “Windows I can work with. Any basements?”

“None.”

“Roof access?” 

“Single route up and down. There is a corridor located behind the meeting room that provides entry.”

“If it’s so convenient for intruders to get in, wouldn’t it make more sense to have the talks somewhere else?” 

“Maybe so, but the other heads believed it would only express vulnerability and anxiety,” Penelope conceded. “For once, I agree with them. I will not cower, Esther.” 

Something in Penelope’s tone struck the mage. The way it shook, ever so slightly, before she promptly recomposed herself. It might have gone unnoticed by the rest of the entourage, but she was observant enough to detect it. Fear consumed the Kingsrose proprietor, and she couldn’t blame her. Her struggle for good had only resulted in her becoming a target. 

Upon entering the building, Esther inhaled, the oppressive air surging into her lungs and forcing her to regulate her breathing to adapt to the atmosphere. She remained in position while Penelope submitted the names of her companions to the receptionist. When it reached her turn, the woman behind the desk flashed her a wary look and continued typing. Content with their identities and paperwork, they were signalled to proceed to the lifts at the far end of the entry hall. 

“For the most part, you will be stood with the other bodyguards,” Penelope told her as the retinue regrouped. “And not to worry, you will not be expected to speak either. It’s likely that other industry leaders might be curious, but I’ll do my best to handle it, so you have no reason to talk to them.”

“Is my distaste of conversation so obvious?” Esther said, half-jokingly. 

“It is not,” Penelope assured her, “but I can read people rather well.” 

Temporarily separating from the group, Esther followed the Kingsrose head into a private lift, wondering what else her generous host could potentially have discerned about her. She had assumed she had done a good job of cloaking her emotions, but she understood that those experienced in observing others may have seen past her mask. 

Penelope cleared her throat and wrung her hands as they rushed to the pinnacle of the building. “There’s something I need to share with you, but it’s absolutely vital that it is kept between us.”

Esther spotted a slight tremor in her hand as she reached into her pocket and passed over a note. Opening it revealed a black frame. She checked the back to see if there were any words on the opposite side, but it remained blank. 

“The assassin is coming after me,” Penelope said with as much composure as she could retain. 

“How do you know?” 

“Because that is a funeral notice sheet. In Lumen, notices like these are issued when a person of status passes away. I received this a few weeks ago. My informants assured me none of the others have been sent one.”

Part of Esther secretly wished that another industry boss had been the intended target, it would certainly simplify her job, but at least now she was aware. “Why didn’t you bring this up earlier?” 

“I am never alone,” Penelope replied. “I am surrounded by people I do not know I can trust. But I do not get that sense of wariness with you.” Her expression carried a sincere apology, tinged with a slight reassurance. “I told you I read people well. I do not want to doubt my household, but I have to be cautious. As my bodyguard, it’s important for you to be informed of the risks you may encounter too.” 

Esther returned the empty piece of paper. She had been spoiling for a fight, and it seemed she would have the opportunity to do so, although not in the form she wanted. “They do say forewarned is forearmed,” she said. “And I am suitably armed.” 

* * *

“I cannot comprehend why you are so obstinate on the matter,” Master Tobin Wrenlow asserted. “The four of us have managed to reach an accord, but as usual, you dig your heels in.”

“Your proposals do not align with the concerns of Lumen,” Penelope replied, level-headed and resolute. Her voice betrayed little of the frustration coursing through her at yet another round of interrogation over her management style. 

“If the suggested policy changes do not serve Lumen’s best interests, then whose?” Edgar Ironstrike challenged. “I find it hard to believe that you are implying our propositions are self-serving. If that were true, the city would be in ruins.”

Penelope sensed the smug expression on his face without needing to look. Each meeting, they consistently manipulated her words to portray her as the outcast, burdening her with the responsibility of single-handedly holding back damaging laws to safeguard her own employees from the excessive cruelty of her peers. Her father had fought the same battle, her grandmother, and great-grandmother before him. They kept her occupied with protecting her own people to hinder her from interfering in their matters, and it was becoming increasingly challenging to hold them at bay. 

“Miss Kingsrose, your lenient approach with your employees does not make you the hero you so desperately desire to be,” Tobin argued, as if addressing a child. “It is important for all of us to unite and ensure that the city operates with discipline and order. Without it, there will be anarchy.” 

There already is anarchy, Penelope kept behind clenched teeth. Have you not seen the riots in the streets? Are you deaf to the pleas of your own people, desperate for even a sliver of compassion?

Despite the clear difference between discipline and outright torture, the others did not care for such discrepancies. In their mind, they were one and the same. “May I remind you of the Law of Families?” she stated. “Each of us has the freedom to run our factions according to our own judgement. Your persistence in imposing your policies on my district comes close to violating the code we all agreed to abide by. Is that not correct, Master Wrenlow?” 

“My intention is solely to safeguard you, my dear,” Tobin responded. “You only took over from your late father a few years ago, and I would hate to see you fall into the same trap he did. When you offer your employees too much freedom, there is a risk of them exploiting you, as with him.”

Penelope persisted in her quarrel, and Esther admired her commanding presence as she dauntlessly held the fort for the Kingsrose district, forbidding any malice from pervading those walls. She had a hunch that if Penelope had the means, she would have interfered in every punishment and act of savagery, in order to spare anyone she could, whether they were her employee or not. She had a strong attachment to both the city and its inhabitants, and she refused to conceal that fact. 

However, if she wanted the other leaders to uphold the laws regarding her own liberties in managing the Kingsrose territory, she couldn’t manipulate them for personal gain, regardless of good intentions. Esther speculated about the other measures that barred her from acting on behalf of other Lumen workers, the additional regulations that her associates leveraged to preserve their power. 

Discreetly readjusting her stance, she considered the faces at the table. While Penelope engaged in a heated dispute with Tobin and now Emalie Featherheart, she became aware of Ironstrike’s piercing amber scrutiny. The debate faded into insignificance as he redirected his regard to the outsider in their ranks. 

Esther maintained a neutral appearance, clenching her fists to hide the storm within her. The mere sight of that man triggered the haunting image of the Ironstrike workers on their knees, the crackle of the neck braces merging with the cries of the unjustly punished. She didn’t think she would ever forget the sickening sound of Edgar’s mocking laughter from his elevated box, or the pungent odour of charred flesh that clung to her clothes in the days after she had intervened. And Gabriel. Poor boy had been scared witless. She couldn’t be sure if it was the punishment or her rather daring appearance that had startled him, but at least he had escaped the situation. Wherever he was now, she hoped he found safety. 

Ironstrike sneered and returned himself to the discussion. Although tempted to remove the smirk from his face, Esther had made a commitment to behave and recognised being in his presence might be an opportunity to cultivate her patience. He would suffer the consequences of his actions. All she had to do was wait. 

Out of the corner of her eyes, she detected subtle movements as a bodyguard discreetly inched closer, mindful not to disturb the important meeting. 

“Hey,” the guard said with a welcoming smile, itching underneath her ponytail. “I’m Cammie, Miss Featherheart’s security. You’re Esther, right? The mage from Solgarde?”

“That’s me,” Esther replied, making an effort not to lose concentration. Nothing appeared amiss and the five heads seemed so engrossed in their argument that she doubted they would notice her conversing, at least for a few minutes. 

“How are you finding Lumen?” Cammie asked. 

“I don’t think you want me to answer that.”

The Featherheart bodyguard gave an understanding shrug and rocked on her heels, stretching her legs to alleviate the cramps from standing still. Across the room, another guard scowled at her from his stationary position, and she discreetly threw him an obscene gesture. “Is it true you have magic?” she whispered to Esther, undeterred by her colleague’s disdain. 

With her dedication intact, the mage nodded and kept her attention on her surroundings and the woman under her protection. 

“You’re fortunate to be assigned to Miss Kingsrose,” Cammie remarked, observing her vigilant watch over her charge. “But you should be wary. No matter how nice she might seem, they all like to collect rare things. Since you now serve the families, they may be reluctant to release you.”

“I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” Esther affirmed. 

“Don’t you think they know that?” 

Esther finally tore her gaze from Penelope and directed it at the shorter guard. Contrary to her suspicion, she did not seem jealous, but genuinely fearful.

At that moment, she came to understand her significance to them. They saw her as neither an oddity nor an outsider; she was a weapon, and her mere presence among them made her dangerous. She was not immune to their persuasion. After all, she had accepted the duty of protecting them because they possessed something she needed. 

“Nobody is truly invincible,” Cammie said, repositioning herself a few steps away from Esther. “Doesn’t matter how good of a fighter you are. They’ll get you, by fair means or foul. Never forget that.” 

* * *

Penelope dabbed a couple of small drops of perfume onto her wrists and shook them dry, stifling the yawn irritating her throat. Subtle smudges under her eyes betrayed her fatigue as she organised her assortment of creams and lotions.

After their return, she ensured Esther was nearby. Conscious of the possibility of an attack during the meeting, she tried her best to stay calm and hide any signs of nervousness to uphold her authority among the other attendees. But that moment never came, leaving her even more tense than before. 

In the mirror’s reflection, she watched Esther perched on the windowsill, her legs neatly angled to the side and her feet tapping a rhythm on the dense carpet. Regardless of her height and the low window, she managed to fold herself to fit, untroubled by the inconvenience as she concentrated on the dimmed garden outside. 

The way she sat, expectant and attentive, stirred memories of the princesses Penelope read about when she snuck into the library at night during her childhood. How the imprisoned princess would linger by the window for her prince to whisk her away and transport her to a brighter life. Yet Esther was no helpless royal, and Penelope had faith in her capability to rescue herself if the need arose. That girl would battle tooth and nail to liberate herself rather than sticking around for someone to save her. 

“You conducted yourself well during the talks,” she said, applying a thin layer of moisturiser and massaging it into her skin. “I’m certain that some were waiting for an opening to challenge my decision to hire you, but you didn’t provide them with any ammunition. You did yourself and me proud.” 

Esther ceased her tapping motions. The unexpected sincerity in Penelope’s voice and her heartfelt beam made her throat tighten with emotion. “Thank you,” she mustered through the odd sensation in her chest. 

Pride swelled within Penelope at the tiny, unstoppable smile she received in response. She dusted a light layer of powder on her cheeks and poked at the delicate wrinkles near her eyes. “I should be the one expressing my gratitude. You have stayed with me all evening while I rambled on about my problems.” 

“I don’t mind,” Esther replied absentmindedly, her attention diverted by her search of the maze-like hedges and the sprouting rose bushes. Throughout her stay, she came to the understanding that Penelope had nobody to confide in, not in a way that wouldn’t cause potential repercussions in the future, and their conversation in the lift before the meeting confirmed as much. 

Prior to meeting Oscar and Alek, she experienced a similar corralling, her every word closely monitored by her parents and tutors. Every time she showed any level of dissent from Cavelli custom, she was firmly reminded of her identity and the expectations placed upon her. Making the decision to detach from her roots and let go of her heritage had not been easy, but ultimately, she had no regrets. She was free to decide who she was, tied to nothing and no one. 

“If you are tired, you may retire for the night,” Penelope advised. “We’ve both had an exhausting day.”

“I’m fine,” Esther said, shifting from the gardens and relieving the discomfort in her thighs. “Since you got that warning, it might be wise for me to remain here a little longer, at least until the guards have swapped over.”

Rising in a trace of scented beauty products, Penelope typed at the monitor by the doorway of the dressing room. “In that case, I’ll request some refreshments. Would you like a cup of hot chocolate or tea?”

“Tea, please,” she answered, drawing out the words as a piercing presence bit into her senses. Harnessing her powers, she rose from the ledge and gazed out of the cross-hatched window, squinting through the patterns and leftover rain droplets. The fabric of the world moved differently here compared to the centre of Lumen. It took her a while to familiarise herself with the sensation of the Kingsrose district, studying how the pendulum transitioned between day and night. Mostly, it ebbed in natural waves, but every now and again she felt a prickle of a sinister undercurrent, something lurking beneath the surface. But it wasn’t waiting anymore. It was close.

“Esther?” Penelope said within the unsettled quiet. “Is everything all right?”

Esther extended her hand to prevent her from nearing the window, leaning forward until her forehead almost connected with the cold glass. Her breath crawled in patches on the transparent squares. 

A shadow flickered over the top of her vision before the pane smashed, mucky boots colliding with her shoulder. She met the carpeting with a huff, the wind nearly knocked from her lungs as she hit the vanity table on the way down. With no time to recoil or process the abrupt arrival, she lashed out and delivered a powerful kick to the back of the trespasser’s legs, forcing him onto his knees. As he flailed and made a feeble attempt at a counterattack, she snatched his wrists, immobilising him on the soft carpet and uncovering his head. Recognition flashed in the attacker’s eyes as he gaped up at her.

“Who is that?” Penelope asked, shuffling closer. 

“Stay back,” Esther ordered, coughing as she regained her breath and stared down at Gabriel. What was he doing there? He was no assassin, so why was he pretending to be one? 

In the seconds before a fourth energy made contact with her magic, she quickly grasped the strategy, managing to reclaim her balance as the door swung open and a bullet embedded itself in the wall near the dresser mere inches from its target.

Seizing a book from the sideboard, she hurled it at the true assassin’s face. She wrenched her mace from her belt before he could recover from the hit, revolved it on the chain, and thrust the rune-covered ball upward into his chin. 

An agonised cry burst from the man and he crumpled, gun spiralling and spinning to a stop underneath the wardrobe. Esther infused her palm with a binding spell and poised it above him, droplets of magic ensnaring him in her power. He spat out a sticky, crimson glob as Darrien barged in, accompanied by a squadron of guards. Everywhere they looked, they witnessed the aftermath of the chaos: a vanity table upturned, shattered glass from the window and mirror strewn about, and the intense smell of sweat and blood overpowering the flowery perfumes. 

“Arrest him!” Esther demanded, shocking them into action. Darrien apprehended the assailant and secured his hands, yanking him to his feet and ordering him to stop complaining as he towed him out of the room. 

Esther rushed over to Penelope and aided her up from her hiding place by the dresser. Finding nothing but shakes and wide eyes, she looked back to the window. The carpet bore a few remaining blood splatters, but the former Ironstrike guard was long gone, taking with him Esther’s hope for some answers.

-- -- -- -- --

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[legendsofmyriad]

Lore of Myriad - The Founding of the Clan of the Phoenix

The Clan of the Phoenix is among five vampyre clans in Lucarian. These vampyres hold a considerable amount of power, able to consume both energy and blood, unlike their counterparts who solely rely on the latter. Upon the establishment of the clan, they were referred to as high vampyres. 

The clan was founded by Orenda Callarook, the youngest of the five founders and only part vampyre. Born under the blessing of a dying phoenix, she developed magnificent fiery wings and gained renown as a formidable warrior. As she got older, she embraced her power and committed herself to using it for the improvement of Lucarian. She travelled extensively in the realm of the undead, aiding the disadvantaged, holding the influential accountable, and mediating between villages to prevent war. 

When a leader in the north-west grew unruly and cruel, she listened to the cries of the people and emerged victorious in a one-on-one battle when he dared to challenge her. Due to her reputation as a bold yet kind-hearted soul and as a token of gratitude, she was appointed as their new ruler. As a gesture of acceptance, she gave them her strength and long-lasting life, elevating them to the status of high vampyres. They learned from her example and she charged them with protecting the vulnerable and maintaining a code of honour. 

In order to prevent any individual from having absolute authority, she established a system of three seats, which other clan leaders also adopted after witnessing her success. The first seat she took for herself. She gave the second one to a wise general who valued diplomacy over violence, and the third to an adept alchemist who had dedicated her life to alleviating the suffering of others. 

During the harshest winter of her lifetime, she commanded a group of high vampyres to visit a human village within her realm. Their mission was to deliver a fragment of her fire for warmth and sustenance to aid the crops that had withered in the freezing temperatures. Although the initial flame was destroyed years later in a strange incident, a remnant of the blaze was salvaged. This was planted inside a cave in Whitepond Peak where it burns to this day. They named it The Pitch Flame and maintained it in tribute to their founder. This fire is used to light funeral pyres, as it is believed to carry the bodies of the departed to Orenda’s Hall. 

With each passing generation, they remained true to their founder’s belief in the importance of honourable actions, and their culture adapted to incorporate those values. Like her, they possess exceptional skills in combat, but they put top priority on exhausting all alternatives before engaging in war. 

The clan is currently led by Lord Alaric Volkar, Lord Bertram Demaret, and Lady Muriel Austra. 

-- -- -- -- --

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[legendsofmyriad]

It's Mr Grumpy himself! That spirit is way too happy for his liking

[legendsofmyriad]

Legends of Myriad: Arc One - Chapter 32: Home

Chapter 31 | Chapter 33

Arc One Masterlist

-- -- -- -- --

Lilith hoisted her foot higher. Thorny brambles stretched to snag her ankles, and she struggled to keep pace with the professor marching ahead unhindered. He moved through the forest with a touch of purpose, effortlessly avoiding the snaring clutches of the dark vines, as though guided by an unseen force. 

Each footfall squelched, and she could feel the soil beneath her giving way. She managed to find some wedged flagstones to save her shoes from sinking into the mud. 

Everything seemed to lean towards her, with a mix of curiosity and despair, unfolding within the fungus and spores to plea for sympathy. All remnants of its former splendour were gone, yet Lilith made an effort to picture it. Fronds reaching high, sun beating down. Mischievous scampers rustling the undergrowth and the crisp, powdery scent of blossom. Witnessing the beauty and marvel of Skuld’s forest, it disheartened her to observe the neglect and desolation of this one. 

Competing with the professor’s flurried strides, she worked to stay upright and stick to the path he set, fearing she would be swallowed by the unknown if she strayed. 

Gnarled and mauled, the trees creaked as they passed. Similar to desperate lovers clinging onto each other to prevent their fall, they continued to beckon to the professor, but their cries went unanswered and Bartholomew disregarded their noise. 

He retained a steady concentration on the road ahead, swinging his cane with his onward motion. He glimpsed the mage behind him to ensure she hadn’t got lost and was still trailing after him. Although she often focused on the ground below, she stole occasional glances at her surroundings, likely sensing the raw magic and tapping into the energy. Constantly alert and dissecting. Aware of how tiring a mind like that was, he admired Lilith’s resilience as she pressed on, unfazed by any obstacles. 

“We will not be here long,” he assured her, tapering his speed to allow her to match his strides. “Once we obtain the mineral, we can return to the laboratory.”

“What exactly is this mineral we’re looking for?” Lilith asked. Gathering the hem of her lengthy jacket, she sidestepped a swampy puddle and shuffled around the stagnant pool.  

“The proper term for it is an Ocher Ore. While unremarkable in appearance, it is rather rare and only develops under immense pressure, which has the potential to lead to destructive rockslides. The Core imbued them with its power, making them easier to locate. Specialists here identify and remove them in order to limit additional damage to our natural formations.”

He studied the branching pathways and choose the farthest, ushering her on along the narrow pathway and into gloomier stretches of forest. 

Lilith paid close attention to his navigational skills, noticing how he deliberately steered them into increasingly isolated areas, even at the expense of their speed. His voice lost all fascination, and his main concern appeared to be getting the ore and leaving, rather than expressing his adventurous side. 

As they arrived at a sprawling clearing, a colossal skeleton greeted them, collapsed tree boughs sprouting from its centre. A ring of smaller, identical skeletons enclosed the rib cage. 

Much to Lilith’s astonishment, Bartholomew came to a halt for the first time in hours. He hadn’t even bothered to take stock of the gateway they had landed on, but now he paused, inhaled as though exhausted, and inclined his head to the remains. 

Vigilant steps drove him to the monumental skull, the holes where eyes had once watched the world empty and wind crossing through like an open doorway. His flat palm met the smooth, off-white bone. Cracks shot like lightning forks in the carcass of that magnificent creature, fractured yet holding on, denying time’s wish for them to wither and fade to dust. 

“They don’t look like the skeletons on The Core,” Lilith noted. 

“This was no invader,” Bartholomew replied, making a conscious effort not to sound offended. She didn’t know. Only a handful of people likely understood the significance. 

“What was it?” the mage questioned as she craned her neck to see the skull’s rounded top, the head angled in everlasting curiosity. 

The name hung on the tip of his tongue, stubbornly refusing to be uttered. If this pure creature had perished, he feared that the others he had researched and fostered had faced the same fate. 

“It no longer matters,” he declared, distancing himself from the bones. 

Lilith prepared to wring out more information, but ultimately decided against it as he steered her away from the crowded graveyard and further into the humid channels. 

“You seem to know your way around here well,” she commented, swatting aside a drooping sprig and shaking the sticky droplets from her gloves. 

“I am the Navigator of Myriad,” he reminded her. “I have an exemplary understanding of all locations.”

“But on Skuld you were happy to go through the front door. Here, you’re… skulking.”

He gave an indignant scoff. A man of his prestige did not skulk, and he vehemently denied any inclination towards such behaviour, even when consumed by emotion. “Skulking?”

“Yeah, as if you’re waiting for something.” Hoping he would open up, she allowed the silence to dawdle, but he remained tight-lipped. “There are just two conclusions I can draw,” she continued, verbally nudging him and attentive to any giveaways in his expression. “Either you’re trying to avoid being seen, or there’s a potential threat. If it were the latter, I’m sure you would have given me a heads-up, so I’m guessing you do not wish to be spotted.”

Content with her observations, she redirected herself to the trail. “I have a knack for telling when someone is being sneaky, regardless of how well it’s concealed.”

“Is it fair to say this is a situation of ‘like attracts like’?” Bartholomew pressed, impressed by her perception and vowing to be more discreet around her in the future. 

Looking up at him with a wide grin, Lilith welcomed his assumption. “Perhaps. Or maybe I’m starting to understand you better.” 

Out of the forest and towards the mountains, the echo of a crumbled structure ascended from the clay, cutting into the ethereal lavender sky. Heaps of dirt and decay smothered the decorated slabs, coating the once vivid motifs in filth. The highest tower’s precarious lean cast a dominating shadow over the neglected courtyard. 

How it had not already fallen to dust and oblivion, Lilith didn’t know. A peculiar ambiance crawled within the broken formation, as if every element had been constructed using otherworldly forces. In her attempts to attune herself to it, to forge a bond with the unusual energy, it receded like an anxious animal into hidden nooks. 

They wandered by semi-circular edifices and crossed beneath small aqueducts, devoid of water and the decorative trims all but decimated. It was not only natural decay that had seeped into the cracks and crevices of this magnificent construction; it had been attacked. As she looked up, Lilith discerned the deep, jagged wounds on the sides from a merciless and powerful onslaught. Instead of being fixed, they remained as a symbol of the acute struggle that marked its final moments. 

Bartholomew guided her into a side entrance of the keep, where the derelict remains of a kitchen clung to the walls with rusty nails and distorted fixtures. The intense odour of rot followed hot on their heels, saturating the surroundings with its pervasive presence. Mindful of her footing, she took each grimy stair with caution, the slime and ooze trying in vain to send her crashing. 

She suppressed her revulsion with a hard swallow to rid her throat of bile and accompanied the professor into a rounded room at the peak of the smallest tower. The oppressive heat was alleviated to some extent by the hole in the ceiling, the far side of the roof having collapsed and slid down the wall to rest. 

“Are you certain the stone is in here?” Lilith questioned as Bartholomew headed straight for the upended desk by the solitary surviving window. Treading over bumps in the once navy rug and blowing at the dust on the picture frames, she squinted to make out the faded faces hidden underneath. “There doesn’t seem to be anything left.”

“It is here,” Bartholomew said plainly. He shoved a drawer out of the way and proceeded to the next, rifling through the papers and snatching the velvet box within. With a flick of the clasp, he revealed the warming sight concealed inside. 

“Can you keep this on you?” he asked, getting up off his knees and handing over their precious find. 

Wordlessly, Lilith stowed it away in the pouch on her belt and secured the button with a click. The professor fixed on the annihilation with a grief-laden curve between his brow. 

“What was this building?” she questioned.

“I believe the more important question is who resided here,” a lulled voice sighed from the open doorway.

Bartholomew swung round, Lilith close behind. She lifted her hands, palms radiating magic, but his firm grip on her wrist encouraged her to lower her defences. “Everything is all right,” he assured her. “We are not in any danger.” 

From the darkness of the corridor, a lady emerged, her flowing off-white gown trailing in her wake like a cascading river. Her rosy gaze wandered over the hesitant mage and landed on the professor, head angled in a mix of grace and surprise. “Who abandoned this castle?” she urged. “Who owned such a beautiful place and surrendered it to rot and ruin?” 

Jaw stiffening, Bartholomew tensed the constraint on his cane, the silver ornament on top pressing imprints on his palm. 

“Do not look so displeased to see me,” the woman stated, dismissing his unfriendly reception. “I merely wanted to welcome you home, brother. It’s been far too long.”

Lilith’s attention snapped to her guide so abruptly she almost gave herself whiplash. 

The professor ignored her reaction and straightened up in an attempt to assert authority. His sister’s expression of intrigue towards his companion didn’t go unnoticed. “Marcia,” he said, “allow me to present Commander Lilith Cleaver of the Sunbreak Army.”

“A mage, I see.”

Bartholomew cast an apprehensive glimpse at Lilith. “This is my sister, Marcia.”

“We have not been graced with a Solgardian presence in centuries. You are most welcome here, commander,” Marcia greeted, her radiance slipping as she returned to her brother. “I had no idea you intended to visit. I suspected that there would be some activity here with the gateways stirring. You must bring your new friend to the Palace of Prosperity. I am confident she will find it delightful.”

“That is unnecessary. There is much-”

“I insist.” 

“We are in a rather urgent situation and-”

“Bartholomew, your family is eager to see you again. After such a long time apart, can you not spare a few hours to pay us a visit?” In the face of silence, Marcia claimed victory. “You may languish here a little longer before you join us.” She tilted her head to Lilith before strolling out into the shadowy corridor. 

Bartholomew’s throat tightened as he stared at the doorway, fearing that his family would pounce on him the instant he made a move to depart. “Commander Cleaver, would you mind heading to the overlook and inspecting the grounds? Report any movement as soon as you spot it.” 

Even though Lilith had many unanswered questions clamouring for answers, his discomfort was difficult to miss. With a reassuring touch on his arm, she left to comply with his instruction. 

Once she had gone, Bartholomew shifted to the rest of the room, dust stinging his eyes and his nose clogging with the smell of decay. Annoyance bubbled inside him, but he tempered it. He assumed he had been discreet in his actions, but his family’s realisation that he had completed his slumber caused complications he could not afford. 

Even as she reached the highest elevation of the fortress, the stuffy, coagulated air endured, like a river clogged with moss and muck. Looking down from that height, she had an unobstructed view of the forest they had journeyed through, boughs knotted and contorted, clutching at unstable dirt. Several had succumbed and fallen, tearing down vines and other trees in their descent. If a sufficient force pushed the ones at the edge, the rest were bound to collapse like Asari dominoes. They survived by sheer willpower, defying the odds stacked against them and clinging on.

Beyond the deterioration, she sighted a lofty structure peeping over the horizon and leaned a little further over the upper bastion barrier, the curtain wall of the keep dropping precariously into a dried-up moat. At first, it appeared as a distant haze, but upon closer observation, she noticed it formed the midpoint of the segmented territories around it. 

Dusk bathed the province to the immediate right in a pastel pink glow and drew her to the castle nestled amongst flourishing hills and rambling fields. Bartholomew’s domain only served as a shadow now. Consumed by his own pursuits, he neglected everything else. A fraction of her questioned if his family had tended to it in his absence, holding onto the hope that he would come back someday. Waiting, wondering, and resigning it to the inevitable decay once they accepted he had become too immersed in his adventures to desire to return home. 

Farina would always ensure her rooms at The Citadel were impeccable while she was away, prepared to welcome her home at a moment’s notice. She often left small gifts for her, like a bottle of her favourite perfume or an assortment of snacks. Had Bartholomew’s family shown him the same kindness? Or had they waved him off with a half-hearted goodbye and got on with their own lives? If they were as old as him, she supposed a few centuries were a fleeting blink to them, and the collapse of their brother’s lands even less. 

Bartholomew coughed to announce his arrival and joined her by the bulwark edge. His chest deflated in a wistful breath as he drank in the scope of his neglect. 

“There’s been no movement,” she reported. 

“It is as I suspected,” Bartholomew responded, scanning the treetops as if his mere gaze might coax any signs of existence to reveal themselves. “It is all gone.”

Turning aside from the bleak tract of forest, Lilith moved to the professor. He met her inquisitive glance. “I wasn’t looking out for more surprise visits from your relatives, was I?” she guessed. 

“I detected that everything in my territory was dead,” he said, “yet I clung to a shred of hope that some semblance of life remained.” He tore himself away from the decay of his own making. “I appreciate your vigilance.”

“All part of the service.” Although she grasped his reasons for seeking the Ocher Ore and departing, she pondered whether he had anticipated a different outcome when reuniting with his family. A heartwarming reconciliation, promising hope and harmony. “I thought you were born on The Core.” 

“It was once widely believed The Core created me,” the professor told her after a breathy chuckle at her assumption. “However, I was born here, on Prosperia, in the Palace of Prosperity, just like my siblings. I was granted ownership of these lands once I reached adulthood.”

He recalled his immense excitement when he was given this territory to call his own, a place he might cultivate as he pleased. Yet as the years passed, he grew uninterested in his duties, finding the melody of the cosmos to be an agonising reminder of his isolation until he surrendered to the beguiling song. “Although I regret its current condition, I would still prefer this over witnessing a prosperous land and see only my prison. I longed for adventure, and by the stars did I get it.” 

“Is it fixable?” Lilith asked, gazing back out with a renewed perspective.

“What ravaged life in that forest and destroyed this fortification was incredibly powerful,” Bartholomew said, wording his response with care. “Even I struggled to repel it. Fixing this will not be as simple as removing the debris and reassembling the pieces. There is a web of dark magic to unravel.” 

“Doesn’t sound impossible to me,” the mage shrugged. “The keep hasn’t been decimated beyond its original form and there is much that survives.” She surveyed the rampart, the courtyard beneath, and out to the mangled wood. “From what I know, you were always there for others in their time of need. Maybe after we have woken The Core, you can stay here for a while. I am confident that there are people who will lend a hand in repairing all this, including myself.”

Silence hung between them. In the twitch of his jaw and the staunch focus on the rotting terrain, she could see her suggestion sinking in. “In my experience, many like to think they are alone,” she continued, “but that is rarely the truth. As long as your intentions are good, there will always be people ready to assist you in whatever endeavours your brilliant mind concocts.”

Bartholomew wished he could convey his gratitude for her stalwart support, but chaos clouded his thoughts and he grappled to articulate any of it. Instead, he rested his hand on her back and bent his head in civility. “Few have described my mind as ‘brilliant’,” he admitted, pausing briefly. In the past, some labelled him as dangerous, while others insinuated he used his centuries of wisdom for selfish gain. He found solace in the knowledge she was willing to stay and discover the kinder side of him. 

“People like you always have brilliance hiding somewhere,” Lilith assured him. “I have been fortunate enough to have met many wonderful people, enough to know.” 

He had no hesitation or uncertainty about that. For someone of such tender years, she had experienced much. “I am grateful for your support, commander,” he said earnestly. “You are right. The awakening of The Core might offer an opportunity for a new beginning. Darkness does not last forever, and after so long in shadow, this land deserves some light.” 

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