A Courtesan's War

Much of a person’s life is already dictated, with natural unfairness, by where and to whom they were born. When the lot cast upon a child is one of mistreatment, that realisation makes for a dreary one. If I were myself, but born in fairer lands, could I have done more? If I were myself, but properly raised, would I be healthy now? Even should opportunity batter such a person with exit ramps off the paths of their parents, or hard work forge for them the same, the ties of kinship and habits of upbringing rarely fade completely.

For Jacklyn Blackthorne, unwilling heir to the bloodiest underworld in Ordanz, these were uncomfortable thoughts.

Consider first his country, the cruel nation of Ordanz. A land smothered by uninhabitable tundra but for its northernmost reaches, none but the richest have the luxury of knowing whether a single morsel will today cross their plate. Poverty is the lot for the hundreds of millions of people who inhabit the country’s subterranean tunnel-systems and vault-chambers, with most fated to labour in inhumane conditions as miners or factory-men. After paying tithes for rent, heating, air, food, and water from the scant pennies of their paycheck, and saving fastidiously for a month, a truly lucky duck might purchase such an extravagant treat as an egg. Else the typical life is that of a slave, indentured and beaten, then worked and replaced.

Consider next Jacklyn’s father, the foreign exile Mason Whitewood. Kicked out of his homelands in the Kingdoms of Asphodel, without any assets to cushion his fall through the classes, he quickly became a thief, and then a slave, within a couple months of entering Ordanz. Being more savvy than the typical vault-dweller, though, and unaccustomed to the harsh demands or communal lifestyle imposed on Ordish slaves, rather than submit, he found ways to cheat other slaves out of benefits and into doing his work for him.

His overseers spotted his terrible work ethic and exploitation of other slaves. After running the numbers, they realised Mason’s presence harmed their operation’s profit margins. They ruled he would be more useful being slaughtered as food for the better slaves, but Mason learned of this plan and fled. However, between his distinctive foreign appearance and the bounty on his head, it would not be long before someone saw him and turned him in.

Now consider last Jacklyn’s mother, the matron Desiree Blackthorne. A former prostitute who appeared out of the tunnels into the unremarkable vault of East Welding, still under construction at that time as a residential zone for factory workers, she negotiated her way with sex, love, and blackmail into the meeting room of Seacrest Enterprises, the billion-dollar company that owned most of the underground. Allying with them as a supplier of exotic drugs, beautiful slaves, and information on enemy corporations, she was granted amnesty to operate out of East Welding and secure Seacrest more of her product, which she enthusiastically did.

She invested her massive profits right back into East Welding. By nurturing the city’s infrastructure, enticing aspiring merchants to establish themselves there, and hiring workers at unimaginably high wages, the city transformed into a rich and quite comfortable harbour among otherwise unremitting poverty. Though underscored with vicious crime as a side-effect of Desiree’s work, and moreso as a side-effect of her enforcers, the gang Black Thorns, punishing cheats and offing competitors, none could argue with the dollars. Daily murders, ruthless loan sharking, and rampant sex trafficking were simply what one accepted should one accept life in East Welding, and consequently life under Desiree.

She also had a fetish for handsome exotic men, meaning foreigners like Mason. She squirrelled him away from the authorities and into East Welding, where she took him as her concubine, landing him in a position barely any better than where he started. In exchange for more freedom, Mason offered her surprisingly in-depth knowledge on running high-scale criminal enterprise, the worth of which Desiree acknowledged. She begrudgingly agreed to keep Mason as a business partner on a leash, rather than a sex toy, and by their collaboration Black Thorns’ scope swelled immensely to secure it as a pillar of the Ordish underworld.

These are parents, the environment, and the circumstances into which Jacklyn and his elder twin sister, Jayden, were born.

Desiree and Mason were terrible parents. With Mason fundamentally uninterested in rearing kids, and Desiree too careless to do so herself, the twins were handed off to Desiree’s friends in the Thorns. But between frequent arrests and various internal dramas, they wound up being passed around many different homes and parental figures, while only seeing either one of their real parents maybe once every few months. Instead of any particular adult, they latched onto each other for security.

Being twins, they were compared to each other relentlessly. Jayden was loud, bold, tough, aggressive, and self-assured. She was the one people accepted and praised. Jacklyn was quiet, sweet, emotional, pacifistic, and easily coerced into bitchwork. He was the one people bullied and exploited.

Jacklyn envied Jayden, for how she stood up to adults and shooed scary strangers like gnats, but prided in her too. Jayden scorned Jacklyn, for sobbing constantly over everyday conflicts and letting himself be used, but babied him too. She was strong, he was weak. That was the fundamental takeaway, reinforced every time Jacklyn, unsure about exiting the house alone, or too scared to stay in the same room as their caregivers’ toked-up friends, or bawling into a pillow as furniture smashed downstairs, automatically turned towards Jayden for rescue.

Any prospect of Jacklyn growing to emulate her, though, was eliminated by age seven. That was when Jayden joined some uncles in a gang brawl gone wrong, where people died, uncles died, and Jayden, too, almost died, but survived with just a missing eye. More horrified over Jayden’s near-death incident than she even was herself, Jacklyn obeyed when Jayden forbid him from ever touching the dirty side of the Thorns. He was plainly too weak to make it. Rather, he should focus on his real wants and hobbies, while she took on the gang. Seeing her confidence as she proposed this, the terror she might die in the Thorns shifted into the realisation that she was, in fact, not like him, and thus, would be totally fine.

And indeed, as their teens came and went, Jayden came to thrive in East Welding. The money she made in contribution to the Thorns, administering its operations directly under Desiree, had already secured her in the local consciousness as the city’s next don, though nothing formalised that claim except the knowledge that any challengers to it would promptly find themselves in the obituaries. Her reputation was brutal, and fully deserved, as not a single threat, whether upon disobedient gangmates, loaners shirking their debt, or children of fee-dodging shopkeepers, had ever gone unfulfilled. Everyone knew her, and everyone feared her. In her mercenary way, she just seemed kind of invincible.

But Jacklyn saw the Thorns had changed her. Beneficiary as he was to her intimidating reputation, which in itself eliminated the harassment he had feared when he was young, to see her come home covered in blood again, or decorated with new scars, tired and curtly unwilling to talk, worried him. And though she would laugh or smile again when the topic shifted off of work, she had also become frankly mean. The way she regarded Jacklyn was no longer that he was weak, and thus needed help, but that he was weak, and thus helpless, and damn fucking lucky he had her.

Jacklyn agreed with that sentiment, truly, 100%. Jayden’s blood-money breadwinning enabled not just his comfortable lifestyle, of good food and good clothes and good fun and good everything, but the absolute freedom he had in East Welding. He could rely on her utterly. Anything he wanted was simply a matter of asking for it through her, and unless it was blatantly stupid, she would make it work. All he could or really had to do was house chores. The rest of his timetable was eternally open to just hang or go out or whatever. He could even meddle with the Thorns without consequence. Frankly, he was fucking spoiled.

For it, he could feel himself stagnating. East Welding, with all its delights of gourmet restaurants and casinos and gamerooms and brothels, each seeping with a foundation of bloody rape and murder, strangled him like a cage many sizes too small. Everything he saw seemed somehow corrupt, but he could not think of any way to change it. Though sheltered and smiling under the wing of Jayden and Desiree, more and more, he began to feel sick.

He didn’t belong here.

Or so he would think, but then Jayden would flop to the couch exhausted and lob her coat into the hamper like garbage, and Jacklyn would know his place was beside her.

Or so he would think, but then Desiree would summon him again to her tower, and—and, well.

She never had stopped hankering for that exotic concubine, of hers.

And apparently she figured he’d grow to be outrageously hot by the time he was still a toddler. He wasn’t going to whip useful knowledge on running a criminal syndicate out of his ass, either. Of course he needed to ripen, but the absolute control she had over him thrilled her. What were these years of interim, but her chance to prepare her young lover? Get him all cute and seasoned. Get him sweet and obedient.

Jacklyn resigned quite quickly that he had no place, but beneath her.

Given how submissive he was to her from the outset, though, honestly, it barely seemed necessary.

That was Jacklyn’s life. He was still luckier than most. For allowing him to live with the vast privileges he had and keeping him out of death in the gutters, though underscored with frustration, his gratitude for his situation ran deep.

Still, he had fantasies.

Two stupid, recurrent ideals.

In one, he was a prince. The offspring of Asphodelean nobility, with a retinue waiting to accept him back home. The obscurity of his father’s past, which he never divulged, fuelled the fantasy well. Though he knew his father was probably just a dishonourable crook, Jacklyn couldn’t help but romanticise his ties to a land of tradition, nobility, and majesty.

In the other, he was Jayden. Invincible, untouchable, strong enough to do whatever he wanted, powerful enough that nobody would think of pushing him around. Everyone respected him. And he could rock short shorts like woah. His idolization of her had never faded, though it was what she represented, rather than what she did, that transfixed him.

Two dumb power fantasies of an ineffectual boy whose only strength came from nepotism. Baseless, outlandish, no chance of ever happening.

Until the day that that marbled letter came, penned in its gold-leaf calligraphy, stamped in wax with an unfamiliar seal — that of the royal house Asphodel.

START.

Mason and his immediate family are invited to the funeral of Faron Whitewood, Jacklyn’s paternal grandfather, at the personal behest of the King of Asphodel, His Majesty Aquila. So, time for an exclusive cross-borders vaycay to that country Jacklyn has always wondered about.

The opportunity’s really more of a miracle. As Jacklyn cranes his head back to observe the grey curtain of sky, and the corners of the letter press into his thumbs, the goosebumps from the nippy air ripple down his arms, electric.

Their mailman and escort on this journey is Trivia Venn, a powerful witch and veteran traveller. As she guides the twins, their parents, and her travelling partner Swift along the international checkpoints, she divulges some of what to expect from Asphodel. The nation has recently recovered from a terrible civil war, and Mason’s family garnered quite high rank by servicing the true Crown in the aftermath. For someone of Faron’s standing, funeral invitations to all kin are customary. Jacklyn muses on this story, as the party arrives in Asphodel’s capital city, Ferendaux.

They are promptly swept into a welcome party at the palace to celebrate Mason’s return. Friends and relatives mob him, eager to catch up after two decades of absence. Whatever happened to get Mason exiled plainly did not sour his reputation. Desiree joins this circle, leaving Jacklyn and Jayden adrift in a hall of gentry in opulent dress, amid clinking champagne, hanging silks, marble tiles, and gilded frescoes, with white peacocks sauntering past the forsythias in bloom outside.

It’s overwhelming. It belongs in a picture book.

But it’s exhilarating, and it’s invigorating.

The class divide shatters quickly. Once Jacklyn strides forward with a grin and upturned palms, friendly rapport arises immediately, as if he and Jayden have known these people forever.

Most of them are relatives. Such is the case for Vince Whitewood, a cousin slightly older than Jacklyn with whom he clicks particularly well. Vince explains there’s still several weeks before the funeral proper. The burial is already over, but since their grandfather was a man of incredible prestige, it’s a given that he receives a service, which must be organised into Aquila’s schedule.

Aquila, meaning King Aquila, meaning the guy who owns this country. Jacklyn really ought to thank him for the invite.

Vince points Aquila out of the crowd. Jacklyn is stunned. Firstly, by the fact that King Aquila seems to be chatting with Mason so casually they look like brothers. Secondly, by the fact that King Aquila is not a human. He passes as one at first glance, but only a few seconds of scrutiny reveal that his body is covered in — or made of? — white feathers.

And thirdly by the fact that King Aquila is beautiful. Before Jacklyn knows it, the crowd’s blocked him from view.

Though he sticks around into the night with Vince and Jayden, he is unable to locate Aquila again. He returns with Jayden to the luxury villa where they are staying, having arranged to tour around the city with Vince for the next few days. Deeming Vince trustworthy enough, Jayden opts not to join them. She’s more interested in raiding the local libraries for information that she might resell highly in Ordanz.

Work stuff, even on vacation. Jacklyn urges she allow herself at least some time to relax as he prepares their dinner. She shrugs, accepting her plate. See if Vinny can find him somewhere worth going that ain’t carved outta marble or fighting an infestation of fleur-de-lis, then Jackie can plan out a weekend itinerary and drag her there after.

Accepting these terms, Jacklyn taps his fork on his emptied plate as he stares out the windows, and peers into the darkness.

Neither of their parents do return to the villa that night.

Typical.

As Vince takes Jacklyn to attractions around the city, Jacklyn notes that this doesn't seem like a place recovering from civil war. If anything it looks wealthy. Vince confirms that in the two decades since the war, order has been re-established, and technology has advanced such that greater resources can be harvested at lower cost. The heightened development of radio and railways has opened greater trade and communication between major hubs. Save for the occasional the witch or cultist, Aquila's firm leadership has kept organized threats or insurrectionists from rising against the nation. Vince knows all about this stuff, since he owns a nearby municipality and is neck-deep in politics. And Jacklyn?

Well, he sheepishly admits, He's just some gang rat.

Intrigued, Vince inquires deeper into Black Thorns. Jacklyn responds by admitting, upfront, that his neighbourhood back home is rough. The girls usually get raped — not Jayden, he notes — and the guys usually kill some rival — not Jacklyn, he notes — to get initiated. There’s lots of junkies, lots of hustlers… but that’s home.

After some consideration, Vince reveals to Jacklyn a small brooch, cameoed with the portrait of a vaguely familiar woman, which he claims to have stolen from the Tyrant's Haunt.

The Tyrant's Haunt is the prison of immortal Phoenix Valens, the bloodthirsty despot who drove the nation into civil war twenty years ago. Otherwise said, Vince stole it from what used to be the royal family's main palace, Aquila's old house.

Jacklyn confirms that Vince hasn't told Aquila about this and has no intention to. Rather, Vince boasts that he found a tunnel system that led into the old Capital right under Phoenix's nose, that he vandalised the place over several nights, and that he keeps the brooch as a memoir. Considering how dry Aquila is, he'd likely close up the tunnels if Vince implied he knew of their existence.

Discomforted by Vince's shiftiness about the brooch, Jacklyn arranges with Jayden to steal it from Vince and forward it to Aquila. He distracts Vince with chitchat, she pickpockets it, easy, same song and dance they've done a thousand times before.

Gaining audience with Aquila is also easy. All Jacklyn has to do is identify himself, and he's in.

Aquila seems surprised by the visit, but his demeanour is friendly. He identifies the brooch as being a keepsake from his father, with the portrait being of his mother. It's a highly sentimental piece, and he's grateful it's been found. Going off the similarity between the woman and Aquila, Jacklyn suspected it'd be something like that.

Aquila doesn't ask where Jacklyn found the cameo, dropping the topic by saying he has his suspicions. Jacklyn goes to leave, but Aquila interrupts by gifting him with a simple but high-quality pair of earrings, as thanks. Since Jacklyn's ears are pierced and Aquila isn't using them, but if they're not to his taste, he can always sell them. Jacklyn leaves in earnest, surprised, but moreso happy. Rewarded for it or not, it feels like Aquila appreciated it, and that what he did was right.

Vince is pissed. He confronts Jacklyn over the disappearance of the brooch, but Jayden covers for him by claiming full responsibility. She brags that she pawned it off already, and Vince moves to attack her. Jayden strikes him in the chin, trips him to the ground, and beats him as if to mash his skull to the floor. Just when Jacklyn moves to interject, she lays off, satisfied that Vince has been sufficiently pulped. She threatens him to behave and leaves. His face is swollen and some teeth are gone. It's a tame beating for her.

Crazy bitch, Vince spits through a mouthful of blood.
Yeah, Jacklyn boasts, That's my sis.
Vince never interacts with him again.

Days pass until it's the night before the funeral. Jacklyn and Jayden return to the empty villa. A package from Mason is left on the doorstep.

It's a box of snacks.

Neither of them are particularly hungry, and Jayden figures it's Vince trying to pull something funny anyway. Jacklyn agrees, noting that the handwriting on the card isn't Mason's. They dump the box in the garbage, Jayden feeling somewhat insulted by, and Jacklyn being happy for, the amateur hour tier of tomfoolery that has just occurred.

They unwind for the evening with some cards and drinks. But before they get to the point where they crack open any alcohol, Desiree arrives.

She jovially asks about how their game is going and who's winning. Jayden is – Desiree laughs and tells them they ought to spice it up by penalising the loser, round by round, to strip.

Stay by the window. Keep the curtains open. Whoever gets mortified first goes with her to the bedroom. Those are the new rules an amused Desiree sets as she takes her seat at the bar.

They obey. When Jayden's performance mysteriously starts to slip, Desiree notes, irritated, that she was supposed to be winning. And so her performance improves again, while Desiree drinks and watches on happily.

Jayden is silent, Jacklyn edges on tears. They play as roundabout as they can to protract it – and are rewarded, as Desiree dozes off at the bar. Seeing she is soundly asleep, Jacklyn puts his shirt back on, prepares breakfast, leaves it in the fridge, and leaves with Jayden to rent a hotel for the night instead.

It's the day of the funeral. Aquila stands majestically atop the dais of the cathedral.

Almost all the attendees are relatives. Desiree isn't here, which is both a relief and a worry. The twins are seated at the front of the nave. Though Jayden is disengaged from the proceedings, Jacklyn is transfixed.

The solemnity. The ceremony. Pottles of scented oil, tapestries on the walls. Aquila's sword glinting in the light. Aquila's blood pooling in the floor's chiselled, floral grooves. Aquila's lovely voice resonating sublimely straight to Jacklyn's ears.

You entrust to me your death, hence you entrust to me your life. Aquila's sword, set on Mason's neck, draws a drop of blood. What is the price of repose?

Loyalty, Mason answers.

How shall you pay loyalty?

With service.

You will be a slave.

I am willingly, to you.

Aquila removes the sword and streaks his own blood across Mason's cheek. Like he's joining the Thorns, Jacklyn thinks, But softer. The ritual ends shortly, and Mason returns up the stairs to both the gallery and the belfry.

Aquila delves into a patriotic speech, and then a eulogy, that ends with him commencing the interment of the dead's soul. With it in hand, he descends a stairway inset in the floor, which presumably leads off-site to the crypts.

The service dovetails into a choral interlude, then more eulogies and stories reminiscing on Jacklyn's grandfather.

Jayden nudges Jacklyn, breaking his attention away from the proceedings. She points out a faint crackling noise, which her intuition does not like at all, and urges Jacklyn to start making towards the exit with her. Before they get anywhere, the cathedral catches aflame.

Fire swallows the wooden vaulting and sweeps down the tapestries. Jayden redoubles towards the door, but Jacklyn grabs her and frantically redirects their course forward, to the same exit Aquila just used. Screams peal from behind them as people scramble against each other for the front door, and just as the twins reach the stairs, the fire bursts into a proper inferno. The oil pots have exploded.

Burning rafters creak above them. Jacklyn and Jayden race far down the stairs, down and down and down, until a great tremor shakes the underground. The stairs collapse into rubble far behind them. Probably, the cathedral's ceiling just collapsed, burying everyone inside, and fuelling the blaze even further.

Fortunately this space is deep and sturdy enough not to cave in. The fire, also, is stuck behind a wall of stone rubble far above them, and the smoke is disinclined to descend. They shouldn't linger, but they aren't in immediate danger. Jacklyn can only hope everyone got out in time.

They are in an underground tunnel. A single strip of dim neon lighting brightens the way. Being natives of Ordanz, a subterranean country that is mostly tunnels, it's a comfortable environment.

They follow the light. Though the path branches at points, they decide to stay on their course until they either find an exit or a dead end. They call for Aquila but nobody replies.

It takes several hours of walking before they reach a landmark: a shifting red fractal, spanning the width and height of the hallway, as though projected on a pane of glass, or stretched along a membranous film. To continue further, they must pass through.

Jacklyn experiments by tossing his jacket at it. It disappears as it contacts the fractal, as if swallowed. Jayden touches it with her knife – which also seems to disappear, but she announces after feeling around that she's found the jacket, and fishes it back through the fractal. She goes through. Intuitively, she senses she has just travelled an obscene distance from where she was a second ago. Behind her, a red fractal shimmers. It's a spacial distortion field, and it's dumped her miles forward along her original course. Having confirmed its safety, she retrieves Jacklyn, who crosses too.

This tunnel system may be much larger than anticipated. The path branches again here, and the main light they've been following cuts out not too far down the way. Though they're not scared of getting lost – being Ordish, they have naturally impeccable senses of space and direction, adapted to navigate tunnels like this – they may have to consider that the sheer distance to the next exit is so great that they'll exhaust themselves before they find it.

But pessimism won't help. Jacklyn searches for, and finds a breeze, though Jayden is wary it may just be leading them to a ventilation shaft. Without any other plans, they go for it regardless.

The breeze leads them down unlit, winding corridors. Liquid splashes beneath their feet and the smell of char grows stronger. But so does the wind, and the pattering sound of something neither of them can identify, but seems to be coming from above them. Natural light shines at the end of the tunnel – so despite the blackened, scorched quality to the walls around them, they ascend along this path.

They exit into a courtyard. It is raining torrentially.

Neither Jacklyn or Jayden have experienced rain before, but they know vaguely of its existence. Despite their naivety, in this downpour, even they know the first priority is shelter. The tunnel can provide that, but being that this is a courtyard, they are only a handful of meters from the safe terrestrial confines of what Jacklyn quickly judges to be a castle.

A door lays on the ground, off its hinges, overgrown with moss. Jacklyn and Jayden run through the vacant doorway to shelter, and work to get their bearings. This is indeed a castle, but one thick with dust and cobwebs. The plaster is chipped and the frescos are largely worn or defaced by purposeful vandalism. Many window panes are broken or graffitied in the same fashion. Despite the obvious lack of maintenance, and extensive defacement, the building's structural integrity still seems to be quite good. But it is plainly abandoned.

Halls and doorways are boarded up. Jacklyn and Jayden search for a secure room to take refuge in overnight, when a wave of nausea strikes them both. Jacklyn becomes so light-headed he cannot stay upright on his own, so Jayden supports him, but she flags too. Pain stabs through Jacklyn's chest, his throat, his face, his eyes, and despite the burn, he is so weak he cannot even cry out.

The two of them slump to the floor, and fall still.

It's a strange feeling.

Like being suspended underwater.

He can't see, hear, or otherwise perceive anything.

He tries to move, but nothing responds.

Haze covers his thoughts. Nothing more coherent than snippets can form, of vague confusion and fear. But fear of what, and for what purpose, he doesn't know.

It seems to go on forever. It seems not to go on at all.

Pain.

Agonizing pain.

Far more wicked than anything he has ever suffered. It encroaches, drip by drip, deeper and deeper, venom into his heart. It ravages, lash by lash, anger and hatred and malice. It corrupts, infectious, impious as his own body, filthy as his mother's hands on his skin.

He is rotting. Degrading, gruesomely, into something loathsome and evil.

It can only proceed. Only pain and suffering comes next.

But relief.

Blessed relief.

A tranquil wave washes over him, quelling every negative sensation. It soothes his pain, cures his heart, scours him clean, and eases him into a blank void of final, peaceful sleep.

Jacklyn takes a breath. His eyes snap open. He is in the abandoned castle, lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling.

His hand wrenches up to touch his nose, although he did not command it to do so. It's as though he's a marionette, controlled on puppeteer's strings. His limbs completely ignore any attempt he makes to defy this force. From a short distance away, he hears a young voice say under its breath, “good."

The force relents and Jacklyn regains control of his body. He sits up, and finds the speaker standing several meters away, watching him warily – an albino boy who cannot be any older than twelve, whose fingers comb the feathered ruff of his overcoat, his appearance strikingly resemblant of Aquila.

This is how Jacklyn meets Phoenix Fidelis Valens Asphodel, former tyrant of the Kingdom of Asphodel, undying Archon, and Aquila's younger brother. For all Jacklyn knew of his reputation, he hadn't known he was a child.

Jayden is conscious too. But before they can properly get their bearings, Phoenix interrogates them as to what they're doing in his house and demands they return everything they stole. The impelling force returns, and neither of them can stop themselves from briefly expositing the circumstances that brought them here. They also explain that they haven't stolen anything. Phoenix still seems sceptical of their innocence, even though they are incapable of lying to him while under the influence of what they realise is Phoenix's power of mind control.

Phoenix is insane. That much is obvious.

Jacklyn is terrified and Jayden recognizes it. She gets between him and Phoenix, hand on her knife, but neglects to draw it. Hesitation is uncharacteristic of her. Phoenix must be preventing her from taking further action. But Jacklyn notices how Phoenix still retreats a couple steps from this absolute non-threat, and realises that the fearsome Archwitch Valens is most likely scared shitless.

Jacklyn suddenly feels stupid for being intimidated by a twelve year old. He forces the anxiety out of his voice and apologizes for busting in on Phoenix's house. They've gotten off on the wrong foot, but they're just as confused about this situation as Phoenix. I'm Jacklyn Whitewood, and this is my sister Jayden. Etc etc, when Phoenix interrupts them: Whitewoods? You're none that I know of.

Mason Whitewood's kids. We're pretty obscure.

Phoenix looks shaken, then surprised. But he soon smirks. My condolences for being born to such irredeemable scum.

The twins share a quiet grin.

They've found their common ground, and it's that they all think Jacklyn's father is garbage.

The three of them bond over shittalking Mason Whitewood.

Jacklyn runs out of meanness steam rather quickly, but Jayden has enough gripes for both of them. She and Phoenix enjoy healthy rapport, and Jacklyn's weak efforts to defend their father only give them more material to roast.

At his urging, the twins give Phoenix a more detailed account of their circumstances and the fire. Phoenix insults Aquila for mismanaging his affairs so egregiously. It bodes ill for the nation that its leader cannot even protect his pet cronies from terrorists.

Terrorists, because the official word is that the fire was an arson conducted by cultists to none other than Phoenix. Immolation is their MO, and such attacks are not unprecedented. But they were supposed to have died down years ago. Aquila has become complacent, Phoenix concludes.

They question why Phoenix isn't happier about his goons sabotaging Aquila. Phoenix asserts no connection to the cult or their actions. They have adopted him as their icon for their own purposes. It better pleases Phoenix that legitimate royalty preside over the masses instead of some uppity zealot. Fair enough, Jacklyn thinks.

But this isn't their business. If anything, it sounds like they need to get out of this country as soon as possible.

Phoenix immediately disqualifies this plan. He has defied his own ethics and perverted death's sanctity by resurrecting Jacklyn and Jayden. Meaning, if he's to justify what he's done, they must perform adequate service for the nation, or die here.

Naturally the twins choose the former.

So Phoenix orders them, they are not to leave this country until they have substantially contributed to the death or subjugation of the cult's most prominent member, whoever that may be. Phoenix doesn't know. They may collaborate with officials or work independently if they wish. But they are not to tell anyone of their meeting here, or reveal that they are being forced by him to do this.

And they're not to leave the castle until the rain has passed, lest they kill themselves again. Natural water is poison here, idiots. But Ordish rats never learn that wisdom, nor much any wisdom in their fetid little hellhole, do they?

Every word he speaks carries power. Now that the order's been given, they have to play by its terms.

And so, for however long it takes until the rain is over, they'll be rooming with Phoenix Valens.

It's obvious, looking at the kitchen, that Phoenix hasn't been eating meals. But even as Jacklyn cooks dinner – the pantry and chiller are well-stocked – Phoenix refuses to partake in anything more substantial than an apple. Time passes as he and Jayden chat, though the harsh rain and overcast sky block any indication of it. So all three are caught off-guard when Phoenix's skin, as if latticed with trails of gasoline, bursts into flame.

Phoenix screams. Jacklyn scrambles for water to extinguish him – but Jayden gestures for him to stop, draws her knife, and slits Phoenix's throat. The injury kills him instantly, leaving the flames to spread and his body to smoulder. Soon nothing remains but ash.

But even with Phoenix dead, Jayden notes his commands persist. They are still bound to stay in the castle and eventually subdue some cultist bigshot. So with little else to do, Jayden has her dinner, and urges Jacklyn to do the same.

It's far from the first time Jacklyn has seen someone die. But so randomly, gruesomely, and to someone so young? Call him a pussy, but he's fighting his stomach to keep his food down.

He's unlikely to sleep tonight. So instead, Jayden proposes they explore the castle for anything valuable or useful.

This region of the castle, being Phoenix's living quarters, is in notably better condition than the neglected halls around the courtyard. In exchange, its labyrinthine floorplan is barely navigable. Doors, windows, and hallways are barricaded. Detours through hidden rooms or passages are needed to progress. Some areas demand they hop from one balcony to another, which the rain prevents. It is clearly the residence of a madman. Only their Ordish blood keeps them from getting lost.

They discover two things of note. The first are newspapers – recent ones, which, alongside the stocked pantry, confirm that Phoenix is being supplied somehow. Potentially by someone dominated into his service like them.

The second is a radio. A handheld transceiver radio. Jacklyn, a radio hobbyist, is delighted. Though he knows the technology to be fundamentally Ordish, he cannot identify this specific model. It receives many commercial channels and frequencies Jacklyn typically listens to, and, surprisingly, alongside the frequencies for Ordish and Asphodelean military operations, a handful of bands Jacklyn hadn't known existed.

Though he explores these frequencies through the night while Jayden sleeps, all he gets is static.

Terminate that machine and forever cease its use in my presence. Before Jacklyn can even register the order, his body has already obeyed. The crackling of the transceiver goes mute.

It is strangely unrevolutionary to see Phoenix, who died last night, standing in the kitchen doorway this morning.

Immortality does define Archons, after all.

Phoenix and Jacklyn talk momentarily about the circumstances of Phoenix's immortality before segueing onto the radio. Phoenix confirms these have existed since Ordanz briefly claimed practical ownership of Asphodel, and that to his knowledge, this specific technology is still very advanced and exclusive. Though Phoenix used these communicators extensively during the Tyrant's Reign, he no longer touches them. It's too hazardous.

And whatever plans Jacklyn has of stealing the thing, he better give up. Jacklyn insists he has no such intentions, but notes that if there are others, then this radio could be used to keep in contact with Phoenix. Phoenix fails to see the point and refuses, again stating that him being around radios is dangerous. Jacklyn also notes that, potentially, the cult could be communicating on the unknown bands, or it at least could function as an information gathering tool, and monitoring it may be useful for their mission. Though sceptical, Phoenix finds this more convincing and allows Jacklyn to keep the radio.

Several days pass before the rain stops. If Phoenix's life typically mirrors the time he spent with Jacklyn and Jayden, then it is truly wretched.

Die. Be reborn. Die. Be reborn. Confined to this palace, alone. A kid who can't look after himself. Of course he's unhinged.

Though Phoenix still seems to refuse the radio, Jacklyn announces he will call at a certain time on a certain frequency daily to report their progress. It's a gamble, given they're unsure who may be monitoring these channels or what they're for, but given that Jacklyn has found no activity on them at all, he supposes that, and Jayden begrudgingly accepts that, provided Jacklyn disguises his voice and keeps his transmissions vague enough, they are probably safe.

But really, he just wants to know it's possible for Phoenix to hear a human voice, every once in a while.

With the rain cleared, they see the ruins of the city, and amidst the rubble, a radio tower. It's their first stop, to quickly investigate the unknown bands.

Though long abandoned, the tower is still operational. Jacklyn activates the power and discovers that yes, this tower receives and transmits on the same bands as the portable transceiver. But the only clue they find after several hours of searching is a note on a clipboard labelling the bands as “Ops", struck through, with the annotation, “Compromised. Disuse." The specific frequency Jacklyn has chosen appears to be “Merc Ops."

The notes are old, likely another relic from the Tyrant's Reign. Jacklyn suspects, after the chaos, they have simply been abandoned.

With that mystery more or less resolved, they power down the tower and leave to consider their next move. But before they can, they are greeted outside by Trivia Venn.

Trivia announces that she is here, by Aquila's request, to smuggle the twins back to Ordanz. Phoenix's commands prevent Jacklyn and Jayden from complying, so Jayden begins a spiel about wanting to stick around until they've avenged their family. Jacklyn adds they'd be willing to work with Aquila and law enforcement to do this.

Trivia seems unreceptive. She explains that there are undoubtedly agents working against the Whitewood family, who will want Jacklyn and Jayden dead if their survival or identities are discovered. If these agents can sabotage a royal funeral service, then Aquila's circle could be compromised and his protection may not be secure. Hence why she, a third party, has been sent.

But if they're insistent on staying, she won't force them to leave. It doesn't really concern her. She only advises they keep themselves obscure. Swift, who is also there, notes they need to step up their game, since locating them from the sudden activation of a derelict radio tower was rather easy. Trivia suggests they retreat into hiding for the rest of their lives in some random village.

Neither of them are having it. Jayden is eager to return to Ordanz while Jacklyn has resolved to follow through for Phoenix. Seeing that they aren't going to budge, Trivia directs them towards the nearest town and assures them she'll alert Aquila of the circumstances. But she's not sticking around, since she and Swift have better things to be doing than embroiling themselves any further in this.

Before they part, Trivia lastly informs them that their mother is, to her knowledge, alive, but AWOL. Since the terms of Aquila's bargain with Ordanz to get the family across borders are calling quite stringently for her repatriation. While their father, and everyone else who attended, is dead.

On that dour note, Trivia leaves.

Taking her advice to heart, Jacklyn concocts new identities for himself and Jayden by running their names through one of his personal cyphers. And thus, he invents Raum and Reyl.

As identities go, they're nothing. Just a futzing of the first four letters of their names. Scant as it is, the cover safely delivers them to the nearby town without anybody particularly questioning them. Well, everyone's too busy mourning.

Processions in the streets and radios prattling with news. Tears and public speeches. Black in overwhelming vogue. Being that they haven't changed clothes since the funeral, Raum and Reyl fit in.

A woman belts a eulogy from a podium in the town square. She looks a commoner, not someone who would've personally known the aristocratic Whitewoods. But she weeps with the passion usually kept for family.

Everyone in the country is invested. Scenes like this are unfolding in towns like this all across the land. It’s camaraderie you’d never see in Ordanz.

Though not bold enough to publicly speak, Raum does quietly mourn. Reyl, though she allows the break, just seems impatient to get moving.

Days pass and inn fares accumulate with still no contact from Aquila. The public sadness shifts to fear, fear to suspicion, and suspicion to anger. Raum mingles in the tavern with freshly-formed bands of local vigilantes, trawling for information. Apparently, a cultist hideout has been found outside the city of Indris. After proving himself useful as a cook, one group invites himself and Reyl aboard for a two-week wagon ride to Indris.

Still keen to wait for Aquila, Raum is conflicted about going. Reyl is not. For one, they’re running out of money. For two, even if the rumour’s already old, it’s still their best lead. And for three, there is no contact. It is inconceivable for this much time to pass without a Crown envoy contacting them. Trivia, for whatever reason, simply lied and skipped town without telling Aquila their whereabouts.

Raum dislikes her theory, but can't justify staying. They load their scant supplies onto one of the group’s wagons and disembark for Indris.

A few days into the journey, their navigator diverts off the main road. Their two weeks of travel, it turns out, is only two weeks with a shortcut.

Their proposed path cuts across a large salt flat, then over a short mountain pass, which will deposit them in a valley near the town of Burmal. There they'll rest, rejoin the main road, and cruise the last half-day to Indris.

It's not an untested route, but neither is it popular. The salt flat retains wagon tracks poorly and floods itself clean after heavy rains, so all navigation relies on a handful of natural landmarks — which the flat's mirages easily confuse. But to reach Indris quickly, and with the most people, this is the route to take. Apparently.

Raum realises, rather belatedly, how disorganised the venture is. Between the party's enthusiasm, the navigator's confidence, and the absence of a ride back, he swallows his misgivings. When Reyl flashes her knife and advises that they'll at least be fine – it's not exactly heartening.

They have two wagons, four horses, ten people. Most are vigilantes, and most of those are veterans from the Tyrant's Reign. Their navigator is one of good renown, adept in reading the stars. They reach the salt flat without complications.

A sheen of rainwater still covers the ground. It perfectly reflects the blue sky and rolling clouds above, a mirror from horizon to horizon. About a week's distance away, a faded ridge of mountains rims the panorama.

It's beautiful. But dangerous. Everyone withdraws securely into the wagons to avoid splashes. But as the wheels draw only light trails in the water, Raum lets himself admire the view lazily, even as the days turn, and blue sky disappears under a blanket of thick, pale clouds.

They stop for a lunch break one day, as usual. Not as usual, everyone's busy – engrossed in a card game, feeding the horses, maintaining the wagon, or in the navigator's case, inspecting their route. Raum shrugs, grabs Reyl for moral support, and enters the navigator's wagon to pass him his lunch.

He has his maps out, transfixed. Raum conversationally asks how the work's going, which startles him out of the zone. Going well, he replies, and gestures the twins over to recount their position, the time left to travel, and the nearby landmarks. He points out a dip in between the mountains nearby and notes it as the mountain pass joyfully.

Raum is horrified. The positions are wrong.

The navigator's route shows them going north-west to this point. Raum and Reyl know they've been going north-east since the clouds came in. He's led them several days off course and is only veering further astray into wilderness. Raum tries to explain, but his interjection only confuses and offends the navigator.

For one, he says, the pass is right there. For two, what makes them so confident he's wrong and they're right. Have they been paying attention to the landmarks? Do they even know what to look for?

As Raum scrambles for a plausible lie, Reyl concedes the navigator is right. It’s come: she's thinking to ditch them. Raum blurts out, he's Ordish.

The confession shakes the navigator, but not because it convinces him. Many of Phoenix Valens' wickedest slaves were Ordish and relations between the countries have always been bad. Their involvement in something so patriotic, and tied to the cult, is not just strange, it’s suspicious. The navigator alerts the group to the twins’ nationality, and after some brief discussion and questioning, they decide to install a guard on them during travel then leave them to Burmal’s authorities. But even recognising they are Ordish, the navigator refuses to adjust the group’s course — his mistrust has only strengthened his conviction.

That air of unease persists into the night. As people sleep, Reyl whispers to Raum that they hijack the wagon and split. Raum agrees they can't follow the navigator, but won't abandon the group to wander into fuck-knows-where mountains. Frustrated, he tries his radio, but as he knows, there’s no reception. Their guard cuts in. He agrees with Reyl.

Nobody would confess they were Ordish unless dire circumstances forced them. Whether they’re cultists or not doesn’t matter, paranoia has eroded the group’s sense. Raum pleads for him to warn the others, but he refuses — he’s not losing this opportunity to run. While he readies the horses, Reyl sneaks into the navigator's wagon and (by Raum's insistence) quickly traces, not steals, a copy of the map. Dawn approaches.

The twins hide in the wagon while the guard wakes everyone up. They've run off! He announces. Go, search, search!

Once everyone alights, the guard grabs the reins and cracks the horses to motion. Reyl joins the guard on the driver's platform, map in hand. This way, she instructs.

Behind them, their camp, the group, and the remaining wagon shrink into the distance. Raum, once again, achieved nothing.

They arrive in Burmal some days later. The other wagon does not.

Even split between only three, their rations barely last them to Burmal. Raum can't imagine how the others fare – seven people divvying rations for five, or really four people. Are they still stuck on the flat? Did they follow the navigator into the mountains? Though his optimism usually holds, this time, his unease defeats it.

The second his radio finds reception, Raum announces on a public channel that a wagon went missing near Burmal. Reyl slaps him.

At touchdown, he addresses Burmal's sheriff. Though the wagon may simply be behind, and not lost, he agrees with Raum's initiative. He deploys scouts over an area demarcated by Raum as the group's most likely position.

Then it's time to split. Sticking around gives people time to think of inconvenient questions, and moreover serves them no purpose. They ought to rent a wagon from somewhere and immediately depart for Indris.

Problem: insufficient funds. Reyl reminds Raum of the earrings Aquila gave him to pawn. Raum declines, finding them too sentimental, and suggests they try hoofing it.

It's not as insane as it sounds. This is the preferred method of travel for qualified veteran Trivia Venn, and Indris is only a couple days away by foot. Reyl agrees without too much complaint. She's sick of wagons anyway. Raum seconds that sentiment.

News on the radio tells that scouts found the party – indeed lost in the mountains and desperate for water. Rescue efforts to bring them to Burmal proceed. They're thin, but not skeletal. They're exhausted, but not lifeless. Still, their unanimous survival is a miracle, attributable only to their early detection.

A wagon passes them the next day, only to stop and its driver to alight. The twins don't recognize him – but he recognizes them. Say, aren't you the Ordish boy who helped find that missing wagon?

Nah. Wrong guy, he replies.

It doesn't matter. The driver knows. He namedrops them as Raum and Reyl, compliments them for the work, and offers them a ride. They decline. Though somewhat put-off, he continues on his way.

This is exactly the attention they don't want, gripes Reyl. Now rumours gonna be circling all around this area. She hopes he's happy with his stunt.

Yes. He is.

Reyl knows he is. He's always happy with his fucking stunts. Problem is this time there's assassins on their ass. Forget about those? The assassins?

No, I haven't forgotten. Reyl gives up, disgusted. Raum, also, lets himself feel disgusted.

He knows his sister is – selfish. That she does bad things. But never before has he felt so inclined to, pragmatism aside, detest those behaviours.

Reyl sighs and asserts she'll deal with whatever happens. Raum, abruptly guilty, apologises. Fighting can wait for when they're back home and safe. ...Not that they ever really fought, back there, or found themselves particularly safe, two facts Raum abruptly realises are likely related.

The next day, with the gates of Indris within sight, they encounter another wagon. They are another vigilante group hunting the cult – and they followed the same rumours as the twins. In fact, they are now returning from the rumoured cult hideout to Indris. Raum asks them how it went.

Poorly, they reply. They found the settlement abandoned. Rather recently, too. But nothing proved the place had belonged to the cult. Just that someone had been there, took everything with them, and left.

So where'd they go? Raum wonders, and the vigilantes reaffirm his guess of: probably Indris, if anywhere. It's the closest settlement. And if not Indris, hell knows. There's nothing but open grasslands for miles, prone alternatively to thunderstorms and bushfires.

Raum thanks the vigilantes for their time, but it's disappointing news. Their lead is dead and poorly replaced. As they debate whether pursuing the settlement would now be worthwhile or desperate, Raum and Reyl reach the portcullis gates of Indris.

Of all things, what defeats them is paperwork. The assassination has tightened nationwide security and the officers at the gate want ID. They have no money for bribes and Reyl can't reasonably threaten the guards, so, assuming the universal efficacy of Ordish negotiation, what remains would be for Raum to kneel and—but when the officers reread their listed names Raum and Reyl, they demand the twins stay put while they find someone to corroborate their identities.

It's plainly not routine hospitality. Somebody is pulling strings.

The guards keep them in a detainment room at the city border. Hours pass in silence before the radio on their overseer’s hip crackles, frantically spouting some military jargon. Instantly, a bang and a rumble shake the room. Black smoke billows through the street from upwind, as officers bark and yell, scrambling to usher pedestrians away. Raum calls out. An officer unlocks the door and urges them to follow him — quickly.

Together they soon break away from the crowd. The streets the officer guides them down are not crowded so much as scant, then not scant so much as empty, lined with rundown buildings. While the officer reassures a suspicious Raum that yes, this is the way to safety, Reyl draws her knife.

She attacks. The guy bolts deeper into the streets, Reyl pursuing. But that means she’s only continuing to follow where the guy wants her to go. Raum rushes to advise her to wait, but by the time he catches up, she’s already subdued him outside a row of ramshackle houses.

She demands to know the guy's game. Raum warns her to relocate immediately.

The door of an adjacent house flips open. The silhouette of the woman in the doorway is intimately familiar.

“Hey kids," Desiree laughs. “Knew you'd make it."

Knowing this was a scheme of their mother's doesn't make it that reassuring.

It's nice to see she's well, at least. Well and thriving. Despite its run-down facade, her hideout’s sturdy stone walls contain all the amenities for a basic living, as well as a shitton of explosives. When asked about those, she just laughs. She's made some friends. Made some plans. The kids best lay low while she figures things out, though. She'll handle this. Don't worry.

She's hunting the cult too, apparently. After dismissing the guard with a suck and a kiss, Desiree seats herself on the bed. Reyl informs her about the abandoned town, but Desiree just laughs. Hah, that was us.

Us?

Desiree looks up to the ceiling. Heavy footsteps sound from the attic, alongside the drifting buzz of radio static.

He’s an entertaining guy. You should go see him, Jay.

Jayden instead asks whether her guest is, as rumor would tell, a cultist. Talk to him yourself, says Desiree. She sets her hand on the bed beside her and calls, Jackie.

He’d barely been Raum for a month.

As Desiree spreads him down on the bed, Jayden asks when they can plan to beat this joint and get back to Ordanz. Desiree pauses, twirls a lock of Jacklyn’s hair around her finger, and snorts. You want to go back? She asks, incredulously.

Of course Jayden wants to go back. The Thorns—

That’s all yours now. Go ahead whenever you want. To christen Jayden’s ascension, Desiree passes her a piercing ripped bloodily from her chest. As Jayden’s stare shifts stoically between the piercing, Jacklyn, and Desiree curled over him, Jacklyn thinks.

He really had hoped he could’ve been someone different, here.

But with the shiver of her fingers trailing down his chest, where else could he have wound up. In a castle?

He grimaces to Jayden, urging her to act. How could she be in the room and do nothing. Come on! He wants to scream.

She clenches her trembling fist around the piercing, shoves it in her pocket, and yanks Desiree off the bed. The glee soaring through Jacklyn’s chest crashes the second Desiree slams Jayden to the wall, knees her in the chest, hits her and kicks her and screams in her face. Jayden’s hand flashes to her knife — Desiree’s yanks it from its sheath first. Crescents of blood spatter again and again over the wall, the wide arc of the blade unrelenting.

Jacklyn’s throat tightens too much to vomit. Though his teeth, he barely squeaks, “mom."

Desiree soon dumps the knife and returns to the bed. The weak, wet breaths issuing from Jayden, puddled on the floor, sputter as if sucked through a straw. She could be dying, he realises. Desiree strokes his hair softly, as if nothing happened.

She doesn’t want you enough to keep you, says Desiree.

Mom, Jay’s dying.

That’s all right. I’m here.

Her touch is disgustingly soft, like always.

But even for his revulsion, getting angry at her feels wrong. Vile as it is, rancid as it is, this is how Desiree does love.

And love is a powerful, addictive thing. He would lie and accept it. Because only someone of steel like Jayden could defeat it, not an unsteady wimp like him. Not when it had so long infected him, sunken under his filthy skin, rotted his impious bones, and fattened his soul into tar.

—Of all things, in that moment, he thinks of Phoenix Valens.

That sanctification. A purification.

Down to his soul, the most sublime pardon.

A new purpose. A new ground and desire.

Truly, a resurrection.

As if possessed by a titan, Raum shoves Desiree off him. Small woman she is, she moves light as air. Her expression is stunned as he takes a breath, grabs her by the face and breaks her head against the stone wall. Something snaps with a loud, sick crack, and a wetness runs down Raum’s fingers.

Through blotted tears, his vision strobes black. As rushing footsteps pound from above, he scoops up Reyl’s limp body and races out the door.

The first guard that finds him frantically ushers him onto a carriage that speeds to castle Indris. Once inside, a servant takes Reyl to a guest room for treatment while the castle’s majordomo receives Raum, offering tea and a light meal to calm him. Between the sobbing and nausea, it takes a while to happen.

Thank god you’re alive, the majordomo begins. He apologises for the abruptness of their meeting, and for the chaotic welcome they’ve received in Indris. Long story short, Aquila had heard the rumors out of Burmal and arranged for the castle to shelter them the second they entered the city. But apparently the terrorists had pinpointed them, also, and almost succeeded in assassinating one of them. Between the obscurity of Raum and Reyl’s place in the Whitewood family tree, the secrecy around the absence of their bodies at the cathedral, and that the only real information out of Burmal was the existence of two Ordish siblings, that the cult so quickly ascertained their positions suggests a frightfully more competent information network than the Crown had assumed.

Raum, still too shaken to properly digest this, asks about Reyl. The majordomo assures that experienced staff are overseeing her treatment and, though not insignificant by any means, initial estimations see her injuries as treatable. Gruesome, but not vital. The blood loss is worrying, but she should hopefully rebound after good rest and plenty of stitches. She is also partly Ordish, which makes her hardy, after all.

The majordomo then asks what exactly happened. Raum recounts what he can — the majordomo notes that incendiaries from the city’s weapon stores had been going missing. Looks like, as they feared, a guard was smuggling them to cultists — and the majordomo becomes alarmed upon the mention of the twins’ mother. The cult was holding her hostage? He questions. When Raum clarifies that their mother was the one who sliced Reyl, the majordomo’s chilled expression flips Raum’s stomach.

They have more to talk about, but Raum is exhausted. The second he’s led into his quarters, he collapses asleep on the bed.

It’s the middle of the night when he wakes. After listlessly cycling through radio channels, he ventures out of his room to explore the castle.

The grounds are smaller and architecture less glamorous than those of Aquila or even Phoenix’s palaces. It suggests castle Indris as a much older, and more defensive structure, rather than one geared toward comfortable living. That Raum has enough first-hand experience with Asphodel’s varied aristocratic lodgings to make these inferences quietly stuns him.

From the parapets, he gazes down at the city, half-lit under starlight. One small red ember burns like a spent coal on the outskirts. The ground rumbles beneath him as a train thunders in from outside the walls, passes close aside the castle, and continues along an embankment into the city. Though these sights hold novelty at first, too long in the quiet and dark begins to flare in him feelings of uncertainty, though about what, he’d rather not question.

As he kills more time wandering the castle, Raum again encounters the majordomo, who pauses to regard him despite appearing busy with an armful of papers. Raum apologizes for snooping around the guy’s castle, only for the majordomo, stunned, to correct him. This isn’t my castle. This is your castle. It’s a holding of the Whitewood Estate, and with its former master dead — and all others down that branch of the bloodline, and the branch neighbouring that, and the branch neighbouring that — ownership falls to Raum. In fact, Raum’s impromptu inheritance of the Whitewood Estate’s possessions has landed him with consolidated power, assets, and public favour at a scale unseen since the rise of Fidel Asphodel. It’s enough, even, to rival the Crown.

It doesn’t matter than I’m Ordish? Raum asks.

A few generations of good breeding will fix that, the majordomo replies. Do not underestimate the power of a legitimate bloodline, here. Seeing that Raum is only beginning to grasp his overwhelming political importance, the majordomo takes him to a communications room hidden in his office. Aside the telegram machine and radio setup, there, upon the desk, is a single white feather.

It’s Aquila’s. He can both sense its general location and feel forces against it—so you can tap out code! Raum excitedly interrupts the majordomo’s explanation. The majordomo nods. Since the line is absolutely secure, he invites Raum to transmit whatever message he’d like.

Taken off-guard, Raum requests the first thing that comes to mind: Missed you.

The majordomo taps the message through. The feather remains standing after he releases it, and it taps out its own reply: Pleased you’re safe.

After regards and salutations, Aquila outlines his present thoughts and game plan for the twins’ situation with the majordomo translating. First of all: They should stay in castle Indris until Reyl’s condition improves. Cult activity in the city aside, it’s a highly defensible location and assuredly less vulnerable than any transport he could arrange. In fact, they might flush out cult operators by arranging a decoy convoy. Since, while they know the principal figure behind Raum and Reyl’s abduction upon entering Indris, the allies, affiliates, and subordinates of that figure remain unknown.

Raum presses the point. They know who it is?

Not precisely enough to give a definite name, Aquila responds. But city guards have been locked in combat with a single cultist outside Desiree’s hideout for several hours now. Between the cultist’s exceptional martial prowess and exquisitely forged weaponry, it’s safe to assume they’re not someone insignificant. He has suspicions, but as he also notes, it’s not Raum’s concern. It’s the majordomo’s, who Raum best trust to address the issue.

Aquila is correct. Raum, however, abruptly fears that leaving Aquila and the majordomo to subdue the cultist may run afoul of Phoenix’s command. What happens if the most prominent cultist dies without any particular contribution from Raum or Reyl? Did their involvement in inadvertently leading them to the authorities count as enough? Even if it does — Raum would rather not risk being wrong.

Though he’d like to keep talking with Aquila, it isn’t the time. Raum swallows his rue as he signs off and instead addresses the majordomo. Though unaccustomed to this authority, and yet ignorant of its limits, Raum orders that the majordomo capture the cultist alive — so, as he does not divulge, Raum can then personally order the execution and ensure Phoenix’s order is met. Though faintly surprised at Raum’s assertiveness, the majordomo seems pleased with the order and nods.

They return to the office proper, when there comes a knock. In strides a serious-looking woman dolled up in the silks typical of Asphodelean nobility. She begins to recount an inventory of the castle’s weapons, vehicles, and guardsmen to mobilise into the city, but interrupts herself to note, in an unfriendly tone, that the majordomo’s guest looks Ordish. The majordomo scolds her furiously. She smoothes her gaffe by concluding that he must be Raum, who helped save the caravan, and cooly apologises for the comment. Still, the air when she departs is practically a snowstorm, for its chilliness.

Raum asks what that was about. The majordomo assures him she’ll change her tune once Aquila publicises Raum’s parentage. It should happen within the week. Once he aligns the timing, the presentation…

Hold on, don’t I get a say here? Raum thinks, but what he asks is, can I see Reyl?

With a nod, the majordomo directs him to her room.

The light swish of the opening door jolts Reyl awake. Her eye snaps open and her hand jerks under her pillow for her electrical prod — the one they left back in East Welding. Raum smirks grimly at the reflex, hand on his hip, as he waits at the foot of her bed. Some seconds later, she snorts at herself and slumps back into the sheets.

Multitude stitches mummify her into a shitty knock-off of Frankenstein. However awful she looks, though, she’s alert and far from deceased. Raum’s relief is beyond indescribable.

After retrieving a chair and settling beside her, Raum recounts everything he’s learned at the castle. Though satisfied that they’ve reestablished contact with Aquila, she resents their sudden rise in Asphodel’s political food chain and that Raum has already capitalised on their position, though she recognises it as the right move. Returning to Ordanz before Aquila publicises their heritage is now necessary to prevent massive complications in their journey back home. Even then, they should expect Seacrest to want to exploit the twins’ newfound international clout too, but they can negotiate that situation later. For now, they should gather their resources, establish their options, and begin planning to leave.

And while he attends to that, she should rest, Raum adds. Reyl scooches deeper into bed with a huff and concedes: Yeah. Her body knows its limits and she’s been on enough operating tables over the years to listen to it. Though she’s not at risk of anything debilitating, she’s weak and unfit for even light activity, which will undoubtedly reopen her sutures.

It’s not that she doesn’t usually behave, when injured like this, but her humble obedience does comfort Raum enough to smile. He reaches to the tray of food left on her bedside table to help her eat, his mind drifting at the sight of her stitches.

Mom might be dead, he says abruptly. Pinks and oranges of dawn creep into the room through the windows, casting their fingers over the floor.

Reyl digests that statement stoically.

I might’ve killed her, Raum continues. A black mass churns in his stomach, heat welling in the pits of his eyes. Even saying the possibility of it makes it far more real: murderer. You murdered your mother.

“Jackie," a slight rebuke from Reyl interrupts like a thunderbolt, as she flicks open her raised palm. “You’re fine. The bitch’s still kicking."

The claim is entirely baseless. But somehow — utterly convincing. They’re the exact words to soothe the oppressive guilt and dread festering in his gut to nothing. He sighs a wet sigh of relief, breath hitching with an airy sob, as he collects himself and returns the emptied plate to the tray.

He notices something. On the tray, under where the plate was sitting, is an envelope. Upon the envelope is written the message: To Jay & Jackie, in Ordish script, and in the unmistakable handwriting of their father — the woefully deceased Mason Whitewood.

Raum and Reyl are stunned. What is this? Who put this here? How’d it get here? Once the first questions breach the dam, the flood of subsequent queries rushes never-ending.

The writing doesn’t look old, either. Undeniably, this was written in the weeks leading to the funeral, or maybe even after. Is it a forgery? Raum’s keen eye for handwriting says, no. Mason wrote this.

Though they’ve already run into traps here in Indris, they determine that this is probably not one. Short of Mason being a cultist all along, Raum cannot think of any feasible way their enemies could have this envelope. This is much more likely to be a communique that someone very high-up wanted to keep absolutely secret. They are big fish now, so to him, it doesn’t sound unreasonable. Reyl carefully opens the envelope with her dinner knife, but indeed, it’s not laced with poison.

Inside is a small cylindrical device made of glass and silver, containing a cyan liquid that shifts like mercury. Raum recognises it as an Asphodelean-style recording device, and after Reyl confirms it isn’t rigged to explode, they fiddle with its buttons and switches until with a clack, it plays.

From it resounds the sombre, but beautiful lilt of a piano. Exquisite melodies soon fill the room with such intoxicating tones, Raum cannot help but bask as the angel at the keys lifts his heart to heaven. Even as the final notes trail and fade, the aftertaste of their resplendence keeps him drunk in warm reverie.

Superb, says the voice of Aquila on the recording. Hearing him, of all people, jolts Raum to earth.

But the snide young voice that replies shocks him further: “grovel for no further encores tonight." It’s Phoenix.

Their dialogue continues with Aquila patiently receiving what Raum understands is Phoenix’s typical brand of venom. But no great revelations, or particularly meaningful words are exchanged between them — it all sounds like mundane, and in fact familiar, sibling banter that the two have surely repeated countless times over countless nights. All it reveals is a closeness between the brothers that Raum, distracted by present-day politics, hadn’t considered to have existed. The recording cuts abruptly, leaving Raum and Reyl speechless.

This recording answers absolutely none of their questions.

What significance are they meant to glean from that episode? Is this a message from the cult? A friend? A foe? From Aquila? When was this recorded? Is this blackmail? Are Phoenix and Aquila allies? Is that what they’re meant to comprehend?

It’s a startling but plausible thought. Even if Reyl, for argument’s sake, drove Ordanz into civil war, murdered thousands of innocents, and ultimately killed him too, Raum wouldn’t stop — well, if he still loved her after that it would speak more of his dysfunction than hers, but at the very least, he’d still care.

Maybe Aquila, too, still cares.

Reyl snaps to action. Things are already moving and they can’t let themselves get behind. As well as investigate who left this recording, she urges that Raum retrieve maps of the castle, city, and region. Raum urges her to try and remember if anyone entered the room before him, but she can’t. It must’ve been while she was sleeping.

Finally, he tries contacting Phoenix for information on his radio, but there’s no reply. It’s far outside Raum’s designated hour for transmissions anyway. Phoenix, if he even listens then, likely isn’t presently.

With the situation only getting more complex, Raum heads for the majordomo’s office.

The majordomo is there alone when Raum drops in. Though unsure what the recording meant, and hesitant to rat out a potential friend, given that the note offered no guidance, he opts to trust the majordomo first.

The news of the message alarms the majordomo. It likely got to Reyl at the hands a servant: either the cook who plated her food, or the housemaid who delivered it to her. Raum asks if anyone on staff has been to Ferendaux recently, since that has to be the source of the envelope. The majordomo confirms that several have, returning from mourning.

With that deduced, the majordomo summons the noblewoman from before — Raum mentally dubs her the Dame — and orders her to round up the staff. As they talk, Raum notices that the papers spread upon the majordomo’s desks include maps, to chart the position of the cultist. The Dame marches off, barking orders at passing servants to seal all exits and lock the castle down.

The majordomo commends Raum for coming forward with the message. He urges Raum to divulge more about it, particularly its content. Though he’s trying to keep Raum calm — plainly, he does not have the same leeway Raum does to consider this message as anything positive.

His wariness rattles Raum, whose face slowly reddens with shame.

If ‘a friend’ sent this… come on, Raum really means ‘Aquila’. How was the recording sourced? Aquila had it in his archives. How was the envelope sourced? Aquila had Mason write it in advance. Why was it addressed to the twins? Because Aquila knew something was going on. But the meaning of it all is just… so oblique…

He needs to speak with Aquila. But if the message was meant to be confidential, telling the majordomo feels like a betrayal. Heat flushes Raum’s cheeks at the thought of Aquila, disappointed, angry… but he chokes the feeling down. This situation isn’t that hard, and doesn’t need to get messy.

Raum joins the majordomo in the comms room, which is soundproofed against eavesdroppers. He has the majordomo inform Aquila that he just received a funky recording with some weird stuff on it, letting the ball for how to proceed fall in his court. The feather stands still in reply.

…Is he busy?

When the feather does move, its message is: ‘That is indispensable news. What is on it?’ The majordomo turns to Raum, awaiting his response.

Raum shakes his head sharply and sighs in some attempt at relief. Aquila didn’t send the strange recording, after all. That is a fundamentally unnerving thing, but it means Raum was right to bring it to the majordomo, and Aquila can advise them how to respond. Raum begins explaining the content of the tape, but between the overwhelming awkwardness of confessing he heard one of Aquila’s private moments, and the way the majordomo’s expression flattens once Raum hits the syllable ‘Phe’, Raum’s tongue catches.

Instead of juggle the phrasing, Raum just plays the tape.

The acoustics of the small room only compliment the beautiful music. The symphony entrances them both into the dialogue: Superb.

A scream peals through the room. Raum flinches, eyes wide, as the majordomo beats his head against the stone wall, claws at his ears, screaming like a pig, eyes wide in horror. His limbs bend in impossible angles as bloody froth rises from his mouth, bones popping and snapping while his body twists into knots. His soul shears out of his skin in splinters, fracturing in ways Raum has never seen or known possible.

The majordomo soon lies slumped at Raum’s feet in a gross, contorted lump. The suddenness of the death stuns Raum too potently for his brain to even register what happened. The recording cuts at its abrupt end. Finally, Raum gasps and backs up against the wall.

While half of him reels in dread, the other half cools into grim rationality. Yes, he understands what the message is, now.

Raum had been naive.

That was, undeniably, an assassination attempt.

A numb cloud over his mind is the only thing keeping him from frenzy. Raum sees the feather upon its table, but does not know the code language to tell anything to Aquila. Still, he automatically reaches to take it — and flinches away.

He cannot have it link him to the comms room, he realises, as he exits the room and closes the concealed door behind him to hide the majordomo’s corpse. He traces haphazard copies of the majordomo’s maps, cursing himself.

Think. An Ordishman squirrels into a castle, only for its majordomo to die the day after? In the middle of a cultist attack? The Dame clearly has some authority, and already thinks poorly of him. His clothes are splattered with blood, too. Unable to conceive any immediate way to justify or explain himself, Raum decides: time for him and Reyl to leave.

He restrains the urge to draw attention by running, though he does walk briskly through the halls to her room. He and Reyl need to get out of here — not just because they could get caught and charged for the majordomo’s death, but because the place is already infiltrated with fucking assassins.

A tempest whirls in his mind. How the hell could an assassin have gotten into the castle within a day of Raum’s arrival, unless they’d already been planted there? And if they’d already been planted there — how would they know Raum and Reyl would be there, unless…

…unless the cult was just so coordinated, so informed, so numerous, so mobile, so secretive… not hide nor hair up to Burmal, then the second they reach Indris…

…was the food poisoned too? Though a surge of panic screams at him to sprint, he tempers himself down with a: no. If it had been poisoned, the recording would be pointless. There was clearly significance — outside of the fact that it would kill them both at once — that their assassin chose this distinct and odd weapon. He would contemplate it further, but the noise of shouts and fighting from Reyl’s room instantly shatters all other concerns.

Raum bursts into the room. Reyl is brawling with an unfamiliar man wearing a simple cloak over a servant’s uniform. Though she isn’t quite winning, she is holding him off well enough that his knife has yet to gut her. Raum barrels in, tackles him, and pins him to the ground. Reyl confiscates the knife, blood from her reopened stitches soaking her in red.

They don’t have much time, but they must plan ahead properly. As Raum keeps the assassin pinned and explains the majordomo situation, Reyl kicks in the guy’s head and snaps the fingers of his dominant hand. The tortured writhing underneath him makes Raum’s grip slacken under a battering of nausea, but he refocuses and forces himself to consider his memory of the maps, for an escape route.

After bandaging herself quickly with strips of bedsheet, Reyl continues her interrogation. Who are you? Who sent you? How large is your chapter? Where are you based? Where is your leader? Raum himself is as close to screaming as the assassin is under her torture, but when Raum breaks away and the assassin moves to strike Reyl, Raum does catch the guy’s arm in time. Reyl’s knife flashes to the assassin’s neck. He’s been blubbering too much to answer. Reyl tells Raum she’s just going to kill him.

Joliet! The assassin screams. My leader’s a city over, in Joliet…

Raum tells Reyl not to kill him just yet. Who’s leaking information to the cult?

Joliet, the assassin groans.

And the guy Indris’ guard force is facing — how important is he?

Fucking, the assassin spits, goon.

That’s probably all they’ll get. Knowledge from the maps tells Raum that Joliet is both the next stop, and the last stop, on the southbound train line. If they can exit the castle and stowaway on a train… with the castle locked down, though, they can’t just walk out the front door.

Aquila’s feather flashes through his mind, and a tentative idea strikes him. Now that they have apprehended the actual murderer, they should be able to plead their innocence to the Dame. But his mouth fills with a bad aftertaste before he can even speak this idea. He looks to Reyl.

She throws on the assassin’s cloak to conceal her distinctive appearance. Time for them to move, now.

With a nod of agreement, Raum retrieves a rope from from a nearby storeroom. The courtyard below buzzes with personnel the Dame has rounded up, as Raum ties the rope around a merlon on the parapet. He asks Reyl if she’s fit enough to abseil. She gives the craziest, most reassuring grin Raum has seen in his life, and says yes. The rumble of a departing freight train then shakes the castle on cue, as it passes down the hill nearby.

Reyl descends the rope without too much difficulty. But their assailant, using only one hand, is anxious and slow. He only makes it halfway down the rope when out from the castle and onto the parapets bursts the Dame, her hair framing her scowl like a stormcloud.

She will easily catch them if he flees, especially with Reyl injured and their assailant emboldened to resist. Raum bundles his radio and the recorder in his overcoat and throws it down to Reyl while the Dame charges over, sword drawn. Its point lands on Raum’s neck as silhouettes of guardsmen appear in the hall to the parapets, some seconds behind her. Raum forces a smile and tells her to slow down because she is manhandling a Whitewood, but the Dame tempers her shock and refocuses promptly to pursuing Reyl, assuming Raum already subdued for all purposes.

Seizing this moment of distraction, Raum wrestles her for her sword — in the scuffle, they slice through the rope.

The Dame gathers herself and overpowers Raum quickly. Reinforcements stream to surround them. When Raum glimpses, afar on the bridge, Reyl forcing their assailant onto the roof of the train, then following herself, he finally raises his hands in surrender.

Raum is apprehended and shuttled on a convoy to the neighbouring city of Joliet. With the majordomo dead, and him already being a ruler-in-absentia for the assassinated Whitewoods, nobody in Indris has the legal authority to order the interrogation, sentencing, or execution of political criminals. So the Dame is entrusting Raum, instead, to the governor of Joliet and his legitimate judicial processes.

It’s not a long trip, but it’s not an inconsequential one, either. A couple more days on the road.

A few important things happen in the meantime.

One: The Dame and the guard of Indris resume combating the cultist who had been sheltering with Desiree. Even with all the city’s military resources funnelled into defeating this one man, Indris is losing, mightily. The cultist pushes a swath of destruction all the way to the castle. He demands they give him Raum, or he detonates the city. But Raum has already left, several days ago, in fact. The Dame, intimidated, concedes to the cultist’s demands that he be given a train ride to Joliet.

And two: Reyl, through immense fatigue, pain, and nausea, collects herself. Sufficient harassment and browbeating has settled her captive assailant’s demeanour into meek obedience, honestly, a little too easily. Sure, chalk it to cowardice, but the gap between a single-minded high-profile state-bullying cultist terrorist assassin and the snivelling wreck before her is immense. As she contemplates, and meditates on her next move, her cloak begins moving as if tugged by a ghost. Something inside its hem feels to be bucking about. Reyl cuts open the cloak, and out from the hem there falls a single, pristine white feather, tapping at the air in a frenzy.

Raum, in the convoy, has little to do except worry.

Reyl’s well-being. His well-being. The assassin. The cultist. Are they again at risk of running afoul of Phoenix’s commands. Does it even matter, if Raum can’t extricate himself from whatever comes next. It’s not like he got into this situation with any plan of how to escape it.

Ever since arriving in Indris — no, ever since arriving in Asphodel — he’s been subject to the machinations of parties whose plots feel to be fifty steps ahead of him. The information he needs to predict them, understand them, and outmanoeuvre them feels as opaque as brick. He cannot say what the ultimate goal of the cult is, who its principal figures are, how its members communicate, and how large of an organisation it is. Nobody seems to know these things. Everything is rumours, supposition, and hearsay.

That said.

That said, though.

Putting together everything he’s heard and seen so far, certain strands of information feel to finally cohere into a single, definite thread. And though this thread tugs at his mind incessantly — a mental haze fogs it over, and Raum’s eyes automatically avert elsewhere.

Someone will save me.

Reyl will save me. Desiree will save me. Phoenix will save me. Someone — the Dame, the dead majordomo, Trivia Venn, even the fucking assassin makes the list, anyone. When the hour strikes that he truly needs them, somebody will come.

It’s a familiar weakness. Put him in a corner, and the dependency comes out.

He leans back in his seat and sets his hand on his shoulder, imagining Aquila’s soft, slender fingers under his own. Even as his hand trembles, the tenderness of their ghostly touch warms his heart, unmistakably.

Raum arrives in Joliet. At the order of the local Lord, he is locked in the castle’s tower awaiting interrogation and sentencing. Though an outline of events from Indris’s Dame has surely reached the Lord, and placed Raum in an extremely undesirable position for negotiating or otherwise talking his way to innocence, he finds himself unable to worry about those prospects right now.

Because there, already occupying the surprisingly well-furnished cell into which the guards shove Raum, is his father, Mason Whitewood. Sitting at a desk rather casually, thumbing through a book.

The unexpected reunion jolts Raum, but he is soon corrected: this man is not his father, but his father’s identical twin brother, Morgan Whitewood. In other words, Raum’s uncle. Raum never knew about him, and likewise, Morgan never knew he had a nephew. Altogether, it’s a shocking meeting for both of them, especially in these circumstances.

After collecting themselves, Raum explains his circumstances, and Morgan divulges his. In simplest terms, he has been incarcerated for several years at Aquila’s order, on suspicion of involvement with Phoenix cults. In reality, though, things are likely a little more political, more personal, and more complex.

Morgan and Mason were childhood friends of Aquila’s — their fathers were close, and so were they. They got in trouble a lot, misbehaved a lot, and frankly said were absolute hoodlums. Things changed, though, after Phoenix was born. Aquila distanced himself from the brothers and their antics, became far more understated, dry, political, Morgan supposes the right word for it is responsible.

Back then, Aquila loved Phoenix. He adored anyone he considered family. His devotion, once secured, ran deep. He’d give anything to his favourites: gifts, privileges, he’d cover for them, kill for them… not die for them, since he was too clever for that. But that was the thing with Aquila. He was smart enough that he rarely needed to cross the line, though he never hesitated, when he did.

Mason always deeply resented Aquila’s adoration of Phoenix, and to a lesser extent, Morgan did too. Formerly, did. Now he can’t help but feel sympathy for the kid. It’s not that his perception changed over time, or with hindsight.

It’s that he’s functionally incapable of not sympathising with Phoenix. Because when Morgan died in a bungled drug deal, and Aquila asked Phoenix to resurrect him instead, Phoenix botched the resurrection such that Morgan can now only feel generally positive things about Phoenix. Though he doubts it was intentional, it—

No excuse me what, Raum interrupts, seeking explanation for the incredible thing he has just heard. Morgan opens his shirt to display the remnants of a very old, deep, and gruesome scar over his heart. It was an incredible resurrection, though, Morgan attests. No aftereffects, no discomfort, and no particular indications that he had ever died — apart from the personality twist, of course.

Raum presses further: But Aquila can do that too? Resurrect people?

Morgan affirms yes, all the royal family can. Whole—

Then everyone could be alive, Raum interjects. The people who died at the funeral could be alive.

—shebang is beyond taboo. Listen, kid, Morgan doesn’t know much of what goes on outside, but he’s heard enough guard gossip and been interrogated by enough desperate chodes to know that that was an arson. There aren’t bodies anyone would wanna live in left over from that. Let ‘em rest.

Raum’s shoulders sag coolly as he looks aside. Of course. It was a stupid thing to hope.

‘Course, Morgan himself is around, so it’s true they did do it sometimes. After Phoenix, though… Morgan tilts his head and waggles his hand back and forth. …Bad publicity, however you cut it. Hell, used to be nobody’d dare compare the royals’ soulsmithing to a witch’s, even though it’s the same shit. Even used occult texts as training aides. Now it’s the first thing anyone thinks. Wild how it changes, eh.

Anyway, Morgan got resurrected. He found himself sickened by his family’s dealings and left them after that. He wouldn’t say he went into hiding, exactly, but he did assume a new name, fell out of contact with all his old friends and relations, moved to a new city, settled into a tediously unassuming job, and altogether disappeared from the radar. He’s not even sure what the official word on him is — whether he died in the Tyrant’s reign, whether he simply vanished, or whether he even existed. The guards here, at least, don’t think he’s anyone of positive note.

But this still leaves the ultimate question of, how’d he wind up imprisoned?

Well, Aquila tracked him down. Told the Lord he was a high-ranking cultist with value as a hostage or information source, but be sure to keep him alive and treat him well. Then told Morgan that he regretted doing this, owing to their formerly close relationship, but knowing about Morgan’s bias towards Phoenix, couldn’t risk him being free to act and falling in with the cult. That was three years ago. Aquila has never visited, and Morgan has never left this room, since.

Morgan thinks it’s bullshit.

Aquila’s changed.

He can’t say how, precisely, because his demeanour in that brief visit was essentially the same Aquila that Morgan always knew. But if Aquila’s fondness for Morgan is stilling his hand from issuing the death penalty, Aquila would’ve visited him more than once. Faffed about with more conversation, made a greater sentimental gesture of it, catalogued the moment as another of his mementos. Even if circumstances put them at odds, Aquila never failed to let those he cared about know how much he truly did care about them.

Otherwise, he’s simply being kept alive, as he formerly thought, for no purpose. But now, with the Whitewoods dead — Morgan finds it all a little too convenient to simply be nothing. Though as for what it is, well, he wish he knew, too.

Raum then asks a question that has always bothered him: Why was Mason exiled? Morgan doesn’t know. He’d already left the family when it happened. All he can surmise, though, is that Mason massively pissed off the royals. Massively — immensely — enough that Aquila didn’t weasel him out of it. But otherwise, whatever happened was kept under tight enough wraps that it never became public knowledge.

Raum then asks for any advice on escaping Asphodelean justice, but Morgan has none. He isn’t overly concerned with it either. It’s interesting to learn of his wayward nephew, and liberating to divulge this information to someone who’ll believe him, but he isn’t exactly spitting casual treasons because he thinks Raum will survive to make a great thing of it. If he has any advice, it’s to pledge himself to the King while he can. Deathly damnation by rot is a far worse fate than any kind of injustice, failure, or punishment the Crown could inflict upon him in life. Raum should consider himself lucky and blessed to be dying in Asphodel.

Morgan does, at least.

He’s long resigned himself to his lot, regardless of Aquila’s personal dispassion, if it’s in Aquila’s interests.

On that grim note, Morgan folds his legs at the ankle, leans back in his dinky wooden seat, and resumes reading his book. The cell door booms open—Morgan doesn’t twitch; Raum flinches. With a stony frown and a shout, the guardsman at the door summons Raum for his interrogation.

The torture equipment along the wall of the dank, dark interrogation room convinces Raum, at a glance, to comply. The stern expressions of the interrogator and the Lord, seated across the austere wooden table, inform him vaguely: this is not an inquisition into his innocence. This is only an extortion of his intelligence and an assessment of how severely he should be punished. Having a sense for such situations, Raum recognises immediately that telling the bare truth of how he got into Castle Indris, of why the majordomo died, or of his affiliations — all of which rest on the foundation of Raum being a secret Whitewood known to the Crown — will earn him little more than pliers ripping at his toenails, until he starts making sense.

Still, when the interrogator calmly invites him to tell his story, Raum obliges.

He twists details. He himself is not a Whitewood, but a family affiliate. He found himself marooned after escaping the tunnels and pursued Indris nearby. Realising his identity, the majordomo invited him in with Aquila’s blessing—

—Preposterous!, the Lord cuts in. Though the interrogator isn’t brazen enough to gesture a superior down, a hint of strain comes over his features, and the Lord falls into a somewhat embarrassed silence. After he composes himself, the interrogator bids: continue.

Right. Preposterous. Thank you for the reminder.

Raum shifts gears. —And the very next day, he planted a trap on the Majordomo’s person that killed him within the hour.

The Lord purses his lips and stares down his nose, but orders no swift execution. The interrogator shifts in his seat and finally interjects with a question: a trap of what nature?

He’s hooked. Gamble worked. Raum, exhaling slowly and quietly, nods and switches off his brain to fluently deliver the biggest screed of bullshit he’s peddled in his life. Soon a grand conspiracy unravels — of how the cathedral was bombed, of traps and infiltrations, of cultist sects and chapters and cells all squabbling, and of vague but definite scheming from the insidious Phoenix Valens.

The goal is to act as a willing cult defector and inundate his interrogators with information: things they cannot easily prove, but equally cannot dismiss. To untangle the vastness of the web, they’ll need Raum’s future collaboration. And even if they begin finding falsities in the story, the truthful weft of its foundation should spark a reluctance to send his head to the guillotine, for at least a few days, or weeks or months if he sells it. For once, the frustrating vagueness around the cult’s operation serves Raum, as a knife and a shield.

Most critically, Raum presses one specific point: Aquila himself may be in imminent danger. That, assuredly, is information they ought swiftly forward to him. Then Aquila would know Raum’s present location, and situation, and fingers-crossed will intervene to rescue him under some pretence of taking him for further questioning. It’s only a vague hope, yes. But it’s the extent of what he can do.

At least he proves himself charismatic enough, and compliant enough, and consistent enough, not to wind up on the bad side of the torture equipment.

The interrogator and Lord step outside to discuss things, clearly conflicted by Raum’s information. Though the heavy door of the room muffles their voices, by putting his ear to the door, Raum catches the gist of their conversation. This was all far more than they expected. They can’t ignore the link to the Whitewood assassination. Though wary of misinformation, and doubtful of Raum’s inherent trustworthiness, the Lord is eager to contact Aquila posthaste.

Raum pumps his fist, Yes!. But just as he draws himself away from the door to breathe a giddy sigh of relief, a frantic new voice cuts into the dialogue. Urgent message from Indris. They need the Lord in the comms room immediately.

Raum warily withdraws to his seat. The silence of the room stretches on, excruciating.

Before he even hears the thudding of the footfalls, he feels the vibrations of the Lord stomping back to the end of the hall. His angry yelling carries well enough that Raum doesn’t need to huddle at the door to eavesdrop. Still, the exact words are incoherent. Raum’s brain can fill in the gist though. Something unpredicted has gone very wrong.

The interrogator returns shortly after, without the Lord.

The tenor of his questions, this time, is very different.

With a grave expression, he asks, Have you died before?

Raum barely catches himself from spluttering. “Bit of a crazy question," he tries to say, but in thinking so he realises it’s not. Have you died before? In reality: Has Phoenix Valens resurrected you as a thrall?

Well. Yes.

Well, yes, and isn’t that exactly the role he’s trying to sell? Raum goes to confirm it, but his voice refuses to say anything but “no". He tries to nod, but his head will only shake. No matter how he tries to convey that some impelling force is perverting his answers, his body refuses to do anything but calmly sit and smile.

The interrorgator’s gaze bores into him, contemplative. After a moment, he nods, seeming relieved. His voice carries incredible compassion and mercy as he thanks Raum for his cooperation, despite surely oppressive circumstances, and advises he wait here for attendants to dress and ready him for his prompt execution.

Things progress swiftly from there. Raum, stunned, can barely find time to breathe and question, what changed?

The patience of the attendants, receiving his urgent questions and pleas for reconsideration, is so overwhelmingly calm and rehearsed they could be readying him for a photoshoot at a bridal party. Even though he recognises, fundamentally, that going along with the proceedings will land his neck in the gutter, the way they comprehensively and comfortingly explain everything ruthlessly tempts him to just shrug and accept it.

Execution, like all things surrounding death in Asphodel, is not just some mechanical process. It’s a sanctified ceremony of great national importance and identity — the last chance for criminals, heretics, and purveyors of treason to repent and pledge their soul to the King. Like many other rogues, Raum falls into those categories. Unlike them, and reducing the urgency for torture and other abuses to both punish his disloyalty and exact disavowals of it, Raum’s soul has already been purified.

Viewed from another angle, the only reason Raum has done anything criminal is because Phoenix Valens made him a thrall and denied him any will to resist. Being that countless people were killed, resurrected, enslaved, and bound with horrifying geas forcing them to do horrifying things at Phoenix’s behest during the Tyrant’s Reign, dealing with such cases has become somewhat routine. Any ill-doing conducted after the establishment of geas is spiritually pardoned, but not temporally excused. A clean, swift death is appropriate, delivered with utmost respect and compassion for the turmoil doubtless unfolding within their soul — which, by death, is again freed.

For some it must truly be a mercy. An exoneration from whatever wrong they’ve done and an assurance they won’t do any more.

For Raum, though, it’s really not. As the attendants swathe him in a pristine white silk shroud and offer him final requests, messages, and meals, he wracks his brain for anything that could possibly help him escape. His more daring requests — postponements, carriage joyrides, escorts outside the city — are naturally denied. What he is allowed, and what he finally settles on, is that an announcement of his execution be extensively and publicly spread in advance, by flyers, heralds, and over local radio channels, hell, make a whole party of it. All the same, it’s not a lot of advance notice. But it’s enough to signal Reyl, he hopes.

Finishing their ministrations, the attendants tightly bind Raum’s wrists with a red cord. This is the bond of your oath to the blood of the King, the attendants warn. Treasure it as you would the fate of your soul, for that is exactly what it is.

This part of the ceremony seems to have adapted to the Tyrant’s Reign poorly. Even so, the pressure to keep his wrists close together and protect the string weighs far more heavily than even would iron shackles, which he could at least break without rankling his conscience. For someone properly born into the culture, he can only imagine, the symbolism must be exponentially potent.

Seeing Raum’s nervousness as he is escorted out of the chamber, an attendant rubs his arm comfortingly and turns to him with a smile.

You’ve already felt what’s to come, she assures. There is nothing to fear.

She’s right, but through a veil of agreement and peace, his mind snaps back: you’ll need more consolations than that, before a spoiled nancy like me could ever bow to the chopping block.

Raum departs on foot for the execution grounds, led along by attendants and an axeman. As they leave the castle, he notices the Lord, dressed in a suit of armour and equipped with a sword, also leaving the castle, on the back of an armoured horse. He’s going to battle. But with what? Before Raum can speculate, attendants nudge him back into motion.

People peer out of shopfronts and houses to watch him pass, with some bystanders joining the throng in an impromptu parade. Though nominally this should be a sombre occasion, the prevailing air is one of suspense, intrigue, and excitement. What’s your deal? What did you do? Whatever happens, tonight, he’ll clearly be the talk of the pubs.

There’s too many eyes on him to simply break away. Not that he’s familiar enough with the city to reliably know where to hide, or to run to.

Joliet, he knows from glimpses of the majordomo’s maps, is a seaside city located relatively close to the national border. To roughly break down its geography, its suburbs and castle are in the east, its mercantile district is in the centre, its port is in the north, and its industrial district and train station are in the west. If he had to pick, on a snap judgement, where to go into hiding, intuition tells him somewhere between the industrial district and the port would be the least patrolled.

The execution grounds come into view. Raum’s heartbeat thunders in his ears as he steps onto the platform, from where he looks upon the crowd that has grown as his audience.

If only he were more clever. Then he could say the perfect words with the perfect mannerisms and the perfect, charming smile to appeal to these people, make them riot, and afford him an opening to just slip away. They came here boredly for ceremony — with the right finesse, maybe, he could inveigle them into a show far spicier than the gorefest they’re already anticipating.

The moment he fantasises this plan, those perfect words and mannerisms slide trustily into his mind.

Yes. He could modestly request a final word, after all, and before the pressure of the crowd, the headsman would have to obey. He could thank everyone for coming, thank the executioner for treating him well, and earnestly admire all the things that he’s found enchanting — and indeed come to love — about Asphodel. Then, hooked, he would speak of himself, for a moment. He would contrast the wonder of Asphodel against the cruelty of his life and upbringing in Ordanz, just as a passing tease, just enough to let people feel they knew him. Then he would return to Asphodel, more sadly, to speak of the Whitewood massacre.

And after fluffing up his punters in anger and misery, he would loose the moneyshot: Aquila killed the Whitewoods.

Pandemonium. Instantly. What makes him so confident? How can his heart feel so hot, and ready, and excited, to stake the unproven word of a desperate criminal against the sanctified word of the King? He can’t even say himself. Maybe just the fact that his accusation is true, is what convinces him it’ll work.

The headsman concludes his speech and turns to guide Raum to kneel.

This is the moment to speak. He asks.

As anticipated, the headsman allows him this oration. As anticipated, the crowd is soon captivated. The words flow fluently. Holy crap, Raum thinks, it’s working. But just as he returns to Asphodel, bordering his transition into dialogue about the Whitewoods, something lurches coldly in his gut.

All eyes in the audience are locked on him intently. Earnestly, investedly — they’re not just jonesing for entertainment. He’s tricked everyone here into genuinely caring about him, and they are taking him utterly seriously.

His driving wave of heat and excitement ebbs under a sober sense of uncertainty. So, say he does infect the public thought with seditious doubts against the King.

Then what?

Truly, then what. He’s not here to start a movement, or rebellion, or whatever else kind of messy unrest could come of actually believing him. And he’s certainly not speaking to be an icon or martyr. Even should an official discretisation of Raum smooth over his treasonous accusations as a blip, the vague, but assuredly extant possibility that they could persist, or even grow, yanks Raum’s mind screeching away from its original script.

He scrambles for improvised words. But it’s quite clear he was wrapping up his speech. The headsman prompts him to close with a grunt, and the transfixed interest from his audience wanes visibly. Raum gasps a breath, backs up, and thinks to resort to the far stupider plan of just running—

—Just as he takes the first step, every radio in every shopfront of the square, of the district, of the city, bursts alive with the familiar, angry voice of Reyl. The headsman again nudges Raum down, ready to ignore the interruption, but then pauses as the words she’s saying register. Aside some other stipulations, she’s holding the family of the local Lord hostage and will kill them unless Raum is returned safely to her. Corroborating her threat, she broadcasts the crying of a distressed child, begging for help.

Yeah. That’s Reyl.

But it’s not even just her. Right as she signs off with her deadline and drop-off point, a massive explosion rocks the area, with great plumes of black smoke billowing over the distant industrial district. The only warning comes from Reyl’s radio — the blast broadcasts more quickly, and at higher volume, from her end before its shockwave reaches Raum. Her radio cuts in the middle of her surprised cry of “Shit!". She is clearly quite near the area of the explosion.

Raum shoves the headsman aside and dashes into the panicked crowd, gunning for the industrial district while chaos and confusion cover him. As the shouts rise behind him, the sky soon closes in black smoke and red flame, delivering him into a vision of hell.

More explosions boom out as fire from the initial blast spreads to nearby factories and mills. The shockwaves batter Raum, and with his arms bound, he can’t keep his balance. Though he thinks to simply rip through the thread, sentimentality stops him. Instead he manages to winch his arms out of the bindings and loop the cord around his neck, still in-tact.

It soon becomes clear to him that there is no organized local guard force in Joliet, or at least not one presently addressing the fire. Civilians scream as they run about, trying to evacuate buildings and the region in general. Silhouettes with flames licking behind them appear in the windows of tall, multi-storied buildings. Horrible pleading, wailing, and wet crunching peals out in sequence as people dive out from the windows and pelt down like hail upon the hard cobblestones below, snapping legs, backs, skulls, and pelvises. To simply sprint past, ignoring them, sears Raum’s chest with guilt. But right now he doesn’t have the time, or means, to help them.

Meeting up with Reyl is priority one. Raum is the only one who can defuse her, and the things she may do if she thinks him dead are horrific beyond imagining.

A distressed citizen gives Raum directions to Reyl’s drop-off point, deeper in the industrial district. Despite her shock at Raum’s funerary garb, she is far too panicked to question it. He thanks her and promptly sprints off. But as the smoke pouring from neighbouring buildings get thicker, and the flames louder, and the swelter in the air more oppressive, Raum realises the woman’s route is taking him deeper into the initial blast zone and might not be currently traversable.

He comes to the square outside the train station. The destruction here is immense. The station itself is aflame and gushing torrents of smoke, shrapnel litters the ground, and bricks from neighbouring buildings have spilled out onto the roads like loose entrails. If he’s going to proceed, it means cutting through the station. Judging that an incredibly bad idea, Raum thinks to withdraw and find alternate directions — but sees that the people collapsed here in this square are all dressed in silks or light armour, and then spots, with a jolt, the Lord among them.

Unlike others here, he is conscious, but struggling. He is trying frantically to take off his armour, but his movements seem laggard and slow. Raum, recognising the Lord indispensable for dealing with the current crisis, debates barely a second before dashing over. Though the fear the Lord might kill him is immense, Raum hopes leveraging the hostage situation will dissuade any immediate aggression. Rationalisations, calculations, risk/reward assessment — really, all just background noise in his mind, to stop his rational brain from screaming as his heart’s sincere desire to help takes over.

The armour is sweltering to the touch. As Raum rips the last latches off and the plating clatters away, the Lord is revealed — red, swollen, and panting in relief. He was boiled in his armour like a brazen bull, and though he promptly then vomits and near passes out, the sight of the ruined square full of his injured subordinates sharply stabilises him, and he miraculously hoists himself to his feet. Though Raum’s presence mystifies him, it’s brief. He promptly snaps back into focus and barks orders over the square to the yet-healthy members of his contingent, then demands Raum report what he knows of the situation.

Raum divulges what he can and presses the point of the urgency of the hostage situation. The Lord descends into frantic thought as he plans how to allocate his resources and respond to the chaos. As he does, Raum’s nosy curiosity itches until he cannot help but ask what happened.

The Lord snaps that Raum should know. But he doesn’t. Raum’s plain confusion irritates the Lord, until he realises that Raum isn’t faking.

Toreas, the Lord spits. Toreas is what happened.

Raum is stunned.

He recognises the name. But it’s not one he ever imagined hearing in this context.

“Toreas," to Raum’s knowledge, is the name of a relatively influential Ordish mercenary. Though not present or active in Ordanz during Raum’s lifetime, Desiree interacted with him at least enough to reference him on quite personal, and amicable terms, here and there. …Could this foreign cult business, actually, seriously be involved with the Thorns, of all things?

No way. It didn’t fit. Desiree’s mentions of him were always in past tense, reminiscing. But then, why…?

Seeing Raum’s shock, the Lord questions what’s so surprising. Raum was signalling for him, after all. A second of confusion passes until Raum promptly realises, right, yes, that would be what his stalling and signals to Reyl would look like if one presumed he was a cultist. Pieces feel to come together. Toreas, the man with Desiree, is the cultist who ravaged Indris. He followed Raum to Joliet, used the train, just got here, and the Lord got advance warning. So that’s what changed things so quickly. But why is he pursuing Raum? Because of Desiree? Raum responds that he just didn’t expect the name.

The Lord is unsettled. Raum, a presumed cultist, is being thrown off by his own faction’s movements. Sensing that there is much more happening here than Raum’s saying, and baffled as to what makes Raum so important, the Lord gives a heavy sigh and retrieves a radio from a fallen subordinate. He experiments with it, but it only crackles with static under the area’s thick smoke. He curses and orders Raum to stay put as he dispatches his contingent across the city — you organise carriages to transport the wounded, you arrange a field hospital, you cut a firebreak. While they depart, the Lord gestures Raum to follow him and mounts a panicked horse they find a few streets over, as his own is missing.

He helps Raum onto the horse, and once he’s stably on, cracks the reins.

As they dash through the streets, the smoke thins overhead and the sound of distant waves swells louder. They’re headed to the port, and not Reyl’s drop-off point in the industrial district, which puzzles Raum until the Lord again attempts to use his radio. This time, the signal connects.

The Lord addresses Toreas on a public channel, announcing the city’s surrender, and urging Toreas to come to the port to pick up Raum. Raum, catching on, speaks to confirm himself present. The voice that responds is somehow shrill, but heavy, like a sword groaning across stone. Goosebumps rise down Raum’s spine. “No. You come to me," it says.

The Lord snaps. You are in a civilian district! We have boats here so you may leave, you have made your point well enough. After a short period of silence, Toreas again speaks, and concedes. He will come to them.

The Lord sighs in immense relief. Raum asks to be included in his thought process, which is essentially this: Toreas detonated explosives in the train after hearing Reyl’s broadcast, which let slip that Raum was actively on the execution block. It stands to reason that Toreas would have gone straight for the execution site in the city square to pick Raum up. If they’re going to have any confrontation with Toreas, it absolutely mustn’t be in an area with civilians. They’d undoubtedly die. Moreover, Toreas is strong. Too strong to simply fight as though he were typical opponent. As Phoenix’s second-in-command during the Tyrant’s Reign, he was notorious for single-handedly setting cities ablaze and slaughtering their entire populace. It was only because he’d disappeared over the past decade that people didn’t still live every second of every minute in fear of him, assuming him finally vanquished. Well, obviously, they’d all assumed wrong.

The Crown had drafted many plans on how to counter-act Toreas. Many had been tried and many had failed. But the fundamental principle of drowning him in saltwater has always been constant. Raum looks over the docks, spotting shipping containers in rows beside forklifts. Instantly, he intuits the plan. Lock him in one of those and dump it into the ocean.

Though Raum has to question whether Toreas, one single guy, is worth that degree of precaution, it’s obvious that the Lord’s answer is ‘yes’.

Switching gears, Raum urgently advises the Lord that though his communication may have pacified Toreas, it does nothing about Reyl. Since she’s not working with Toreas. The Lord snaps the horse into motion back towards the industrial district, pressing Raum for what on earth are Reyl’s allegiances then. Raum’s sincere answer of ‘Ordanz’ stuns the Lord into silence.

That Raum and Reyl are Ordish is not exactly a secret. But the general assumption made of shady Ordishmen is that they are holdover chattels from Phoenix’s regency. Though Raum and Reyl would have had to have been infants during that era, it is not exactly inconceivable that Phoenix would have enslaved them regardless, and in truth there was precedent for it. But with such a strong preconception established — the idea that Raum and Reyl are simply Ordishmen from Ordanz, loyal to Ordanz, and working for Ordanz, didn’t occur.

Spies, in other words. Sensing the Lord has reached this conclusion, Raum encourages the assumption. Ordanz ain’t on great terms with that cult, either, you know. Though he’s only ad-libbing from well-informed inference, the Lord seems to accept it with great understanding. It explains Raum’s association with and knowledge of the cult, being an infiltrator of it, though apparently things had gone wrong. With a mutual enemy, they’re not technically working at cross-purposes, either.

Though they’re closer to the industrial district than Toreas is to the port, they only have so much time before he gets there, finds them missing, and realises something is up.

So, the Lord anxiously grumbles, he’s outlined his plan for Toreas. What’s Raum’s plan for Reyl?

While silently praying that Reyl hasn’t killed anyone between the time of the explosion and the Lord’s broadcast, Raum puffs out his chest and assures: Hey, now. Honest-to-god, that is my sister.

The roar of the inferno drowns every other noise from the street, the sky a black ceiling of smoke. Regardless of its paintjob, every building along the lane of Reyl’s drop-off point beams crimson. Nobody is here. They’ve all left, sensibly.

As the Lord struggles to calm their horse enough to hitch it to a streetlamp, Raum observes the scene, scanning doorways and windowsills for anywhere Reyl may have used as a hideout. Though no screams or movements draw him to it, the instant Raum spots an open window overlooking the roof of a shorter, neighbouring building, he knows that’s the one.

He also knows she’s left the area. Assuredly, she hopped out the window and parkoured her way across the rooftops until she got to safety. The relief from this observation is great, but fleeting. With flames licking at the building, the hostages — the Lord’s family — remain in imminent danger. …If they’re still there, and if Reyl didn’t already kill them, that is.

Seeing the Lord stumble and brace his arms around his stomach, only a couple steps after leaving the horse, Raum realises he absolutely cannot go in there. After being nearly boiled alive in his armour, he needs attention from a battalion of nurses. Only determination, panic, and a sense of great responsibility are keeping him on his feet. A good lungful of smoke, or even the exertion of climbing stairs, will knock all of those out in an instant. And with the street otherwise deserted, or rather evacuated, there’s no one more qualified around to pawn the job off to.

Without hesitating, Raum rushes into the building and up several flights of stairs to the floor with the window he spotted. The higher he goes, the hotter the air, and the louder the crackling of burning wooden beams overhead. This could quickly become a repeat of the cathedral, Raum’s subconscious mind registers, as he frantically twists the knob of the door at the landing. It doesn’t give — though it’s not locked. This type of resistance feels barricaded.

Raum braces against the wall, careful to keep his head beneath the cloud of smoke that hugs the ceiling, and kicks a hole through the bottom of the door. He reaches through, dislodges the chair on the other end, and enters the room. By its couches and so on, it appears to be a living room.

Though heavy smoke churns against the ceiling, the open window has kept it from consuming the room completely. A wall of flame fills the doorway to the next room over, presumably the kitchen, completely impassable. Raum’s ears burn as heat blazes through his metal earrings. And there, gagged and hogtied with bedsheets, on the ground beside a table, is a woman and two children.

They’re yelling against their gags, quite alive. Any spark of relief Raum has at this discovery is immediately overshadowed by the sentiment of: fucking goddamn it, Reyl.

It’s so pointless, he thinks, as he hurriedly unties them with slick, sweaty hands. If she was going to surrender this spot anyway, discard them as hostages anyway, she could’ve just let them go. But of course she didn’t. Of course. Of course…

Well, it’s Reyl. What did he expect?

His flash of indignant anger smolders away under a wave of strange, but profound despair. Though the heat of the fire evaporates his tears before he can shed them, the familiar wet heat behind his eyes tells Raum that he’s crying. Come on! He wants to scream at himself. In these circumstances?! Get it together!

Just as he gets the last of the family untied, he notices flames have spread in barely a second down from every wall to the skirting boards. Terror, deeper and more primal than any he’s ever felt, clenches in his gut. Though the mother and daughter have a head start on him, and are already at the door, Raum shouts for the family to get out of the room as he, sprinting, scoops the freshly-untied boy by the belt and the collar and tosses him through the doorway behind them. Raum follows not even a second later, glimpsing the three all jumbled, toppling, careening down the stairs — when the room behind him explodes into flame.

Such intense pain rakes down his back, Raum cannot even scream. Only squeak, with vocal chords taut as overtuned strings. The world spins as painful impacts batter his head, chest, and agonisingly his back, ushering him in the general direction of ‘down’. Soon a strong pair of hands drags him out of the doorway. He then finds himself staring up at the Lord, and the smoke-black sky of the burning street above him, as he rests atop the cobblestone.

Raum tries to move, but his back screams with pain. Were he able, he would gladly surrender to the blackness closing around his vision and faint, but the pain forbids even that respite. Every time his consciousness feels to slip, it jolts him alert again like a shock-collar, charged with the fury of a thunderbolt. Raum surmises, quite quickly, that his back is seriously burned. Fear and panic surge from his heart to his throat — only to freeze, as if having hit a blockade before reaching his brain. Raum’s fist is clenched, he discovers, around the sacrificial red cord he’s been wearing as a necklace. It has miraculously survived the burning building completely in-tact, and by that fact, confers him an inexplicable strength to stay calm and keep going.

Bizarre how it works. Really, it shouldn’t. But that’s how little things often are.

Raum grits his teeth and forces himself up. Though vertigo assaults him, he manages to stand and stay standing. The Lord finishes talking with his family, fretting but visibly relieved, seemingly instructing them where to go that’s safe. As they scamper off, one of the children turns to worriedly look at Raum, but their mother soon urges them along and away.

The Lord gestures Raum to the horse with a jerk of the chin, instantly losing the softness he had but a second ago. Every step is lava searing down Raum’s shoulderblades, culminating in a volcanic eruption when the Lord helps yank him onto the horse. While Raum chokes and whines and sniffles in pain, the Lord says nothing, his expression unreadably stern, and again cracks the horse into motion.

When the Lord finally speaks, it’s only to ask one short question. Was your sister there? The hitching of Raum’s throat, for once not from any emotional distress but purely from physiological pain, keeps him from answering with anything but a clumsy shake of the head. The Lord falls silent again.

Indeed, he failed to reach the drop-off point in time to meet up with Reyl. Though his plans, or rather, ‘vague roadmap towards the principal goal’, have been massively set back by this development, he has no complaints against now going to confront Toreas. If Reyl caught the Lord’s earlier transmission, and Raum fancies she indeed did, then she is likely on her way to the port also. Or, depending on her initial location at the time of broadcast, and what shortcuts she might’ve taken, she could be there already.

But, someone who is definitely there already is Toreas. Mounted upon the Lord’s white stallion, dressed head to toe in an imposing set of runed armour, and keeping a vicious longsword sheathed at his hip, Raum silently prays for him not to be mad about their temporary absence. With the helmet covering his face, it’s hard to tell his expression.

The mystery is solved as Toreas then speaks in that low, groaning voice. He had extraordinarily low expectations of the Lord and is vaguely surprised he kept his word. A pause comes as Toreas seems to consider what to say next — and Raum, amazed, senses that he is somehow hesitating, or nervous.

Before he can contemplate that, though, a sense of great unease comes over him. The distant forklifts, and other equipment, are out of their previous positions, but haven’t been brought closer so as to be immediately useful. Toreas dismounts, as does the Lord, who yanks Raum off horseback as well. The vague ideas Raum had of how the Lord might negotiate this situation are quickly veering into uncomfortable unknowns, cemented with bafflement and horror when the Lord tosses Raum forward and says, “Just take him."

It’s not that Raum thought himself close enough to the Lord for this to feel like a betrayal, in particular. But he had thought their slight relationship amicable enough, and the Lord wilful enough not to concede to Toreas, that he wouldn’t be thrown away at the first opportunity.

Well, goes to show. Whatever amicability existed likely only did so in his head, to facilitate his cooperation with a hostile party without going insane from paranoia. Or perhaps he had just become stupidly romantic about how much the Lord would care about him, since he had unconsciously, and very quickly, come to like and trust the Lord himself. He was barely more than a stranger, and a questionable one at that. Of course the Lord would prioritise the city over him.

All the same, as Raum stands in the gulf between the Lord and Toreas, he finds himself, for the first time in a while, feeling properly alone. The weird, constant assurance that there would always be someone to depend on — this time, just isn’t coming.

And though his heart freezes, a numbing calm washes over him too. A nervous, but appeasing smile rises automatically on his face, and his shoulders hitch to make him look smaller. “Be nice to me, okay? I’ll be good. Don’t kill me," his whole body is asking. He can’t even find the whole process sickening — because, true to form, Toreas does take him by the wrist firmly, but not roughly.

The Lord invites Toreas to board any of the vessels docked at the port and leave. Toreas obliges, boarding a boat, dragging Raum along behind him.

Once situated in the brig, and well out into the harbour, Toreas parts from the steering wheel to finally, properly address Raum.

Raum, of course, has questions. Where are they going, what does Toreas want with him, why was Toreas with Desiree, what’s the situation with her. Before Raum can find the nerve to ask anything, though, Toreas takes the initiative with a single, strong accusation — your master, the Archwitch Valens, has sent you to kill me.

Raum is speechless. How?

Seeing Raum’s bewilderment, Toreas chuckles and dryly affirms his deduction that whatever means Raum had to kill Toreas got confiscated during Raum’s incarceration. That odd, edgy nervousness about Toreas then melts into overwhelmingly unconcerned confidence, as he instructs Raum to lay belly-down on a table, and begins bandaging his burns with the ship’s first-aid kit. From such a close vantage point, Raum dimly realises there is no person inside Toreas’ armour.

Gritting his teeth through the pain of gauze shearing his burned skin, Raum squeaks and squirms. Something about his pained, helpless, desperate demeanour seems to stir Toreas to pity.

As if to drown out the silence, Toreas begins to speak. Much like Morgan in the tower, it seems he has several years’ worth of pent-up opinions waiting to be dumped on any safe ear. Raum strains to listen, letting the information come, and patches the snippets together.

It is regrettable that Raum has become so involved in this.

So many people have suffered because of Toreas’ failures to mediate House Asphodel. Again and again, Toreas has faced their trickery, their betrayals, their deceit, yet for all his knowledge of their workings, he has not once won against them.

He was a fool for not exposing Gallus to the court. He was a fool for not beheading Aquila in childhood. He was a fool for ever, ever pledging himself to Phoenix Valens.

But his greatest foolishness was, as the cinders still roiled in the Tyrant’s Reign’s wake, agreeing to that audience with Aquila.

Yes, Aquila was disadvantaged. Yes, his support base had crumbled. But the second Aquila confessed to him that Phoenix had been the ‘unknown witch’ to raise him, Toreas should not have pledged a silent oath of betrayal, but immediately run him through with Kingslayer.

He’d been so compelling. He’d been so correct. Bloodshed has impressed upon me the importance of order, he said. Without the lynchpin of Asphodel, already the Lords have returned to warring, he said. Yes our history exceeds any simple grievance — but the benefits of our cooperation render pathetic any commitment to enmity. I will grant you sanctuary, you will grant me information and a blade, and the people of this country shall be united under peace’s banner again. Why had Toreas been so weak, to let that hatred in Aquila’s voice convince him?

To convince him that Aquila was stronger? That he could resist? That it did not matter he was geased; his sheer loathing for Phoenix Valens would fuel him through torturous hellfire, for by the agony’s presence, he would know himself just, and in righteous spite prevail against the memory of that godforsaken tyrant?

That he would do what Toreas couldn’t, and all the while, understand?

Why?

Why had he believed it?

Why had it taken him decades, and the death of Aquila’s favourites, for him to realise what he had done? So many Lords died around him in those early years. Then all those dignities, straight to the Whitewoods. Why had he not seen — that he was not rewarding his loyalists, but setting them up to fall?

All that time, all those years, Aquila had not resisted geas for a second. He had followed it to the absolute letter, but had simply been meticulous, patient, and careful. Phoenix demanded the Whitewoods, who he loathed, dead. Phoenix demanded threats, rival powers, extinguished before they could bloom. Aquila had postponed it until no excuses could stay his hand from the hammer.

“The cult! The cult!" There was no damn cult. Those remnants had died a decade ago, exterminated by Toreas’ own blade. There is only him. And Aquila.

Who is on the throne, secure, and unpredictable.

Whether it takes decades or centuries to manifest his will — a thrall of Phoenix Valens cannot rule this country.

Belated as it may be, Toreas shall now, finally, fill his oath.

It sounds very intense.

Questions whizz anxiously through Raum’s mind. But then won’t the country war again if Aquila’s off the throne? How are you going to replace him? When you say betray, what do you mean? Are you going to kill him? People need his blood… and he’s done so well restoring the place, is it really so bad for him to stay in power? There hasn’t been a war since he reclaimed the throne, and he did exterminate the cult by allying with you, which sounds like a good thing. And yeah, so he couldn’t avoid killing the Whitewoods, but he postponed it for a very long time. It sounds like he’s doing the best he can… are you sure there’s no diplomatic solution here, if he’s a victim too?

—Morgan in the tower flashes through Raum’s mind. It makes him pause, though he can’t say why.

Heeding that feeling of caution, Raum nudges Toreas to a different track: Mom?

Indeed, Toreas continues, Desiree Blackthorne. He was very surprised to see her.

Apparently, after the massacre, she had caught rumours circling around court of a ‘cultist’s’ whereabouts. When they realised they knew each other, even if only tangentially, they agreed to collaborate, so as to untangle, and take control of what had become a very precarious situation for both of them. Ordanz would soon want Desiree repatriated and Toreas had been abandoned by Aquila, who had ignored Toreas’ every attempt at contact. Inaction would see her gone without closure for her family’s death, and him framed for the Whitewoods then buried, alongside the truth of Aquila’s allegiances.

The rumours Desiree had followed would inevitably seep into wider circles before long. It was only by Desiree’s genius that Toreas escaped without being hunted, that they smugged themselves into Indris, that they found a hideout from which they could plot, and that they began amassing the information and resources they could use or leverage for their aims.

It was utter chance that then, one day, Toreas picked up one of Raum’s transmissions.

He was broadcasting on the obscure channels Phoenix used to organise his operatives, which Toreas was still geased to check regularly. Desiree recognised Raum’s voice, despite his attempts to distort it, and excitedly noted it was no coincidence that he was approaching Burmal. Toreas knew Raum was coming for him, and reporting to Aquila—

Every word from Toreas garbles into indistinct noise, as Raum’s brain freezes on the thought: Wait, this guy’s clueless.

The realisation feels like a pale sun dawning over a flat, crisp ocean.

Sometimes, people fixate on ideas so obsessively, they fail to see the reality in front of them. Raum is familiar with the concept, as he himself has a bent towards it. For someone with a little less self-awareness — or without Reyl’s harsh realism ingrained in their brain as a counterpoint — it would be easy to get lost on what to do, and begin acting erratically when forced into a corner, if all solutions are predicated on some nonsense idea.

Like the idea that Aquila’s arranged this whole stint around Toreas. That Raum is a pawn of Aquila is a pawn of Phoenix, and they all want to personally screw Toreas.

The guy is utterly blind. He is maybe not stupid, but he is not clever, and he has a hammer, and he sees many nails. So why Raum? It’s simple. So simple it’s stupid. It’s because Raum ran away, so Toreas naturally chased after him. Eventually he chased so far he couldn’t turn back, so he rationalised the over-commitment as good. He understands Raum is good leverage but not why, or how, and is now crossing his fingers for the situation to plainly turn in his favour until some better idea comes along. That is truly, entirely, the long and short of Toreas’ agenda.

It’s not so much an anticlimax, as so dumb that it tempts paranoia. Oh god what if he does this? What if he does that? How do you argue him out of that? It’s not just a mistake to let him call the shots; even just listening to him is an error.

Raum’s tongue jumps to correct him, but he catches himself.

Because at the same time, if Toreas is lost and blind, then this is an opportunity to seize him and steer him in whatever direction. Same as Phoenix did, Aquila did, and undoubtedly, Desiree did. He just has to ask those questions he himself found legitimately concerning, and at the first note of doubt or uncertainty, unveil something that looks like a path out of it.

Raum takes a breath and carefully sits up as Toreas, done with applying ointments and bandages, puts away the first aid kit. Toreas is still talking, but it just sounds like noise. Even if Raum asked about his mother’s present welfare, he doubts he would understand it — as his mind is apparently sanitising itself of junk information so adamantly, it won’t accept anything Toreas says.

So forget Toreas. What are Raum’s priorities?

Reconvene with Reyl. To do that, he needs to know where she is and retrieve her, she needs to know where he is and come to him, or some third party who knows both their locations needs to transfer one party to the other — hard sell. How to achieve that? He can signal Reyl with Toreas’ radio, or contact the authorities and threaten them with Toreas… no. He has to turn the ship around, get right back into the city, and march Toreas into the middle of a field hospital as a very concerning bluff. He needs more chaos, before the authorities can breathe, so Reyl can manoeuvre herself to him with abandon.

Then, kill Toreas. Reyl has the strange recording that killed the Majordomo, and that had been meant to kill them. Though Raum can conceive reasons why Toreas may be immune to it — chiefly, the fact that Toreas is a familiar of Phoenix’s, like them — Raum’s intuition hasn’t a doubt. Since his heart is provably quicker than his mind, and often figures things out quicker than he can understand them, he trusts it. This weapon will absolutely work against Toreas.

And then…

Then…

And then, come what may. He’d have Reyl. That was all he wanted, that was A to B. C, D, X, Y, and Q need not interfere. The world wasn’t a goddamn alphabet and staring at the words in the soup, instead of eating it, would just make him wither into a hungry skeleton.

Raum lets fear and uncertainty fill his voice as he turns to address Toreas. Just like in the execution, if he trusts the right words will come, they will. “Hey…" he begins—

—A terrible ripping noise thunders through the brig, the ship lurches as if yanked by a crane, and when Raum stumbles to catch himself against the wall, his feet slosh ankle-deep through water.

Stunned by the impact, Raum races out of the brig and onto the deck to escape the watery inflow and try and figure out what has happened. Toreas follows shortly behind him.

Plainly, the boat has hit something, or been hit by something, and is now taking on water. That is to say, it is sinking. Raum finds his footing on the deck slightly uneven as the boat has already begun to list. It won’t be long before the entire thing blips to nothing in the flat expanse of the harbour, swallowed completely underwater.

Over the few minutes spent in the brig, the sky has become overcast and a light mist has settled over the water. Out of the mist, in the distance, appears another ship blocking the exit of the harbour. Still shaken by the suddenness of the event, Raum fails to decode the relevance of this ship until a massive, iron projectile comes flying from it towards his and Toreas’s vessel. Though it misses, crashing into the water with a violent spray and ferocious peal, it succinctly informs Raum what is happening. That ship wants to sink them, and is attacking them.

Before he can even feel confused, the Lord’s words flash through his mind. Drown him in salt water. Contingency plan. This ship, with its deck canopied by a thick glass dome to repel rainwater while sailing, could function as an enclosed tomb if one wished to conceive it as such. Obviously it does have exits, the number of which increases with every impact of a cannonball to the hull, but it seems the chance of this potentially working to kill Toreas, and moreover the opportunity the situation presents, is worth more than both the material cost of this boat and the shame of not even trying.

Despite himself, and despite having dismissed Toreas as utterly unreliable, Raum looks to him for guidance reflexively. Toreas’ face, being an iron helmet, is unreadable. But his intentions are perfectly clear as he proclaims that Raum will not be recycled, and draws his sword, singing shrilly out of its scabbard. Revealed, its blade is black as a reaper’s gown, and held aloft, it exudes an overwhelming pressure more commonly experienced before a god or a king. This weapon knows its own celebrity, having feasted on the lives of hundreds, and gorged on the blood of thousands.

That count imminently includes Raum.

Raum backs up — his spine bumps the railing — trying to placate Toreas. It’s fruitless, as Toreas raises his blade—

BOOM! The boat lurches violently as another cannonball crashes through its hull. Raum promptly grabs the railing behind him as everything on the severely listed deck slides downwards, leaving him at the top of the slope. Toreas, unable to anchor himself on anything, tumbles down the deck and crashes through the glass canopy. As the rest of him disappears over the railing, a glimpse his gauntleted hand reaches out — the runes of which are glowing, as if aflame. A wall of smothering heat surges across the deck and chokes Raum as oppressively as a desert blaze — the canopy warps, glass expands, and the entire thing shatters.

Glass shards and shrapnel fly everywhere, like the detonation of a grenade. With only one arm free to shield himself, which he reflexively curls over his head, Raum prays for no flying glass to skewer his guts, heart, jugular, or anywhere else all that vital.

A lash of pain sears across the back of his hand. When he uncurls himself, and hurriedly assesses the damage, Raum is amazed to find he has survived with only this reasonable, treatable injury. An awed sob chokes itself out of his throat as the blood streams out, splattering across the tilted deck, and Raum finds his feet slipping, and himself hanging off the railing on the vertical. The boat has listed completely on its side, and the deck faces him like the sheer face of a cliff.

Though treated with painkilling ointments, Raum’s burned shoulders explode with incandescent agony, so intense and unbearable that the pain of his injured hand doesn’t register as he frantically hoists himself over the railing and onto the side of the ship. It presently sits like an island, a landmass floating in an expanse of water, and Raum finally has a moment to breathe.

Staring at the flat desert of the harbour waters, the distant gunboat, the clouded grey sky, and the rising mist, Raum screams into his fist to vent out the pain. A cold, incredible dread churns in his stomach, freezing his insides to glaciers despite the heat pulsating across most of his skin.

Natural water is poison here, idiot.

There is no rescue if he stays here. He will sink and die of poison before he can even drown. His teeth chatter violently, even as a torrent of hot tears sear down his face. His mind is muddled; thoughts struggle to form, but the underlying sentiment is uniform: I can’t die here! Please god no! No! I don’t wanna die!

Breathing heavy, and only marginally composed, Raum tears a wooden board off the damaged hull of the ship. His every nerve and instinct screams against it, but — ultimately, he does slide himself into the flat water, using the board as a life preserver. He closes his mouth, closes his eyes, and buries his nose in the crook of his raised, injured arm, all while quietly praying for the bandages to be thick enough, and the burns to be localised enough on his shoulders, that no water can get into them.

With the Majordomo’s maps in his mind, he blindly, and carefully, paddles for land.

He isn’t getting anywhere.

The current, though mild, overpowers his weak swimming easily. Cross-referencing the maps with his innate direction sense, he perceives himself being swept along parallel to the coast, in a trajectory that will eventually shunt him out of the harbour and into open sea. He needs to swim more aggressively — but having lived in a city all his life, far from any large bodies of water, Raum can barely even swim mildly. And especially can’t swim without breaking the precarious equilibrium that is keeping his important parts dry.

He dares to squint his eyes open, desperate to spy anything that could save him — maybe a boat, a fishing platform, even some utter nonsense like a friendly dolphin. There are none. He squeaks loudly to summon dolphins. None come, and he feels ridiculous.

The water bobs him gently. The sky overhead is a curtain of grey. Looks like it’s going to rain, Raum thinks idly, and sobs.

Out of the mist, like a ghost fading in, there arises a towering bridge. Raum’s heart quickens. The current is lazily sweeping him toward it — and as he drifts closer, he successfully catches himself against one of the concrete bases of the bridge’s support beams. The top of the base is high, but not out of his reach, if he jumps…

…Without a stable foothold to propel himself off of, he can’t exactly ‘jump’.

Raum swallows back an exasperated sob as he contemplates how to finangle this. By carefully hitching the board against the side of the base, diagonally, he manages to make a slim foothold. He kicks off it, his fingers skim the top of the base, he frantically clamps down. He barely manages to hoist himself up and forward by pushing off the side of the base, using the momentum of the initial jump, and slides himself stably onto the concrete like a seal coming on land.

Though he pauses to breathe, the sight of the board drifting away with the current, and disappearing into the mist, crushes any sense of relief. Right. This may be better than drifting off to sea, but he is still very much stranded and surrounded on all sides by liquid death, with no option of swimming or paddling. He must either wait to be found and rescued, or…

…he stares up at the support beam of the bridge. It’s so tall it disappears into the mist. But it’s constructed with criss-crossed girders that, while not designed for any kind of human interaction, shouldn’t be totally impossible to climb.

Raum quietly, numbly prays for his streak of outrageous luck to continue, and for his battered body to somehow, magically, mirror even a fraction of Reyl’s acrobatic skills. He imagines himself as her, as he yanks himself up into the mist, and grits his teeth against the pain.

Eventually, he makes it to the bridge’s railing, heaves himself over, and collapses, breathless. He lays there, staring at the canopied roof of the bridge, laughing and crying with relief.

He finds the bridge empty when he finally sits up. The mist, which has grown into a fog, blocks any visual landmarks, but Raum senses himself roughly in the region around the castle. He contemplates again what to do, where to go, and how to reconvene with Reyl — since, though he’s survived the boat sinking, he’s lost most every resource he could’ve used to find her.

Maybe start with finding a hideout, stealing a radio, getting a change of clothes and twisting information out of some low-tier officials. Whichever way, he has to leave this spot, and start moving.

He fingers the red execution cord, still laced around his neck, as he approaches the end of the bridge. An odd, light pattering sound makes him pause.

Small, dark circles bloom upon the concrete before him. They multiply, and multiply, while the pattering grows louder, and louder. Raum backs off, his chest frozen, as, within seconds, the end of the bridge becomes curtained by a ferocious downpour of deadly, toxic rain.

The other end of the bridge is the same. He is stuck here until the rain subsides.

Though he’s not in immediate danger, it’s an assuredly horrible turn. Anything could be happening out there. Officials could be using this downtime to refresh and reorganise, Reyl could catch false news that he’s dead and become erratic, or Reyl could be caught in this deluge. Though he smooths over that last anxiety with assurances that Reyl would’ve seen the signs of the rain coming, and taken shelter, he still cannot temper the growing, itching sensation of stillness, powerlessness, and inertia. He paces the bridge, squeezing and pinching the flesh of his arms, his heart hammering unreasonably fast for the numbness of his mind, and for the utter nothing going on in his vicinity.

Clangg. Clangg.

The noise jerks Raum out of his numb rumination. It’s coming from the opposite end of the bridge. He cranes his head to peer, and strains his ears to listen, even as his terrified gut tells him to back up, move away, until he’s nigh in the rain.

The rhythmic clanging grows louder, joined soon by an odd, but distinctly loud sizzling. Fog swirls, disturbed, though Raum soon realises what wisps out of the wall is steam.

Because what soon emerges out of the murk, marching unphased through the veil of rainwater, is Toreas — sword in hand, runes glowing, and licks of vapour curling off his body as the air around him boils.

Raum plasters a charming smile on his face, and against his instinct, strides forward. Words flow from his mouth. Hey thank the stars and the heavens that you’re here, means we still have a chance, to—

Toreas twirls his sword, holding its point in the air inches from Raum’s neck.

—Woah woah woah, Raum continues, raising his palms. No need for that, he asserts. Though his mouth continues to speak as though they are allies, and as though they have more to gain from cooperating than from fighting, without knowing Toreas’ rationale for becoming murderously hostile towards him, and without having seeded an alternative goal for him to pursue back on the boat, Raum’s ad-hoc script finds itself meandering and unfocused. Toreas offers no hints, either, as he stays frostily silent.

Raum’s dialogue lulls mute. A moment passes.

Toreas spreads his legs into fighting posture, yanks back his arm—

Moved by instinct, Raum ducks and unhooks the cord from his neck—

—and thrusts his blade forward.

—and dodges the stab. He loops the guard of the sword in the cord, yanks it, twists it, and watches amazed as the redirected momentum of the blow sends not just the sword, but Toreas’ hand grasping it, spiralling through the air. They clatter harmlessly to a stop some ways down the bridge. The fragments of the severed cord flutter, spent, to the ground in its wake.

Toreas recovers from the shock of witnessing this absurd manoeuvre first. He drives his remaining fist into Raum’s gut — Raum, fixated on the fact that Toreas can be dismantled, grabs his incoming arm to try and yank it off. The runes across his body glow — an incredible heat, as if he’d just pressed his palms on an active stovetop, sears into Raum’s flesh. He squeals in pain, releasing Toreas, stumbling backwards, and tripping with a thunk to the ground. His back, aggravated, stabs him with more pain. Injuries across his whole body throb.

Toreas’ open palm looms above him, the air around it rippling with heat. Paralysed with fear and pain, Raum cannot roll aside to avoid it, as the heat congeals into the blaze of a furnace, molten fingers closing in to grasp and melt through his face—

Bang.

Before Raum’s swollen eyes can even blink, and certainly before his brain can comprehend, Toreas’ hand disappears. The heat ebbs alongside its departure. While he screams into his palms from pain, he peers through the gaps in his fingers.

Toreas is looking towards the end of the bridge. Raum follows his gaze.

And there, rifle raised, is Aquila.

Raum’s heart blooms with joy at the sight of him. His gut, though, wrenches with thick, viscous dread. Saved? In danger? Should he like him? Hate him? Everything whirls into a chaotic mess of emotions, each as bold as the blade of a colourful pinwheel, love-betrayal-fear-trust-suspicion-gratitude-uncertainty-admiration, blending by their excessive motion into one single, dumb sentiment: look cute and pray that he likes you.

Given that Raum is currently bloodied, beaten, bruised, pulped, and swollen on the ground like a worm, his present chic is much more ‘slab of roadkill’ than ‘cute’.

Toreas surges towards Aquila, sending forth a wave of heat so hot and fast that an explosive boom tears through the air. But faced with this oncoming wall of pressure, Aquila simply squints and raises his hand, which is clad in a delicate silver gauntlet, itself inlaid with a pronounced turquoise gemstone. As if by that motion alone, the visible wave of force peters to nothing.

Toreas charges onward, his entire body a wrecking ball set to bowl Aquila to pieces. As if conducting music only he can hear, Aquila’s gauntleted hand moves and fingers twitch in short, precise motions. Toreas’ armoured body then rapidly browns with rust, shedding a sandstorm of grit. His legs snap, his head collapses inward upon itself, his torso cracks apart like an egg. Soon he is nothing but a pile of rusted scrap — flecks — slag, congealed in a lump on the floor.

Aquila slings his rifle over his back and lowers his hand, victorious without fanfare. He does not seem excited to have eliminated this legendary enemy of his at all. If anything his demeanour is more that of a janitor, coolly and almost boredly attending his chores as a matter of course.

He stands over the mound that is Toreas’ body, or corpse, inspecting it with some dissatisfaction. But when he looks over to Raum, it’s with a helpless smile, coupled with a comment so dry it just sounds like a joke: “Stubborn work."

Raum has no idea how to interpret any of it.

It’s not that it’s different from the Aquila he’s seen, insofar as Raum has seen anything. It feels like him, and in character. But what it doesn’t feel is — normal. Even were one to call Aquila calm, or collected, or careful, or composed, this degree of coolness is not normal. The emotional strings that Raum is naturally attuned to, in Aquila, right now, feel so vague they might as well be absent.

Aquila turns back to Toreas, and Raum abruptly grasps what Aquila’s comment meant. Toreas’ soul hasn’t dislodged. He is still alive, in that immobile metal chunk. The point of the black sword groans across the ground as Aquila carefully, and with strenuous effort to keep the weight balanced, drags it over. With another of those smiles, he asks Raum to assist him, and presents him with the hilt of the sword.

Raum hesitates. When he does grasp that hilt, a wave of sickness so great that he nearly drops the thing courses through him. Aquila sets his soft hand over Raum’s, gently guiding him to aim the blade at Toreas. Aquila quietly apologizes, whispering into Raum’s ear with what sounds like genuine regret. If his own hands could do this, he wouldn’t be enlisting Raum’s, he says. Blame me.

Raum thrusts the sword into the mound of scrap, which twists and blurbles like a bubbling swamp, then slumps motionless again. Though still no soul dislodges, Raum feels the oppressive constraints of Phoenix’s command release and fade from inside him, acknowledging their fulfilment by the death of Toreas of Lacren.

Toreas is dead, and by Aquila’s coaxing, Raum has killed him.

This time he does drop the blade in panicked disgust, flinging it to the ground mindlessly, every cell in his body puking for each second in contact with the cursed thing. Raum collapses to his knees, dry-heaving into his palms and weeping ferociously. His chest is an incandescent smear of fear—panic—guilt—disgust—shame. His soul itself feels marred, and the only way to clean himself again, to be to vomit that soul right out.

All this over a sanitised mound of scrap that doesn’t even resemble a human. If this had been a flesh-and-blood person, the thrust of that blade would have likely killed him, too.

This is how Reyl became what she is.

This is what, all along, Reyl had truly been protecting him from.

And such are his dim realisations, as he vents enough of the tempest inside him for him to compose himself enough to remember, and care, that Aquila is still standing right there.

The hairs on the back of Raum’s neck prickle with fear. This isn’t the same type as the horror still eddying inside him, fearing the implications of one’s actions upon themselves as a person, but the far simpler, animal terror of a rabbit before a wolf.

Aquila is watching him casually, saying nothing, waiting for Raum to speak first. With Aquila’s emotions still in that strange, vague state, Raum cannot imagine what he would want to hear, or conceive a safe distraction from the elephant in the room. Which is that, as far as Raum can figure, Aquila has tried to kill him. Aggressively. Twice.

But, well, hold on, some stupid part of him urges. Does he really know that? How is he so sure he isn’t making off-base assumptions? Plenty of things about the whole situation are unclear, and he’s far from detangling them. Much of his information hasn’t been verified, and everything he’s figured is correlations, not necessarily true of anything, so—

It’s obvious why Aquila isn’t talking.

It’s because he knows that Raum knows he’s guilty, and he’s testing Raum’s reaction. That’s all.

You’re still just imagining that, the voice inside urges, but falls mute beneath a sense of certainty. What rises in its wake are his natural emotions, and his natural, spontaneous questions, the ones he truly wants answered. How come you lied to me in Indris? Why did you send an assassin after me and Reyl? Who has been helping you? Why? Is this about Phoenix? Are you geassed? Are you a cultist? What do you actually feel about me? What are you going to do to me? To Reyl? Can you seriously let us go, given the things we know and the positions we hold back in Ordanz? Do you want me dead, or were you forced?

Did you really, with premeditation, take me from Ordanz just to kill me?

Can you justify that, in any way, that lets me still believe in you?

Did you kill the Whitewoods?

His voice, when he finally speaks, is hopelessly weak with tears. “Did you—"

Aquila interrupts the question with a quiet nod, closing his eyes as if conceding, then returning to that curious stare. Yes. Yes. Duh. That’s the point. That’s the predicate. Yes. Raum’s gut clenches, freezing cold. His teeth chatter, as he scrambles for words.

Alright.

Alright, they’re on the same page. They’re on the same page, and he’s not immediately dead. That means, there is a way out of this. There are clever words he can say, that will be the right ones, that will get him out of this. They’re there. Alright. Be suave. Be smooth. Be assertive — Raum has seen enough of the board to make an impressive play, here. But his throat catches.

And what comes out of his mouth is, rocked by the ugliest, most embarrassing sobs he’s ever sobbed, “—I-I didn’t, tell, anyone."

It’s very much the opposite of suave.

It’s not even a play.

“Please! I didn’t. I swear, I didn’t. Don’t kill me. Please don’t kill me. I didn’t do anything bad I’ve been good please I’ll do anything just please please please please—"

It’s his natural state. Begging. Crying.

His words soon disintegrate into loud, hideous bawling, interspersed with wails so agonised his throat strains and aches around them. It’s the culmination of all his suppressed fears and doubts, finally bursting through their dam. He can’t even be mortified. There’s not enough space in his overloaded head, or blazing chest, to devote resources to anything but snivelling.

Even Aquila seems surprised at the degree of it. He kneels down, speaking in a comforting tone, though Raum is too disconsolate to make out the words. All the same, it works to ease him out of the fit enough to at least try to compose himself, listen, and feel absolute shame. He peeks up at Aquila.

Who is smiling, with that perfect mix of interest, amusement, concern, and affection — much like his mother’s smiles, often given in extremely similar circumstances.

Raum feels something in his brain snap.

A tangible halo of light radiates out from Aquila. As he stands he moves as gracefully as a dancer, with the assertive poise of a swordsman. His elegant fingers, which brush back a stray lock of his stylish white hair, are clearly those of a pianist, brimming with delicate strength. Every inch of his exotic, inhuman body is so exquisitely perfect and artfully marvellous, it proves that God, stricken for the first time with a true conception of the definition of pulchritude, awoke from the dead on the day and instant of Aquila’s birth, to confer him with immaculate beauty.

Even if it’s to kill him, having been touched by this majesty is an honour. The entire purpose of his life was to be touched by this man, so that — even for a instant, even for a moment — a fleck of that unyielding inner strength, and love, and warmth, might permeate into his skin. Anything, anything, anything!

Anything for that!

He feels high.

I love you.

But all the same, Aquila’s demeanour doesn’t change. He seems to observe Raum’s obvious turbulence with a scientist’s cold interest, and says in a somewhat amused, but altogether matter-of-fact tone: I wasn’t going to kill you.

The comment feels like a slap of ice-cold water, promptly tempering down the insane, drunken ecstasy—

—Insane. Raum’s fingers flash to his temples. That’s right. That’s the word for what’s happening right now. He is, somehow, in the presence of Aquila, who is not even doing much of anything, going completely fucking insane. Abruptly Raum feels himself on a precipice. His unchecked emotions, doing these marvellous backflips, are leaving the human being Raum Whitewood behind. If he continues to let them drive the show, they’ll kidnap him and dump him in a deep, black hole.

Rattled, Raum stands up and glances behind him. There are Toreas’ remains. The asphalt of the bridge under his feet. The black sword. It’s still raining, but the fog has thinned. The air is muggy. His burns pulse with pain. Amazed at himself, Raum reaches out to feel the hard metal of the bridge’s railing. Squeezes it. It’s solid.

Raum turns back to Aquila, still stunned, and manages a dumbfounded, “sorry."

Aquila nods, accepting it. The overwhelming halo around him dims to a mild, but persistent glow, hovering just around his skin. Raum rubs his eyes to dispel the hallucination — stubbornly, it stays put.

Seeing that Raum has collected himself, even if only marginally, Aquila finally plays his hand. He has a proposal for Raum, but it’s one he’ll only give with Reyl present. Raum interjects to blurt that he doesn’t know where Reyl is, then wants to slap himself, since if he had known, he would’ve just tattled her location without hesitation. Aquila is unbothered by this news, as he then informs Raum that she’s secure and in custody.

While part of Raum is relieved to know her location, and to know that she didn’t get caught in the rain, the abrupt feeling that everything is conforming to Aquila’s flow fills him with unease. But all the same, it’s exactly because of that flow that Raum can see few feasible options but to follow Aquila and hear his proposal.

It’s weird. Usually, when he knows he’s walking into a trap, his brain fills with dumb optimism to compensate. But this time it doesn’t fill with anything. Not even curiosity about what the proposal is. Despite everything favouring Aquila, this bizarre zen assures him that going through, and not around, is not simply ‘an affordable option’ from a severely limited pool of such things, but the objectively correct call.

Aquila is not so stupid as to corner them, if he can achieve his mysterious goals without needing to.

When he says he wants to talk, that’s not a pretence to shove a knife in his back. It means he is genuinely shifting the battlefield into one of diplomacy.

Raum is quietly stunned. Suddenly, he understands how Toreas ever got to the negotiating table — and though Toreas ultimately lost, he feels he understands how, in his confusion, he misplayed.

Ready to leave, Raum stares at the sheet of rain still blocking the end of the bridge. Aquila follows his gaze, and with an understanding nod, jokes about the unfavourable weather, but assures that this is an artificially induced rain, and not poison. All the same, he notes by the weak smoke on the horizon that the fires are now seemingly out, and waves his gauntlet as if closing a zipper. By that simple motion, within only a handful of seconds, the rain stops completely and the sky clears into pale, silvery blue.

Aquila hops off the bridge, pausing to turn and instruct Raum to sheathe Toreas’ sword in its scabbard and bring it. Seeing no reason not to, Raum does so. Toreas’ corpse still lays in an unattended lump, and though looking at it brings back that feeling of sickness, Raum cannot help but wonder if leaving it unattended is smart. As if reading his mind, Aquila advises he’ll send someone to retrieve it once he has the manpower available. Right now, things are still too hectic for one displaced corpse to be an immediate priority. Makes sense, Raum figures.

Raum sheathes the sword. Aquila watches him as he does, his gaze tangible and ticklish on Raum’s skin. Out of nowhere, he notes cheerfully, “you kept the earrings."

The blush that explodes across Raum’s face rivals all his burns combined in its heat. That’s right. I did! You noticed? You noticed!! As beams of light again spear from Aquila, Raum only barely wrangles his grin back into something ‘giddy’, rather than ‘manic’. Hey, tpo. Stay cool, he tells himself.

Combined with the terrible weight of the sword in his grip, and the sickening pain and discomfort that seeps from it into his tender, blistered palms, the gravity of the situation again impresses itself upon him. He takes a breath, refocuses, and follows Aquila out.

Still, as he falls into step, the ember in his chest lingers. Its warmth comforts Raum just enough that he, despite everything, feels somehow safe, and beside Aquila, protected.

Raum and Aquila return to the border of the mercantile and the industrial district. A makeshift field hospital has been assembled there, with many people whizzing about to transport the more severely injured to proper hospitals, the dead to morgues, and themselves to the sides of misplaced loved ones. Though significantly injured himself, Raum falls into that last group. Aquila first forwards Toreas’ sword to an attendant, then gives Raum a feather and instructs him to go to the hall the local officials are using to hold Reyl and order her release, with the feather being his pass to do so without too many questions. Aquila himself, meanwhile, has to convene with said local officials and begin organising the collection of missing bodies and souls. So for now, they’re splitting up, and Raum has free reign to move.

He goes to the hall, flashes the feather, and indeed reconvenes with Reyl without any trouble. Part of him is grateful for how easy it is. The rest is somewhat unsettled by Aquila’s confidence that he would behave exactly as instructed. And more unsettled by the fact that Aquila’s reading of him is totally correct, as he braces himself to argue against Reyl for the merits of hearing the proposal, and not ditching.

Reyl, injured from resisting capture but settled by exhaustion now, agrees with a grunt that she’ll hear it. As a businessperson, she is not unfamiliar with delicate negotiations, and as a reasonably cautious individual, she judges running in their weak position as unfeasibly reckless. Plus, listening gives them at least a hint of Aquila’s real intentions. It might not be a lot, and might not be enough to escape him without using violence later, but it’s something.

As Reyl brings Raum upstairs to retrieve her confiscated belongings, Raum fills Reyl in on his misadventure. After a pause, she grins and complements him for handling Toreas without her, but her silence and pained squint afterwards betrays more than a hint of discomfort. She dismisses it and pockets her belongings, which include the radio and the deadly recording. Though Raum has to wonder about her keeping the latter, a lightly challenging look from her blocks him from questioning it seriously. You get to rope me into a chat with Aquila, I get to have a good weapon in my pocket. Even’s even. Raum can’t argue with that.

With the situation settled into one of relative calm, and little to do but wait for Aquila to return, the pain of Raum’s burns, cuts, and blisters asserts itself intensely. Though it’s hard to look away from the panic and relief and misery unfolding all about the square, Reyl encourages him to get treatment. But just as Raum trawls around with the nurses, and finds someone to hook him up with painkillers, a messenger comes.

Aquila is ready to speak with them.

Raum and Reyl meet Aquila in the office of a nearby guildhouse. Its usual occupants have been vacated, replaced by city officials and their servants flitting around, all assembling damage reports and placating media criers. The upstairs, though, is much quieter, and it’s there that the three can privately talk, seated around a large table.

Aquila begins by confirming that Reyl has been filled in, then proceeds to reiterate some points they already know. Chiefly, the point that Raum and Reyl are, Ordish heritage aside, legally entitled to the covetably extensive peerages and holdings of the Whitewood family. Aquila is willing to formally transition Raum and Reyl into the Asphodelean aristocracy, with unfettered access to the comfort and riches of their inheritance, under the stipulation that they stay within the country under Aquila’s personal political guidance. Conversely, he is also willing to overlook their ties to the Whitewood massacre, and secure them safe, private transport back to Ordanz, with the understanding that they forfeit their inheritance and formally denounce themselves from the Whitewood bloodline by doing so. Their political sway in Asphodel would accordingly be nil. Further, they would be marked through their activities in the Black Thorns as known associates of the Ordish House Seacrest, and thus be barred from any kind of Asphodelean citizenship that would entitle them into the country under anything but spectacular circumstances.

Be Aquila’s puppets, or leave and never return. Those are the options.

Obviously this is an offer that is hard to take at face value. But Aquila assures them not to fear. His interest is not in killing them necessarily, but in defusing the political threat they represent. If he can achieve that by a means they all accept, then there’s no outcome more agreeable.

Reyl contests this claim by asking what the fuck the assassination attempt in Indris was, then.

A miscommunication, responds Aquila. He had tried several times to divert the twins from a course that would put them in danger — first by hiring Trivia Venn to, the night before the funeral, drug the alcohol in their villa with narcotics, then again to smuggle them to Ordanz. When she reported that she had not found them, he discerned this was a lie and that the twins had simply refused to leave. Then they appeared in Burmal in pursuit of the cult. Clearly they had invested themselves in untangling the Whitewood Massacre, and being that they were the event’s only remaining witnesses, Aquila saw it prudent to remove them before they started capitalising on their power.

But if you have no intention to do that, Aquila continues, then I have no reason to be so drastic.

Reyl frowns, dissatisfied. It’s true that if Aquila wanted them dead, he could have killed them at any time in the last hour. So contrariwise — he maybe wants them to take the deal. What would the consequence be if they refuse? And what would he even want them for?

Raum notes that if they did accept, Aquila would be giving them a platform from which they could challenge him. What does he gain that makes that gamble worth it?

Aquila smiles as if Raum just said something quite cute, but that look settles soon into puzzlement. He would hope the upgrade in lifestyle, from Ordish vault-dweller to Asphodelean nobility, would in itself buy some faith, as the offer fundamentally is one of goodwill. Moreover, he cannot see what the twins would gain by contesting him, and so does not think that possibility a serious concern. Are you moved to act on the honour of your departed kin?

Raum glances aside. What Aquila has done to the Whitewoods is certainly discomforting, and likely does deserve censure. The more that he thinks about it, the more fear rattles him like a drum. But he also remains utterly clueless as to why Aquila attacked them, and understands the subtext of this offer is that Aquila will exchange their disinvolvement in such affairs for peace. Scummy as it sounds, the idea of putting the whole issue to bed, or resolving it diplomatically after establishing some mutual trust, is far more enticing than opposing Aquila.

Reyl, of course, does not care about the Whitewoods at all.

Aquila nods, picking up the silence. He explains that he has achieved what he set out to do, and sees the option of resolving the tensions between them by establishing a cooperative relationship as an intriguing one. If he might confess, he is somewhat fond of the twins. But he understands if they would rather not invest in that, considering everything.

…It sounds like Aquila’s not really hungry. Which is to say, since he’s already won, it doesn’t really bother him if they go one way or another. He’s just offering to keep them because it works and it’s neat. Is it dumb to accept that?

…

Probably, but…

Raum glances to Reyl. The abrupt gulf of silence between the two stretches beyond awkward, into oppressive. Reyl requests to discuss with Raum in private, and Aquila grants this, gesturing them to a side room.

With the heavy shutting of the door, Reyl glances over the windows as if checking their feasibility as an escape route. Inexplicable exhaustion fills Raum as he watches this, but she too seems to realise that the windows are unsuitable exits, and that running is a bad idea anyway.

She rakes her fingers through her hair. As untrustworthy as she finds Aquila’s offer, running away means cementing their position towards Aquila as antagonistic. He then will have no reason not to respond to them with equal antagonism. If they want to get out of the corner they’re in, they do need to pick one of Aquila’s offers.

But which is right?, thinks Reyl.

Who cares?, thinks Raum.

Reyl rolls her shoulders and nods to herself, seeming to come to a solution. When she turns to Raum, and sees his guilty smile, she grimaces. Yeah, sorry sis. He’s here being an obstacle.

She jabs her finger at him. “Don’t let that piece of shit tempt you with any fancy ideas. Get out what you wanna say, then we’re leaving."

The first place his stupid mouth goes is, “He’s cute, Jay."

“Mhm. Set us up like turkeys in November, adorable. You’ll find a new one in a week."

And so the back-and-forth begins. As usual, it takes time before the frivolous pretences begin to fade. Because, does he think Aquila is cute? Yeah. Would he hinge his entire future on that fact? Of course not. It’s just that examining — arguing — the real reasons he wouldn’t want to go home is supremely uncomfortable.

Starting with, where would they go? Back to Welding? For all of Raum’s mixed feelings about their Mother, she was someone Raum’s conscience could gratefully blame for the horrific practises by which the place functioned. The money, the enterprise, and the high-class clientele had to keep flowing for the city not to collapse back into its original conception as yet another impoverished slave-vault. Raum would not allow that, and Reyl would not allow that. So what options were left? No business was more available or lucrative than the trade they already peddled. She would take the mantle, and the nauseatingly short distance between Raum and a few million sex slaves, broken women, beaten shopkeepers, routine murders, and eight-year-old crack addicts would close completely, until every atrocity would be Raum’s direct responsibility for failing to find an alternative.

Bitter as it was, he could only resign himself as weaker than Reyl and thus innocently powerless in her charge, or sacrifice that part of himself that yearned not to be totally corrupt.

As he considers this, a peculiar thought passes his mind: I’m not weaker than Reyl.

He rubs his temples, opens his eyes, and says, “If we went back, and I tried doing something different, would you support me?"

Reyl shifts curiously. “Like what?"

Like anything. Anything he could turn into an immortalised brand, anything he could sell to the topsies. Liquor, radios, steel, a patent for some genius new household device like a vacuum cleaner or washing machine. Anything legitimate that could obsolete and supplant their existing empire.

“I’d give you money," she says flatly.

It’s not really a ‘yes’. It’s a ‘you can try, but it’s pointless.’ Raum feels his heart thunk to the bottom of his chest.

He can admit his efforts probably would be fruitless. But Reyl’s cynicism hurts. Yeah, that’s my brother. Today he’ll be designing the revolution in dishrags that brings peace to every rat in a vault. Sweet, quirky little guy, ain’t he? Gotta make sure he’s got his food and a fresh thing of water…

Reyl pinches her brow, slides herself up to sit on the windowsill. Her prosthetic eye has gone missing somewhere, and she has grown too accustomed to its presence to naturally keep that missing eye closed. The exposed film of red flesh, coupled with the network of stitches and scars across her skin, abruptly strike Raum not as trophies of strength and survival, but as the markings of damage and failure they are.

She’s so fucking battered.

Grinning lightly, she withdraws the deadly recording from her pocket, twiddles it about in her hand. “Here’s a good thought."

“Jay…" Raum warns.

“Listen." She leans in, and divulges her plan. They don’t have to return to Welding. There are plenty of higher-ups in the Thorns savvy enough to keep the place going without Reyl. The city, and how it runs, doesn’t have to be their responsibility. Instead, they should sell this recording to Seacrest. They move out of vaults, buy a house in some quiet yuppie suburb, go native and retire into doing whatever the fuck low-tier topsies do. Fish. Go canoing. Work as librarians. Fucking whatever.

It strikes Raum as a weird kind of confession, and even weirder solution.

Count one: She’s as tired of her life in Welding as Raum is. She doesn’t want to keep fighting as some scary tough gangbanger; it’s all just a means to an end of them living comfortably. And despite regularly mocking dreams as suicidal delusions, she’s allowed herself this one little fantasy.

Count two: Seacrest obviously can’t have a weapon as exploitable as that recording. There’s no universe where Raum would allow it. …Unless, would he? Abruptly, fear lashes through him. Does Reyl, his twin, reckon him so submissive, and permissive, he wouldn’t dissuade her from utter heinousness? Is she right?

Looking back, he’s tempered her cruelty thousands of times. But he can find few moments where he ever prevented it, only ever compensated after the fact with reckless do-gooding ‘antics’. The observation urges the importance of nudging her off this track now.

“Forget the recording. It ain’t worth it."

When Reyl’s shoulders sag with resignation, but also acceptance, and she smoothly passes him the recording, the offer clicks. It was just an equalling of balances. She shot Raum’s hopes down, so she let him shoot hers down. She wasn’t really expecting him to go with it. Just daring the off-chance of: maybe… and giving it up, just as easily.

He can’t tell if that’s sad, or a marker of confidence, that she’ll get what she wants later anyway.

Raum counter-offers: “If we went with Aquila—"

“No," Reyl says. Not on the table.

Why’d he even try.

A vein throbs around her knuckles. Like an unloaded spring, beyond her control, her fist slams into the windowsill. She smooths the glare off her face and returns to a measured frown, as if she had not just done that.

He strains, “at least think about it…"

“I did," she says curtly.

Guilt lashes through him. Again, why’d he try.

She heaves herself off the sill, begins making for the door. “Suppose we’re going then."

Raum’s heart freezes. Wait, hold on. How was that exchange meant to convince him of anything? Hold up, Reyl. “Where’re you going? Sell me."

She laughs, but then jolts with fear. She rushes back to him and presses, the fuck does that mean? Sell him on what. On the fact that staying is suicide? That Aquila will use them then kill them? That Raum’s crushing and it’s clouding his judgement? That the very idea of there being more than one option for them is a lie? What. Sell him on what?

Raum’s voice cracks. “On... whatever we’ll be doing…"

“I’ll be there," she says reassuringly.

“What about this," he tries, “we forfeit the titles, but stay here—"

“—Fuck’s sakes, no. No! Fuck! What ideas did you get in your head that got you arguing this long?" What, you wanna be puffed-up flower prince? You want to prance around in silks while some nancy in high heels and a powdered wig plick-plucks La Vi En Rose? You want to think about what spoon to use when you cut into a goose-liver soup? You want to write poetry in cursive on cottonwood paper all scented with peach oil? You want the peasants running to kiss your knuckles and lick your feet? Really. You want that?

Well he wasn’t adverse to at least some of those ideas. But to say if he actively desired them, no.

No.

Evasions, evasions, evasions. A thousand walls of frivolous pretence between his soul and his mouth.

But the reality’s simple.

He hates Ordanz.

He could live comfortably to 99 in Ordanz, and dying there still wouldn’t be worth it.

The starvation. The poverty. The lack of history or tradition. The lack of art or wonder. The lack of common mysteries, symbols, and gods. The interchangeability of persons. The quantifiable worthlessness of life. The quickness with which friends betrayed, and the ease with which strangers became enemies. The knowledge that anything held special would be sold or eaten the instant it slipped from his grasp. That contemptuous manner toward everything that did not bring material status, wealth, or pleasure, questioning, “why on earth do you do that? Why do you care? You must be a little bit stupid."

Even the poorest in Asphodel, if given a chicken, would at least keep it for the eggs.

The poorest in Ordanz would just eat it.

Food food food! Who’s giving me food? Where’s nearest food? Do you have money so I can have food? Oh, you have food… grrr, gimme! If I am good and clever, I can have food. But if I am strong and mean, I can also take food! Hmm… I must be clever enough that so that the stronger, meaner ones love me, then maybe they won’t take my food… and if I am very good, maybe they will love me enough that they will give me theirs, even!

Even if they were learned and successful, the average Ordishman functioned on about the same strata as a locust. Even those from Welding who he loved, and even the ones who had tenderly raised him and Reyl, would think nothing of shearing his leg off and eating it if locked with him for a week in a room without food.

It wasn’t that he resented the people. As stated, many of them, he loved — as loci of familiarity, and warmth, and pity that shone in every good memory his life ever had. But constantly he rued, and wondered, what could you have been, if you hadn’t been so unfortunate as to be born in fucking Ordanz?

The place was a vacuum of virtue. A generous man would be picked dry in a minute. Dare give a coin to a beggar — a swarm of fifty more would materialise from the alleys around you, each reaching, shoving, and becoming emboldened to mug you if they sensed you would not, or could not, strike back. After spending the money they’d boast of their fortune, or if they’d gotten nothing, curse every vehicle that had not delivered that coin to their pocket, including the alms-giver. All this was fair and proper. Everyone living from the deepest gutter to the tallest skyscraper did it.

You had to keep secret the things that would let another become stronger than you. Such, nobody became very strong.

If ever you were in a position to take, that you would do so wasn’t even in question. You’d be foolish not to.

An exquisite sensitivity to power butchered every good inch of Ordanz. By any means, power! Else, you will die!

Half of him, he confesses, does have that sensitivity.

And the other half wishes that first half would shut up, so that he could enjoy bonds of genuine love and companionship without wondering, alright, who’s topping?

Reyl chuckles.

Hey dick-for-brains. That’s the entire damn world.

You think cause it’s dressed up in ceremony and etiquette, this place is any different? There’s a king sitting the room over who wants to shove his hand up your ass and work you like a puppet. Dude killed off his old retinue and conspired cross-ways of his own officials, even got one of them killed in the mixup. Know how he’s even able to offer such an outrageous deal as the one he is? It’s cause he’s in the right position to kill us with a click of the finger if we don’t play along. That speaks absolutely of a consciousness of power. But nobody looks hungry? You can’t see why they’d fuck you? That’s just the same thing as topsies; they got leeway enough to hide it. It all amounts to the difference between being strangled bare-handed and being smothered by a velveteen pillow. And the only purpose of the velveteen pillow is so that, as you die, your murderer can point to the other guy and say, “hey, at least I’m not hurting you!"

Raum contests: Even if that was the only difference, he’d rather not be hurt…

Reyl cackles. Oh, really! Know what the purpose of pain is? It’s the signal that you’re getting fucked. Now you know, now you feel it, and now you can do something about it. Denying that signal from firing is the most insidious trick in the book, and it gets employed because the guy with the knife trembles to think you really will do something. Say, know who the most unrepentant, successful killers are? It’s not the ones who know the ‘right’ people or the ones who clean up good. It’s the ones who go after the has-beens nobody would report missing in the first place.

Black as it is, Raum can follow the logic. The hope inside him feels to puncture and slowly deflate.

She continues. And all that’s beside the point of Aquila being the one officiating this shit. Sticking ‘round that sociopath’s gonna get them under the daisies by the end of the year. “Accepting" that lot ain’t noble, it just means Raum’s a quibbling bitch. Got too used to Ma jamming her fingers up your hole, now you think it’s a parking space for any old sceptre.

Queasiness swells through his chest. What she says stings, but it’s probably true. He strains through nausea, pleading her to stop: “Jay…"

Her tone softens. “You’ll be alright."

Why does that have to be so effective.

Everything he’s argued for suddenly feels so pointless. They go back home, go back to their routines, do what they can to find comfort with what they have. The daily grind. There’s nothing wrong with that.

She nods at his submission and relaxes. That fucker’s tone gonna flip second we say no. You’ll see it. Shitheap’s worse’n me.

…

But I don’t wanna see that.

I don’t think that’s even true. You cut up a kid every Monday. Why the fuck go back to that, Jay?

But even as that one thread of strength, and belief, tightens against a tide of confusion, nausea, and misery, Raum finds himself conceding, there is nothing he can say to bolster that belief further, and nothing he can offer that she will not attack. Why does it matter if she’s reprehensible if she’s going to look after him? She loves him. She’s worried.

Just keep your head down. You’ll be alright.

Can’t you be more indignant? Can’t you hold more conviction? Can’t you be stronger than this! His mind screams.

She’s smaller than you! She’s weaker than you! You could just tell her ‘no’, and what the fuck could she do!? You managed yourself through at least five near-death situations without her just in this day. So guess what, dick-for-brains, you’re not goddamn helpless. If you really want to get out of there, if you really like what you’ve seen of this country, if you really want this opportunity — just take it! But his body follows.

Reyl has won this argument.

Aquila welcomes Raum and Reyl back to the office and motions them both to sit. For how simple a gesture it is, the gratitude it inspires in Raum is immense. It means Reyl can’t just say bye and march them both out the door. Does Aquila realise how that works, or is Raum overthinking? No, surely, he realises…

As Aquila leads up to the main topic, Raum abruptly realises that, for the first time in his life, he actively wishes for Reyl to not exist. Half of him recoils in horror at the thought; and a cascade of consequent realisations crash upon the rest of him.

He wants to accept Aquila’s offer. Obviously.

Yes he knows that’s stupid. Okay. He knows. Yes it’s a scheme. Duh. Yes. But for god’s sake.

Just let him try something different.

Just let him have hope, even a bit of it, that there are better things out there than Ordanz.

Oh god please keep talking, and say something so smart and persuasive Reyl would look stupid getting mad at me for saying yes… he thinks at Aquila. Please want me enough for whatever your scheme is that you’ll fight Reyl for me, please, please.

Cold disgust flips in his stomach. Raum’s pride, battered by countless debasements, is already near microscopic. All the same, he can assuredly say that ever hearing his mind conjure those two thoughts is the most repulsive thing he has ever experienced.

Aquila’s speech doesn’t conveniently protract itself. He asks them what their decision is.

Reyl and Raum’s voices overlap. “We’re going." “—I wanna stay."

It’s hard to tell whether Aquila finds their discord funny or concerning. The abrupt tenseness of Reyl’s muscles betrays a fury that she impressively keeps off her face. With a hot surge of sadness and fear, Raum edges on crying, again, but fear overwhelms his usual exasperation for that fact. He opts to keep his back straight, shoulders square, and ignore it even as his face grows redder.

Aquila can accommodate either of them going either way, but he must emphasise, if they split up now, there would be no grand allowances that would keep them in good contact later. He must ask again whether they’re certain of their choices. …And especially, hear that confirmation spoken not with distress, but calm.

Reyl relaxes somewhat and confirms she is going. Raum exhaustedly battles his tears, gasping wispily as he wipes them off his face, trying to compose himself before the sheer embarrassment kills him. Reyl rubs his knee and squeezes his hand under the table in a way he knows is meant to be comforting. His stomach churns.

Aquila, hearing Reyl’s confirmation, retrieves a pen and paper and begins writing a contract for her to sign. He chats casually as he does, and Raum finds himself again grateful that Aquila didn’t offer him to cry himself out in private. The even scritching rhythm of the pen, and the complete lack of judgement — rather, the note of understanding — in his tone soothe him far better than bawling and second-guessing himself alone would.

Well he’s already cried, on the bridge, to the point of near pissing himself in front of Aquila. It’s far too late to worry about dignity.

Aquila passes the finished contract to Reyl. She takes the pen, begins to sign.

Struck with a sense of urgency, Raum sets his palm on Reyl’s hand, stopping it. The pen freezes halfway through her signature.

“I’m not going," he says, looking to Aquila for approval. Though he might be imagining it, he swears Aquila’s smile quirks with a hint of satisfaction.

The rush of elation that accordingly fills Raum’s chest, though, is not imaginary. He looks to Reyl, and repeats, “I’m not going."

Seeing her straight-on like this, he catches the flash confusion and hurt that bolts through her good eye. Though it’s only momentary, the fact no guilt assaults him, and that his hand upon hers holds steady, astounds him.

It’s when he removes his hand from hers that his throat begins to lock up. But it’s done, and as long as he doesn’t look at her face, he can maintain his composure.

Reyl lets the pen fall to the paper, spreading her palms open in a flippant gesture. Alright, guess we’re doing this, her manner seems to say, as she addresses Aquila almost humorously: “Well, that ain’t tenable."

She’ll have to work with me now, Raum thinks. When—clack.

The sound of beautiful piano music flows up from beside him. Raum double-takes — Reyl is holding the recording, having stolen it from his pocket. He freezes, for just a second, as his mind tries to process this sight. You’re really that desperate? You’re really that driven to stop me from this? This is really, the best option you can see? An immense wave of pity and sadness swells inside him, then ebbs just as quickly, driven out by the deadly urgency of what’s happening.

Raum lunges forward and he does catch her wrist. They tumble to the ground with a clattering of chairs, wrestling for the recording — it’s tough, Reyl’s strong — when there comes a silver flash, a knife, pain sears across his arm. Fuck! He thinks, as he tries not to reel. It’s not that she’s never beaten him before, but those were always deterrents, punishments, things where Raum accepted he was wrong from the outset. This time, they both want to win for what they think is right, and she’ll happily draw actual weapons to that aim.

Redoubling, Raum pins Reyl down. Sweat streaks down his back and arms, mingling with blood that drips down upon her. She also sweats, and pants, grinning up at him with a look of triumphance.

The room is silent but for their heartbeats and breathing.

Preoccupied with the knife, Raum had forgotten about the recording. The sweat dribbling down his back freezes into knives. Had they struggled long enough for the recording to play out? Slowly, he rears up to peek over the table, braced to see a corpse.

Aquila stands there, quite alive. His expression is serious, in the same way as when he faced Toreas, as he holds his gauntleted hand aloft. Raum follows his gaze back to the recording in Reyl’s hand. The cyan liquid has hardened into a grey, concrete-like mass — rendering it nonfunctional.

Reyl’s eyes widen as she realises her impromptu assassination has failed. Furious, she throws the changed recording at Aquila’s head (it passes straight through), slams a chair against a wall, retrieves one of the chair-legs that breaks off from the impact, and turns towards Raum as if about to beat him with it. The rage is barely controlled and absolutely mindless. Pointless. All this can end in is Aquila signalling guards from downstairs to come up and apprehend her.

Raum raises his hands placatingly and urges her to cool down. The chair leg goes whizzing past his head and crashes into the wall behind him. Raum admires her self-control.

Raking her fingers through her hair, Reyl contorts like a rag and howls: FUCK!!! A stream of subsequent curses and murder threats follow, energetic and forceful, but impulsive and impotent. Whether she even knows what she’s saying is unclear, complete with slamming doors, overturned bookcases, repeated plungings of a knife into a table.

It’s just her temper. Once she vents it out, she’ll be back to normal. But Aquila’s right here. Even if she’s managed to redirect her fury onto every inanimate object in the room, why wouldn’t he arrest her, at this point.

…well, shouldn’t she be arrested, though? Raum wonders. But that’s his brain talking. As established, it’s not stronger than his heart.

Aquila, focused but unreadable, notes that the downstairs must hear the racket Reyl’s making. Explaining the chaos in this room in an acceptable way, even for him, is not very feasible. He urges Raum to act now to move her away or defuse her, since if onlookers come and witness this situation, Aquila will be cornered into arresting Reyl. Truthfully, if he weren’t deferring to Raum on the treatment of his sister, that would be the track he’d be taking already.

Comprehending, Raum nods and hastily ties a tourniquet around his wounded arm. He delicately yanks Reyl, who is presently a spitting whirlwind of kicks and punches, away from a brutalised cabinet and guides her into the hall, down the stairs, past the guards, through a sidedoor, and into an alley for one final round of negotiations.

Blood from Reyl’s reopened wounds drools down her body. She pants, and seethes, but after one last strike against the alley’s brick walls, has seemingly calmed enough to at least stay still.

Raum asks if she’s alright. Reyl doesn’t reply. Disconcerting.

Unsure what else to do, Raum jokes about how shocked the guards must’ve been to see them pass by. She still doesn’t reply.

Raum falls silent. Why did he even bring her out here?

So that she wouldn’t get in trouble, firstly. But then, somewhere between the office and this alley, his imagination had conjured an image. Now that Raum had established he wasn’t budging, perhaps Reyl would accept a compromise. Even if it was one that involved her returning to Ordanz, perhaps for years or even decades, that would still be fine. They could situate themselves upon their paths, and with the benefits of age and experience, reunite and reconcile later. It would be hard, but it’d be a struggle they’d share. And if Raum had truly chosen wrong, he would return to her easily.

Only now, as the uncomfortable silence stretches on, does doubt seep into this fantasy.

“Jay...?" he tests.

Reyl snaps. “You shit-brained, flower-faced, suicidal retard. Do you understand a single fucking thing that you’re doing?"

Raum’s throat locks. As Reyl’s abuses continue in a fluent, unremitting stream, Raum resists the urge to curl up and submit to her censure. But what else can he even do? Tell her off? She won’t listen. Apologise? He was sorry this hurt her. But that didn’t change it was in his interest to do it, and that he would still return to Aquila.

It’s becoming hard to tell whose fault this argument is.

No, rather, something this serious shouldn’t be an argument. “Jay, stop," he tries to interject, but she just laughs incredulously and continues: “Fucking dipshit, I’m saving your life! But then you go pulling those sneaky boo-hoo bullshit dramatics — how about you stop, for two fucking seconds!"

They’re not dramatics! They’re serious. He seriously thinks staying in Asphodel is better for them than returning to Ordanz. But how to convey—

—Irreconcilable. The word flashes through his mind.

How can this be be how it ends.

Ends? Despite himself, Raum shivers.

Her insults themselves don’t hurt. Finally, it feels like he’s grasped a fragment of that elusive thing called conviction. But the dawning idea that they really may never find agreement on this issue, and because of that they might never find themselves on good terms, or even in each other’s lives again — that scares him.

She’s obviously scared of losing him too. But, goddamn it…

“Know why you’re doing this? You think you know, but you don’t! Here, a freebie, the truth, here’s what goes on in your fucked-up little dickrotten brain," she continues. “You stumbled on a new guy who can manhandle everyone around ten ways to Sunday, and want him to be your new mommy. That’s all."

“But I wanna fuck him too, though," Raum automatically responds, feeling his mind and mouth separate.

“Hah! No you don’t. He’s a featherduster. You wanna think about fucking him, then piss around being sad that you can’t," she continues. “Stupid shit to be sad about, just means you won’t drop him how you do everyone else!"

Raum winces, hands flinching up. Oh god, don’t let him break down here. Her wavelength is sucking him in.

She continues. “Even me in the end, huh."

“Jay, no. It’s not like that. I—"

“Then what the fuck are you doing!"

Irreconcilable. Again, the word flashes.

He buries his brow in his palms and drags them down, as if wiping his face from his skull. He breathes hard to steady himself, refocus. Pleas and arguments to defuse her flick through his mind, but each one tastes utterly fruitless. He redirects to a different, less heated path. “What’ll you do, then?"

“Hah! Right. What will I do, then. Iunno. Guess’m gonna get a knife…"

“Jay."

“…gut open some nobodies for every day you’re still cozying with the Majesty. Eh?"

“Don’t."

“I’m just laying the conditionals," she laughs, tapping the blade of her drawn knife on her palm.

Knowing her, it’s more likely an intimidation than a serious plan. Also knowing her, any serious plan she does make will still involve murders, just more precise ones.

Raum’s blood cools with an uncomfortable realisation, which he simultaneously recognises as a truth so obvious that taking twenty years to face it is embarrassing. She’s evil.

As soon as he thinks it, guilt washes over him. To call Reyl evil is a massive oversimplification. She’s moreso stressed and pragmatic... and possessive… and confrontational… and controlling… with extreme anger issues… which all make her incredibly dangerous…

She should be locked up. Raum is reaching the same conclusion, and moving towards the same action, that he would have resented others for taking not even a minute ago.

Because just as much as he wants to stay away from Ordanz, he wants to stay away from — this. Not Reyl in her whole, but this side of her, that demands him by any means kept under her thumb. The rest of her, he wants to keep in his life forever. But choosing the best while forsaking the worst, he’s beginning to think, is not just greedy, but impossible.

“—You could stay with me if you get arrested," Raum blurts. “Cause I’d visit," he appends lamely.

Reyl grins snidely, about to mock the ridiculousness of that statement (good to see she’s steady enough to find things humorous…), when her expression abruptly sobers, then flips dumbfounded. For how stupid it sounds, this idea would secure her more reliable influence over Raum than anything she could conceivably finangle by herself. The problem is she is so adverse to even hypothetically being at another’s mercy that she just can’t do it.

She backs up a step, looks at him askance. The tapping of the knife stops.

She seems ready to run.

Hesitating, Raum asks what she’s thinking.

Reyl offers one last time that he step in beside her, and stop being a dumbass.

Otherwise, get back in the hall.

If he’s truly committed to this path, then lunging forward, and seizing her now, is the correct course. …What if he pretends—

She twirls the knife, readjusts it into a firmer grip. Her expression drops into one of analytical cold.

—Nevermind.

If he makes a move for her, she will actually kill him, he realises, dumbstruck.

It’s contrary to everything she’s been saying so far, but the look is unmistakable. It rattles him so much, the actual low feasibility of him winning unarmed against her doesn’t even enter his mind as he withdraws into the guildhall.

He glances around, shaken. The entire room feels like an alien dimension. He needs to reach out to someone, tell them what’s happened, but everyone looks and sounds like strangers, distanced a thousand leagues from him, speaking foreign tongues. The air presses against him shiny and thick, like a mass of cellophane, and moving through it is like trudging through mollases. His teeth chatter to the root. He shivers like a pruny old man. Panic screams through every nerve in his body, telling him he is drowning, dying, and that the only pocket of solid ground and breathable air, remains right outside the doorway he just crossed, with Reyl.

GO BACK TO HER NOW YOU IDIOT GO!!! RUN TO HER! HUG HER! RUN AWAY WITH HER! NEVER LET GO OF HER AGAIN SHE’S YOUR SISTER YOU LOVE HER HURRY GO NOW NOW NOW!! APOLOGISE A THOUSAND TIMES KISS HER FEET SHE IS RIGHT LISTEN TO HER DO IT NOW GO GO GO!! YOU’LL DIE HERE! HURRY!

Gasping for breath, Raum turns for the doorway. Where before it had opened to the alley, all that lies beyond it now is a pitch black void.

GO ANYWAY!!! SHE’LL BE RIGHT THERE!! GO!

He’s trying! It’s hard! The ground undulates under his feet with the consistency of jello. Suddenly he finds himself back in the middle of the harbour, floating on that salvaged board. But it’s night, and out of the dark sky, there descends a congregation of wormlike, feathered creatures, looming over him with interest and burbling. Sludge sloughs off their skin into the water.

Great! Nice to meet you! Piss off where’s the goddamn door!

A white cube rises out of the harbour. It grows larger, and larger, until Raum’s fingers scrape its surface. This is the exit.

No. This is a trap, a colder, sterner voice interjects like a blade, slicing through the chaotic din. The cube spikes violently into a stellate mass, sharp and uninviting. Raum flinches away; the board rots into dust, and he sinks messily into black water.

Raum’s heart kicks as vigorously as an unstable bomb. The scales of a serpentine creature overlay themselves on the bottom of the ocean, shift, move, and glitter with an iridescent sheen. The sight of it disgusts him. He struggles to move, or paddle away, but the water wrestles against him like tar. Tides from the creature’s movement batter him about, but otherwise he is trapped, like a fly locked in amber.

Help!!! He opens his mouth to call out, but the thick water flows in and hardens like concrete, gagging him down to his throat.

You have to help yourself, the voice chides.

HE CAN’T!!! AND BESIDES!!! HALF OF WHAT PEOPLE ARE IS THE PEOPLE THEY KNOW. CALL YOURSELF AN ISLAND; YOU’RE BASICALLY DEAD.

I suppose so, it concedes.

So help him! Please.

But nothing replies.

The water quakes, churns, crushes, smothers. He’s dying.

Aquila.

Where’s Aquila.

Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila

Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila

Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila Aquila—

With the terrible shriek of a tormented animal, wisps of blood blossom in the water around him.

Raum is in a white brick room. He lays in a neat bed, and though it feels like he’s been dreaming, with memories of strange and horrific things wisping away into his unconscious, it doesn’t feel like he’s been asleep. He’s not tired or hungry. The bed is soft. The pillow is fluffy. Warm spring light spills in through a pair of grand arched windows. They feel somehow familiar. He senses he’s been here a while.

He doesn’t feel in any kind of danger. A detached sense of peaceful zen rises in him, and though he could sit here longer, vague curiosities about where he is or how he got here spur him to get up and explore.

“You shouldn’t do that."

When he tries to heave himself out of the bed, incredible pain sears across his shoulders. Taken off-guard, he collapses back down, vents an anguished moan into the pillow, and, hugging it, proceeds to whimper and sniffle. Aggravated, more wounds across his body throb with pain, impressed into his awareness and refusing to leave.

“And that’s why. Take a moment. There’s plenty of time."

He takes a recount of his injuries. Cuts on his hands, his arm, burns across his back… his ears pulse and his palms are grossly blistered and tender. Some of these wounds he recognises and dully accepts; others — burns, cuts, bruises, unknown to him until this moment — force him to marvel. He is far more injured than he remembers, though nothing seems fresher than anything else. He had simply been too preoccupied to notice when he got them.

That said, everything he can find looks to be clean and well-bandaged.

“Most of those will heal within a few days, but the worst will need a few weeks. It’s important you focus on recuperating. Take it easy," says this calm, soothing voice.

Raum finally peers over to see who’s addressing him. It’s Aquila, sitting on the windowsill, languidly haloed in light.

Relaxing, Raum flops back into the bed, letting his forearm cover his brow. He sighs. Everything still stings, but the effort of forcing that pain out of his mind is helping him shake off the last of his sopor.

With the whisper of Aquila’s feathers in the background, Raum thinks back on what he can remember. Considering all the chaos that happened, it’s amazing to think the events following his arrival to Joliet transpired over only one day. There was his unknown uncle, Morgan, then a near-brush with death at the gallows, the fires, the hostages, the boat, the bridge, Toreas… Aquila, and then — Reyl.

Fear and panic shudder up from his core like vomit. Reyl! Where is she!? Already he can feel his throat tightening, breath quickening. All pain vanishes from his perception as he moves to bolt up from the bed.

Aquila, now at his bedside, sets his hand on Raum’s chest and eases him back down. Raum cannot help the twinge of hurt and betrayal as he glares impotently, pleadingly, up at Aquila. But as his eyes well with tears, he concedes, that’s the end of this little argument. He draws his clenched fists to his face and screams, gruesomely, rocking, struggling to think of anything but the bereaved agony that has pitted itself deep in his chest.

Even with Aquila stroking his head and whispering comforts, Raum can’t stop the flood. Whenever it verges on subsiding, and he feels himself recapturing a fragment of composure, his emotions defiantly rebound to that hysterical fever pitch of: where’s Reyl? Where’s Reyl? Where’s Reyl?

Aquila has climbed onto the bed. His hand traces down to Raum’s jaw. “Look at me."

Through a blurred screen of tears, Aquila beams in perfect focus. His glittering red eyes are warm as a hearth, and his dove-white face is set like an angel’s.

Aquila tilts up Raum’s chin. Leans in.

Raum relaxes into the kiss. Of all the many kisses in his life, this one is the most tender.

Tension drains out of him as Aquila leans away. He sighs as he again falls back into the bed, hiccupping still, but mind relaxingly blank.

“Don’t think for now. Just rest."

How can’t he think? He wants to pout. He has things to do. But as he sheepishly traces his finger over his lips, he sees only benefits in being obedient. A warm haze falls over his mind as he rolls over to admiringly stare up at Aquila. The sweep of his chin. The bow of his neck. God, if only to feel Aquila’s fingers tousle through his hair… that’s probably why Raum was born. Seconds tick on like hours, sublimely.

Eventually, the doorknob judders. And into the room, shattering this reverie to dust, walks Aquila.

Raum double-takes from the doorway to his bedside. The Aquila he has been ogling for the past half-hour or more has disappeared into nothing.

He’s been hallucinating. The sudden fear that he is losing touch with reality jolts him back to his senses immediately. Alongside that prescience comes deep mortification, that that soppy mess is how his brain’s decided to comfort itself.

At the very least, it did work to vent his emotions. He feels together enough not to just scream now, thankfully.

After collecting himself, Raum asks Aquila for deets on everything. Several days have passed since Raum’s arrival in Joliet, most of which he has spent in an alternating hysterical or catatonic state, and most of that he’s again been spending in this private hospital. He is still in Joliet, though the city is calm enough now that Aquila can only excuse a couple more weeks before he ought to return to the capital, Ferendaux. Raum should be in a well enough physical condition to travel by then, and Aquila expects his company on the journey.

Raum is completely ok with this.

...Which is to say nothing of his mental condition, Aquila continues, frowning lightly. Once it became clear that neither himself or his sister were going to compromise, Aquila did expect the separation to be painful. He did not expect it to be so genuinely traumatic that it would land Raum crawling on the floor mewling Aquila’s name for about four days straight.

Raum covers his face in further mortification. Holy shit. …He’d already worried about his sanity on the bridge, but was he actually, genuinely, going…?

It’s something to keep an eye on, Aquila says. But with luck, it’s just acute stress. Though if it’s not, he jokes, you might have prospects as a pontiff up north.

Heh, Raum laughs, not getting it.

Aquila shrugs and notes that he’s going to have some rough adjustments, but that’s a topic for later. Fundamentally, though, Aquila expects the mental distress to go away on its own, provided Raum keeps himself reasonably cozy.

That’s reassuring to hear. Raum is further reassured by the fact that, despite his hesitation, he does not dissolve into psychotic mush when he finally does ask: Where’s Reyl?

Truthfully I’m near there point where I’d like to ask you where she’d go. She’s very good at escaping, Aquila replies, then tilts his head with slight awkwardness. I’m pursuing signs of her activity for my own self-interest, but knowing the delicate state you’re in now makes me hesitant to start a true hunt. I don’t especially want the anxiety of consecutive days with no results plaguing your mind while you’re still recovering. Rather, for the present, it’s preferable not to focus on her at all…

…the flipside of this approach is that it makes her harder to track down later, as it gives her more opportunity to go further and secure herself more deeply in any community where she might find refuge. That in itself is cause for overwhelming anxiety, and though Raum figures Aquila’s probably right, it sounds somewhat counterproductive.

Aquila responds that, in his experience, the most reliable way to acquire what you want, is by positioning yourself within its path and keeping your options open. Any act you take will shutter more and more options that bring you to the goal, until you are limited to only one course. This course, once known, can be predicted and counteracted. Aquila then pauses, and does that helpless shrug of his. —I’m beginning to overstep, here. Simply know that time is not an enemy in pinpointing where she’s gone.

Raum’s disappointment is incredible. Wait for her to expose herself, essentially.

Not quite, Aquila assures. It’s more in the vein of loosing an arrow just as the rabbit jumps into its path. Timing. Consider it like this: as her brother, your sound mind is the greatest asset against her. So once you’re in good mind, she’s essentially found.

It makes sense, and though he could jab at Aquila’s confidence in him, the truth is he’s confident too. An overlap secures itself between his imaginary Aquila and the real thing, both entrusting him with the mission to relax. Raum’s face flushes. Aquila hms? quizzically, but Raum ignores it and shakes the thought away.

What would Reyl want, Raum thinks, and simultaneously remembers their last conversation, and simultaneously feels a surge of overwhelming sadness, panic, and fear rip itself straight from his chest to his hot, heavy, blurry eyes.

Aquila advises him again to avoid thinking about Reyl. The air about him shifts slightly, and it seems there is something he is contemplating whether or not to say. Though Raum catches it, he is too busy calming himself again to prompt Aquila on it, and the moment passes. Damn, Raum thinks.

So, Aquila says, clapping his hands to wrap up the topic (it makes no sound — plainly, reflex), is there anything Aquila can provide to make Raum’s stay at the hospital more hospitable? Books? Music?

Raum requests headphones, a radio, and to be moved into a ward with more people. Aquila advises him that he has been credited with saving the city from Toreas, and should expect some renown for that, but that his connection to the Whitewoods is not public knowledge yet, and should be kept obscure for the moment. Raum accepts this without argument.

Aquila turns to leave. Raum, spurred by some odd impulse, asks if he’ll be alright.

Aquila breezily answers in the affirmative and thanks Raum for asking, in the subtle manner of a politician.

As the door closes, Raum feels himself sober into something not bitter, but somehow, underwhelmed.

Time passes.

After two weeks recovering in the hospital, Raum joins Aquila as planned to travel with him to the capital, Ferendaux.

There is a very obvious question about this whole arrangement. Which is, is Raum safe with Aquila? And the answer to that question is no. Though Raum is staking his future on the conceit that Aquila’s path is better for him than Reyl’s, until Raum understands what motivated Aquila’s switch from killing Raum to keeping Raum, he can not ever say that he is safe with Aquila.

Yes, Aquila has said he simply saw no reason not to make peace with the twins, and to believe that is extremely comforting.

No, Raum does not truly think that was the whole story, or that Aquila is done with him. There had to be an actual reason why he didn’t just shoot them. And yeah, for how pleasant it sounds to melt into the guy, he is still more than a little bit scared of him.

So, bolstering his courage, Raum tells Aquila this: If you ever kill me, please just tell me why. Then, no matter what happens, I’ll be okay with it.

Aquila agrees to this promise, smiling with complex remorse. It’s a grim thing to establish, but it’s important Raum does so. This way, he can stand by his decision regardless of its result, and return to this promise in times of fear, accepting these risks were in the cards from the outset.

Though he’s proud of how resolute that sounds, Raum senses he shouldn’t divulge these thoughts to Aquila. Blame me, Aquila said, as he led Raum to murder. Well, alright then. If ever things go wrong, I’ll let you think I do.

With these determined thoughts circling through his mind, Raum and Aquila board their carriage.

Their conversation throughout their journey is principally superficial. And while it’s not that Raum resents superficial, the fact he can feel the blandness of their interactions, and the breathtaking fluidity of Aquila’s evasions from potentially serious topics, does leave a profound hollowness that Raum finds himself scrambling to fill.

It’s not that Aquila’s a bad conversationalist. He asks questions about Raum, answers questions about himself, and consistently builds off-hand remarks into interesting observations and anecdotes. But for all his engagement, there remains an offputting clinical edge, and a lingering sense of calculation in what he is and is not divulging. Raum notices it, but probing feels unwise.

So he shuts off his brain and lets his smile take over. It’s exciting to be moving into a new city. It’s sort of like that time he and Reyl moved into their first apartment, hell of a fixer-upper though it was. And he’s excited to meet the people here. He’s always enjoyed learning more about individuals, and interested in seeing what will be similar and different from the attitudes he knows. Then there’s this mantle of nobility, which has its obvious perks… but moreso that places Raum as part of a legacy he still barely comprehends. Discovering the significance of his patrilineal heritage, finding his place in it, and reconnecting with it, all sound enticing. Hell knows there’s nothing so wonderful he got from his mother.

Aquila tilts his head and asks if Raum feels divided.

It strikes Raum as a weird question. Because truthfully, no. He’s always strongly favoured his father. And he’s never really wanted to be Ordish. He’ll admit that’s how he conceives himself, but it’s more because he’s lived there so long than because he ‘feels’ connected to the culture. For lack of a better verb.

Aquila nods, smiles, and divulges his own anecdote about how he’s always been predestined to one single role, so he’s never tried or thought to pursue any other conception of himself than what people expected. It would be a remarkably vulnerable admission if it weren’t a distraction from his actual vulnerabilities. From him, all it means is that he’s always wanted to be King. Well, that’s kind of interesting to know anyway.

What’s it like being King? Raum asks. Aquila answers that it’s a much dryer position than it would initially sound. Before all else, life as a statesman is a life where every decision will please some, anger others, and evoke untold consequences that Aquila’s principal role is to foresee. After discerning which course most advantages the populace, or else incurs the least adverse change, it is then, for Aquila, a matter of mediating between the parties that would and would not strongly support such a decision. In Asphodel’s case, those parties are represented most by regional lords.

Raum is surprised to hear this. Can’t Aquila just say things, and it happens? Why the need to mediate? Aquila notes this line of thinking carries a tinge of Ordishness to it. Asphodel is not a place where economic slavery has shattered personal ambition, or where men are valued most by lords for their labour, but for their willingness to fight for their master in war. That willingness is not reliably bought by money alone, but firm and equitable treatment. Just as a keen corporato flows towards untapped markets, the ambitious Asphodelean burns to claim the holdings of masters they deem unjust, that they may reap consequent loyalty.

Of course, Aquila continues, these are antiquated attitudes, no longer so vital in the diplomatic peace of today, yet they persist in this nation as sure as blood. In modern politics it simply means lords become twitchy when they perceive undeservedly poor treatment upon one of their number, and that is what Aquila’s fair reasoning must ameliorate when his choices provoke discontent. Inevitably, that does happen.

Like the Whitewoods, I guess?, Raum thinks, but knows better than to say.

Feeling they have established a rapport, Raum asks about the terms of their agreement. Aquila’s not just going to leave him to look after a castle or anything alone… right?

Aquila shifts in his seat and tilts his head back a slight, squinting. He answers, no, he will not. To expect Raum to transition into the life Aquila has offered without guidance is, in itself, cruel in a way Aquila would rather not inflict. Furthermore, he will confess now that he does have aspirations of employing Raum to political uses, those being entirely domestic ones, of course. Hence, he would like their relationship to remain quite tight, especially in these following months.

Raum nods. Aquila will likely also being evaluating Raum’s suitability for whatever those ‘uses’ are in that period.

It is rather my intention that you do not come to undue stress by me, Aquila continues, and that your quality of life remains suitably high. You are welcome to enter my chambers for council whenever you should wish it, and should you come to face difficulties that you are unsure as to navigate, I in fact request that you do so. Aquila pauses, and smiles. I am also often present at court, if you should seek me in a more casual context.

Raum’s face flushes and he clamps his hand around his cheeks to hide it. Oh, god, man, don’t just say things like that…

Though he catches the subtle amusement in Aquila’s eyes at this reaction, Raum’s mind wanders elsewhere. This deal is starting to sound like it’s made of honey.

I don’t really have to do anything? Raum checks.

Aquila nods. ‘Anything’ is quite broad. The benefits of your position exist that you may benefit by them. If you would wish to use your inheritance in manners that suit you, else capitalise on your lack of necessity to work to specialise your time into hobbies or social pursuits, I would encourage that. If you would wish to move as a political force, however, I request that you first inform me. It may be in my power to achieve the end you seek, albeit more smoothly.

…

…This sounds exactly like his life in East Welding. Raum isn’t sure what’s more scary: That Aquila discerned his drivers that quickly, or that he’s escaped one pattern just to fall into it again.

Aquila tilts his head quizzically at Raum’s crestfallen reaction. Does this trouble you?

Nah, Raum replies, shaking his head. The thoughts in his brain rattle clean like a snowglobe. Aquila is just asking him not to fuck up the local equilibrium without warning, and if he wants an occupation or something to devote his time to, he has more options than gang crap. It’s not the same as Reyl whacking him for trying to shut down mom’s brothels.

With all of that established, Raum asks what they’ll be doing once they reach Ferendaux.

Yes…, Aquila mutters. He crosses his legs, cups his elbow to his palm, bows his forehead to his fist, and closes his eyes in thought. Raum is stunned, and heartened, to see this. It’s the first time Aquila has ever looked like he did not plan his reaction, fifty years ago.

Aquila uncurls himself with a nod, flashing an overjoyed grin.

I think we must begin, he says, with an address to your fellow gentry.

So saying, their carriage rolls in through the stately stone gates of Ferendaux.

Aquila’s first business in Ferendaux is to provide Raum the things he needs to settle into the city. Among those is a change of clothes, supplied from Aquila’s own wardrobe. Raum, red-faced, insists that Aquila doesn’t need to go that far. And not to complain but these buttons are gonna pop off like bullets the second he stops sucking his chest in. Holy crap Aquila’s small. Aquila tilts his head with a slightly mischievous and very anticipatory smile. He thinks it best to introduce Raum promptly, is all.

Unsure what that means, Raum lets Aquila whisk him through the wings of the palace into the gilded chambers of court. They are magnificent, with porcelain floors and arched ceilings and floral stuccos and silk drapes and fountains and koi — much like the ballroom from before, but vaster in size and function. The place further brims with well-dressed, well-spoken, dignified gentlemen and ladies, all bustling about. It’s the nobility, diligently networking away in this fortress of decadence and luxury.

Aquila’s about to dunk me tits-deep in an ocean of socialites, Raum realises, frantically checking he hasn’t torn any seams, as he peers from the wing of the dais that overlooks the room. Upon the centre of that dais is a throne, plainly for Aquila, who strides forward into open view. Taking the cue, and ignoring his nerves, Raum follows.

Every guard in the chamber raises a small trumpet and toots, together loud enough to drown all the noble chatter. The chamber falls hush as a guardsman announces: His Majesty speaks!

Indeed he does. If Aquila’s usual demeanour is understated and calm, he absolutely is not that while orating. His sweeping gesticulations guide attention like a conductor’s baton, energizing his voice like a tidal wave to carry to the back of the room.

My honourable subjects, indispensable servants, and trustworthy friends. In these times of mourning, it is with joyful news of victory that I return to you from Joliet. So he begins, speaking of the conflict there, the brazenness of the cult, the reappearance of the scourge Toreas, then pivoting into Raum’s valiant slaying of this heinous, unwanted character.

The wary air across the chamber shifts into something both impressed and thankful. Some people applaud, not realising this incredible news is only the build-up, their solitary claps echoing and then consumed by silence.

Aquila continues. Who is this heroic young man, you must wonder. I will tell you, here is the son of my closest friend. I will tell you, here is the grandson of my saviour in youth. His is a family of unparallelled service, and unparallelled sacrifice, whose loyalty and courage have risen again in his blood. Knaves sought his pedigree dead, but this legacy is not extinct. I will tell you, this man is Raum Whitewood.

Eyes widen across the room. The air prickles as if charged with electricity.

Today, we celebrate his presence among us. But the day we celebrate his achievement comes without mistake at month’s end. For on that day, Aquila pauses, I shall formally, announce my heir.

The silence sits for many tense seconds, allowing everyone time to digest these words. Raum’s spine tingles in horror as the implications click into place. Hold on. He’s joking. No way. Hold on…!

Aquila’s hand delicately grips Raum’s shoulder. Keeping his expression straight is presently the most difficult thing in the world, as hundreds of conflicting emotions fight for control of his face.

“Who among you will welcome my friend, with a cup?" Aquila asks the crowd, then whispers to Raum, “let them struggle."

Breaking the paralysed silence, one man goes to the drinks table to retrieve a glass of wine for Raum. Another man, who seems an old rival of the first, challenges him near immediately. With that as the starting gun, the chamber erupts into overt contest. Like nations warring over a woman, who of all the nobles here will win the chance to charm Raum first?

Gloves peal against cheeks, contests of skill and strength are put forward, and men rush to their room to retrieve their rapiers. A mess of individual challenges organically morphs into a tournament. Realising this won’t degenerate into an Ordishman’s brawl, Raum forces himself not to urge them down. There is apparently an order to such things, here.

He snags himself a plate of hors d’oeuvres to snack on as the tournament relocates outside. While half of him follows all this, the other half still reels from Aquila’s announcement. Announce his heir! …What! What! What? What!

What!

That’s as articulate as he can manage. Another hors d’oeuvres disappears into his mouth. Munch munch munch. Wow yum. Mmm. What!

Crowds form in rings around the duelists, rising startled ‘Oh!’s and impressed ‘Hoho!’s at snakebite strikes and mongoose dodges. The blade of a particularly strong man, present ten-streak winner, this time does not stop at a graze and instead plunges deep into his opponent’s arm. Raum’s breath hitches in his throat, streaking like a sword across whetstone. He foists his plate on some bystander as he strides forward to intervene — Aquila leashes him back with a light, ‘Ah.’

…Right, there’s actual rules to this. As servants and friends whisk the injured man away, Raum shoots Aquila an uncomfortable look just to express his discomfort (Aquila, for his part, seems entertained by the fighting), then obediently numbs himself back into a spectator’s calm. He retrieves his plate from the bystander, and only just catches himself from reflexively accepting the glass said bystander offers alongside the plate.

Actually, there’s a five-meter radius around Aquila that has been deserted but for Raum and this guy. While the tournament distracts everyone else, he’s chancing slipping Raum a glass directly. It feels massively like cheating. Unsure, Raum again looks to Aquila for guidance. He subtly nods. This is allowed.

With that permission, Raum accepts the sneak’s glass and easily starts a light conversation. This man is the Baron of Pikiny, who, between typical chitchat, invites Raum to dinner at his manor tonight. Raum’s totally fine with that. Actually he’s so fine that he wonders if he’s being foolish. He doesn’t mind the Baron, or anything, but why him over someone who at least gave it a shot in the tournament?

Woooah I’m passive, Raum thinks. Yeah that’s it. Wow how surprising. Well passivity and malleability are the attitudes Aquila wants. If Aquila’s watching (he assuredly is) then Raum probably just accidentally passed a shit test. Hrm. He shrugs and starts on another hors d’oeuvre.

Shouts come from the crowd as people notice the Baron chatting with Raum. With the realisation that the prize to this contest is gone, the tournament dissolves automatically. The ten-streak winner shakes his fist and booms: I fart on your children, slippery Baron! The Baron chuckles and raises his glass good-naturedly. They seem to agree: we’ll rematch someday!

It blows Raum’s mind that Ten-Streak didn’t take the Baron’s win personally, that the tournament itself ended so cleanly, that nobody is yelling or calling the Baron unfair, and that the Baron didn’t taunt Ten-Streak for his failure. Even the injured man is bandaged up already and laughing with Ten-Streak. There were actual stakes in this. How is nobody mad?

Propriety. Reyl had dismissed it as window-dressing, but here’s an example of it in action.

Warmth explodes in Raum’s chest at this realisation, the first validation of a tangible, positive difference between Asphodel and Ordanz. Passivity isn’t synonymous with weakness or complacency, here! Interrupting the tournament would’ve been a massive mistake! Agonising over whose stupid glass to pick would’ve been totally pointless! All the festering guilt in Raum’s mind immediately vanishes, eclipsed by glee as bright and hot as the sun.

Energized, Raum happily socializes with the Baron and his friends. But the sun soon sags, and the time soon comes to go to the Baron’s mansion for dinner.

Raum and the Baron chat over dinner, joined by the man’s family. Though the same light chitchat from court prevails for the first while, the manor’s security against eavesdroppers and the intimacy of its dining room make more serious conversation pretty much inevitable.

Such as this fun thread: The Baron is immensely relieved Aquila has announced his intention to name an heir. It’s been a subject of quiet anxiety among the nobles for years. Aquila, as Raum had intuited but never seriously contemplated, has no Queen or scion. Now that his body is a feathery abomination, he’s incapable of siring one, too.

Raum can imagine this would cause tension, but the real point of conflict was never about who would fill the void in succession. Rather, it was whether that void would ever be filled. Because technically — technically, it wouldn’t have to be.

Aquila died in the Tyrant’s Reign and was resurrected through occult magics. The vessel to which his soul was bound, that is to say, the feathers that construct his body, are not ‘alive’ in a biological sense. Though it manifested the divine blood of Asphodel by Aquila’s inherent nature as a holy Yazata, it has no organs and is subject to none of the vital mechanisms of living things — digestion, breathing, and critically, age. There is no natural deadline for Aquila’s stay on the throne.

Furthermore, those feathers themselves are bewitched material plucked from the hide of a monstrous ghoul. Though soft as cotton and pliable as silk, each feather is tougher than iron. Only supernatural means could even theoretically nick him.

So if he would never die and may never be killed, what if he chose to never abdicate? That is what the nobles feared. A thousand-year reign where their entire social class stagnated, unable to substantially influence any future policy through the most fundamental means of marriage and children.

But, as stated, Aquila’s announcement has tempered those worries.

Raum instead asks whether the Baron thinks Raum will be named heir. The Baron says it’s difficult to imagine who else even could be. The implications were laid pretty thick.

And on that note, the Baron wants to know more about Raum. So Raum divulges more about his experience in Asphodel, his place in the family, his history in Ordanz, same as he told Vince. Truthful foundations are necessary for him to live with any legitimacy. Still, he correctly refrains from mentioning his sister, or the real scope of the Thorns, selling himself as a more-or-less typical vault rat.

The Baron’s niece, who has been quietly listening, pipes up. “Are we ever going to get those gophers out of the lawn, uncle?"

Coded message. She doesn’t like what she’s hearing. Raum keeps a dumb smile plastered on his face. What the fuck is a gopher.

After a prolonged sip of his wine, the Baron answers his niece and rises from his seat. Seeing that the dinner itself has finished, the maids collect the plates and the Baron ushers Raum to the door. His manner remains genial, but he does furtively glance back to the table before asking if Raum has plans to travel to a place called Deram.

He’s never heard the word before in his life. The answer to that is an easy no.

The Baron’s face eddies between disappointment and suspicion. Whatever response he was hoping for, he didn’t get it. Seeing no point in pursuing the issue, the Baron jauntily thanks Raum for coming and gestures to the door. The tenseness around this mysterious ‘Deram’ dissolves, and Raum departs with a thanks and a smile.

Raum’s transport takes him not to the palace, but a brilliant manor. Finished in birch and ebony, designed to capture light on the brights and emphasise the dark shadows, when struck by beams of moon or sun, it looks like a woodcut stamped onto reality.

This is Raum’s new home, and the home of his forefathers, the Whitewood Manor. Servants park his carriage and welcome him in with abounding enthusiasm, apparently delighted that even a drop of their dear master’s — or generous employer’s — blood has survived.

The interior is modernly swish. Rooms are not ‘wide’ so much as ‘vast’, meant for a large family who keep a wide network of friends. With the old residents’ home decor packed away into storage, it carries the feeling of an untouched canvas, ready for Raum to mark it as his.

Eager servants guide him through the rooms. Once the tour is over, Raum dismisses them for the night and retreats into the master bedroom.

He leans his elbows on the desk, lets himself start thinking, and sighs.

What a day.

Raum has learned things over these last hours that he musn’t ignore. Of course, in the moment of discussion when these details were dropped, he let his social brain take over, prattled on, and pretended not to be hooked. Now that he has privacy and time, he can investigate these tidbits properly.

One: Deram. What is Deram? Why would Raum visit Deram? Why would the Baron ask about that, and why did the subject make him so edgy? Raum flips through maps, atlases, encyclopedias, searching.

Deram is a small desert town situated in the crag over a canyon, a rare blot of civilisation in a landscape most have the sense not to bother with. Its only remarkable feature, as far as Raum can see, is its proximity to the old capital Sebilles. Indeed, if Trivia had directed the twins east instead of west upon leaving Sebilles, they would have reached Deram within the day.

But Raum doubts the Baron was making any veiled reference to Sebilles. Still, the significance of this podunk town otherwise remains unclear. Photographs show the sigil of house Whitewood — a crow with a key in its beak — on its church and town hall, confirming this as a Whitewood holding. But any town you could stumble upon in this region has a 50-50 chance of being a Whitewood holding.

Finding nothing notable, Raum shelves Deram.

So point two. Aquila’s naming of an heir.

The instant the Baron explained that situation, many things clicked into place for Raum. Why elevate the Whitewoods so much? Why then kill them off, but hold onto Morgan? If the massacre was a gambit to transfer monarchical power not just to one bloodline, but one specific individual from a bloodline, then it worked magnificently.

But why the need for one specific individual, and more critically, why Morgan? Well there’s one obvious thing that distinguishes Morgan. Morgan is subverted by Phoenix. And so, it seems, is Aquila.

Everything, all of this, may have been an accidental coup on Phoenix’s part, as Aquila struggles to peaceably interpret the commands Phoenix hammered into him at resurrection. If true, that explains why his attitude towards Raum (also subverted) shifted so suddenly, and hints at his motives.

And at turmoil. At shared secrets. At something Aquila needs genuine help with, where Raum’s assistance won’t simply be a good deed, but a permanent tie Aquila will always remember. Raum traces his earrings, smiling. That smile sobers quickly as he refocuses on this situation’s difficulty.

He can’t ask Aquila or Phoenix for direct confirmation. It’s far too dangerous a question. If he can get Aquila’s guard down, and ask him more generally about Phoenix, that might be a place to start.

…Get Aquila’s guard down. Sounds like training a cat to eat vegetables. Raum pinches his brow, sighs, and cranes his head to rest on the back of the chair as he stares vacantly over the bedroom.

Man. What a house.

But imagine how much more fun moving in would’ve been, if he’d been able to share the experience with Reyl?

Raum’s chest clenches. He closes his eyes, forces himself calm.

He’ll go to discuss her situation with Aquila tomorrow.

He’s confident he’s ready for it now.

The sun rises.

Raum finds Aquila at court and pulls him aside for a chat.

He starts by questioning this heir business, just to hear Aquila’s spin. It’s nothing exciting. Essentially a word-for-word recap of the Barons’ thoughts on the matter, as if Aquila had been eavesdropping the whole time. Aquila doesn’t confirm Raum as the heir, though, and it’s unclear whether this evasion is political or just plain coy. Actually the more Raum presses — noting it’s the only thing that makes sense, outright asking ‘why me?’ — the more Aquila evades. Heir or not, nobility is an amazing gift horse. Picking at its teeth is uncouth.

Raum swallows the sudden lump in his throat, and drops the subject, ashamed. Aquila wants him to stay docile. If he wishes to communicate trust to Aquila, he should abide that until Aquila’s satisfied. Seeing Raum’s guilt, Aquila forgives the nosiness easily as just natural curiosity.

With that squared away, Raum switches topics to Reyl. Aquila’s mood hardens into seriousness as he confesses that, for two weeks of progress, all he’s found is places she isn’t.

She’s still missing. But she’s still in the country. With only these light guidelines to contaminate his thought process, Aquila requests Raum’s insight on what she would want, how she would think, and where she would move.

What does she want? Raum. Whether to protect him from perceived dangers, or from simple affection, Reyl will want to reclaim Raum before she skips the country. Whatever actions she’s taken these past weeks carry the ultimate intention of claiming, kidnapping, or manipulating Raum.

How does she think? Mercenary. Despite appearances, and despite her temper, she’s a level-headed problem solver who snatches advantages anywhere she can get them. She neither invests into uncertainties without an escape, or misses opportunities from playing too cautious. Her mindset focuses on achieving goals, with constant cost/benefit factoring. Wherever benefit outweighs cost, she goes.

Aquila interjects that Raum has painted a picture of someone with extremely high drive, and extremely low compunctions about their methods.

Raum uneasily confirms this is true.

Aquila then asks, since this needs establishing, what he actually wants done with Reyl once she’s found.

Though pleasant fantasies of conciliation again float through his mind, Raum ultimately concedes no. She needs to be locked up. In the basement of the Whitewood Manor, maybe. Though Raum recognises what a fucked up solution this is, the thought of having her again makes him genuinely too happy to care. Aquila comments that this is batshit but doesn’t discourage it, not really concerned. Aquila’s apathetic support of questionable behaviours in this case leaves Raum outrageously relieved and grateful.

So, final question.

Where would she go? With no elaboration, riding purely on intuition, Raum says: Sebilles.

Aquila closes his eyes and puts his fingertips to his brow, a tic to suppress strong emotion. Aquila has clearly considered, dismissed, and purposefully ignored this possibility. Raum’s confirmation means he cannot do so anymore. Aquila’s gears spin as the seconds stretch on, one, two…

Raum wrestles back the urge to call: are you alright? Aquila composes himself on his own, though an unreadable blankness lingers in his stare.

Sebilles is Raum’s intuitive guess. What are are the actual leads? Raum questions, eager for any tidbits on Reyl.

Aquila purses his mouth as if pricked. An uncharacteristic flash of guilt, and hesitation, shades his expression as he deliberates on what to say. This unease dispels the strange blankness, and for the ominousness of Aquila being uncertain, it makes him look far more human.

Carefully, Aquila asks Raum to prepare himself for rather poor news…

Raum’s heart clenches, horrified.

The room’s frigid air wafts between shelves packed full of rectangular stone boxes. It prickles Raum’s skin, like needles of ice, though he neither shudders nor shivers. His thoughts churn in circles, like a thick mass of sludge, unconcerned with the physical chill.

He sits upon a stool, in an isolated space, where he stares into a particular casket.

It finally happened, he thinks.

This didn’t need to happen!, his mind wails.

The body laying in the stone casket before him is that of his mother, Desiree Blackthorne.

Her pristine skin is spattered with deep, violent stab wounds. Whoever attacked her did so with incredible anger. Despite that, she smiles peacefully — no, blissfully, as if she’s having a wonderful dream. Like everything involving his mother, even that happiness is wrong.

He doesn’t feel like crying. She was truly a horrible person.

But…

“Can you resurrect her?" Raum glances over his shoulder to Aquila.

Aquila sets his fist to his chin like a judge, before sagging his shoulders in surrender.

—They are in a mortuary on the palace grounds, where Desiree’s corpse has been stored for the past two weeks. Aquila’s bad news was, naturally, that of her murder.

Though the stab wounds alone verify it as Reyl’s handiwork, Aquila has confirmed it as thus:

She was found dead in an abandoned shack in Indris’ slums, after a recent discharge from the hospital. Severe blunt force trauma to the back of the head had kept her admitted for days, under round-the-clock care. But when the situation exploded in Joliet, and the surge of wounded overwhelmed the hospitals there, surplus patients flooded into Indris.

While medics were struggling to triage this inflow, a distinctive girl with only one eye appeared at the clinic. She demanded Desiree discharged, claiming to be her daughter. With the pressure growing, and with Desiree already treated as much as the hospital could manage, this was permitted without much thought. They were grateful for a free bed.

This all happened about two weeks ago. Aquila’s known the whole time.

Aquila answers Raum’s question. Regrettably, he can’t resurrect her; he would need her soul for that. Given that it was absent, Aquila suspects it was destroyed shortly after her death as per Ordish custom… and if not, enough time’s passed that it would be too late to do anything anyway.

Understanding, Raum lapses back into silence.

Two goddamn weeks. He knew things weren’t resolved, that he still needed to act. But what did he do? Sat in bed giggling over what a wonderful new life he’d have with Aquila coddling him as his special wee pawn. Raum was a comfort-drunk idiot who pushed what mattered aside all because some cute stranger told him to.

And what was Aquila doing! How did he mess up this bad… unless, did he mess up?

Aquila’s failure to confirm Sebilles during those two weeks means he simply doesn’t think finding Reyl is important. At least, less important than controlling Raum. But then if he really wanted to keep Raum leashed he shouldn’t have told him Desiree died! Catch Reyl first and let her break the news! Then Raum would blame Reyl! It would be perfect!

Aren’t you some chessmaster? Don’t you plan everything? Then what plan is this? The plan to make me stop trusting you?

What fucking half-measures.

“I’ve hurt you, haven’t I," Aquila mutters with contemplation and regret.

Raum’s shoulders sag. How can he even respond to that.

Raum presses his palms to his eyes, but still can’t shed any tears. His emotions are tangled, numb.

He wishes he could convince himself, as he would naturally assume when dealing with most people, that Aquila has no ulterior motive to this.

“Yeah," Raum finally replies. “I’m thinking more about you than her."

Actually, reaching down, hugging her, and crying into her chest feels like a more attractive option than trying to comprehend an inch of what goes on in Aquila’s brain. Reyl and Desiree — fuck, they were mean, but at least they were open.

“I don’t want to compromise my position with you any further. I recognise you may not forgive me, but please take that much as truth," Aquila says. Raum can’t laugh at the insensitivity of these words. It’s just snake language for ‘sorry’.

Raum raises his hand to his shoulder, hovering just over his skin. Taking the cue, Aquila slips his hand beneath Raum’s, leans against the back of his neck, drapes over him in an embrace. No vital warmth radiates from him, only the material warmth of his feathers, as if someone’s propped Raum’s head with a blanket. But it’s soft, and not unpleasant, so Raum accepts it as enough.

After some time in silence, Raum goes to slide the lid of the casket closed. Aquila advises him to say farewell to Desiree, while he waits outside, giving Raum privacy. The sliding door to the room clicks closed.

Wonder if he’s going to lock me in here or something. It’s stupid how that feels possible, Raum thinks to himself and snorts. Maybe he’s just an optimistic over-sentimental over-emotional gullible fuck affection whore, but that stupid apology hug has reassured him Aquila truly does not mean to misuse him.

Raum refocuses on Desiree. His mouth eddies between a stern frown and a wince, his emotions too muddled to express.

He reaches into the casket, tilts her head sideways. Despite treatment and embalming, the entire back of her skull is a mush, flexing from convex to concave at the lightest pressure.

Raum’s eyes widen. Holy hell. How’d you live through that? Thank you, though, that you did… and he sets her back to her original position. Her rapturous smile feels like some proud reply. Oh Jackie, I love you, of course I wouldn’t hurt you like that.

Yeah, raise hell, you old bitch.

You were awful, but I did love you.

As he slides up the lid, he says, “Night mom. I’ll get them to put you somewhere nice, with flowers…"

That same joyful smile glows up at him in reply.

He feels a sad smile rise on his own face.

Yeah. That’s a good ending.

She would’ve liked that.

Raum exits the morgue to the hall where Aquila is waiting. The persistent glow that has been hanging around him, ever since the incident with Toreas on the bridge, is gone. For the first time, Raum feels he is observing Aquila as someone very fallible and average.

“I truly am sorry," he says.

It’s not really fine, but the only option is to pretend that it is.

I hope my failings haven’t made you regret your decision, Aquila continues. Though his tone is light and somehow jesting, the question behind it is not. Raum so answers seriously, and affirms that they haven’t. His investment in this country is more than just Aquila.

Raum wants Desiree frozen and installed in a meadow, as per Ordish funerary rites. Aquila explains that Asphodel is too warm for that to work with normal ice, but he can compensate with similar substitutes. Raum accepts this, and they agree to tackle the details – locations, chemicals – later.

For now, Raum wants to talk about Reyl.

Properly, this time.

Raum and Aquila relocate into the mortuary’s office to chat.

Aquila is more open than ever, as he now divulges extensive details on his actions, plans, and thought process with Reyl.

How did Aquila get Desiree killed? He just misread Reyl. She was stronger than he thought, faster than he thought, and clever enough to escape his underlings’ pursuit. He expected her to be rash, desperate, and tempted into action by the lingering chaos in Joliet, combined with the city’s proximity to the border. She would abduct Raum from Joliet, he predicted. Plainly, he predicted wrong.

Of course, Aquila didn’t put all his eggs in that basket. He’s tightened the national borders, sent bounties for her arrest, and ordered guardsmen on high alert in every major settlement in the region. The only hole was Indris, which had itself suffered major losses among the guard, and critically was missing its governor. By the time Aquila could reinforce it, and flip this obvious refuge into an inescapable trap, Reyl had already left. It’s unlikely she even stayed there more than three or four hours.

Aquila makes it sound like Reyl went to Indris explicitly to kill Desiree.

Raum absolutely rejects this premise. What would she even gain from that? More likely she’d gone to ally with Desiree, but with her temper still high, they had an argument, things got out of control, and it was all just a fucked-up accident. The rage in those stab wounds attests to that.

Aquila frowns. He hopes for Raum’s interpretation to be correct, as of all the possibilities Aquila considered, for it to have just been a mistake is by far the most convenient.

But he can’t just assume that’s the case. There were many ideas Aquila had floated: revenge, punishment, something tied to Ordanz… but it seems both he and Raum agree her principal motive in going to Desiree was mercenary, hence, something that would tangibly help her gain some power, assets, or leverage to wrest Raum from Aquila.

Aquila delicately notes that Desiree was very injured. Despite that, would keeping in her company be an asset?

Raum asserts yes. He’s not sure how Desiree does it, but she’s kind of a miracle worker.

Aquila quietly nods. Then he can accept the ‘accident’ theory as feasible. After bombing Indris, especially so. Still… there’s an alternative theory Aquila had struck, one that he wanted to dismiss for how outlandish it was, but one that, should it be true, changes the entire situation too much to ignore. That is the very, very scant possibility Reyl used Desiree as material in a ritual to turn herself into a witch.

Raum laughs, “What?".

Aquila shrugs.

Raum’s brain reels back that last sentence, replays it. “Like Trivia Venn?"

Aquila frowns. If Reyl shares Raum’s conception of witches, then the chances are ever more likely. Most witches are not as balanced as Trivia Venn. They… well, if you might imagine her more prone to vice at another’s expense, that is a more typical attitude. …But that’s what Reyl’s like already…!

Though Aquila is too polite to say bluntly what most witches are like, Raum grasps the subtext.

…She could’ve messed herself up? Raum asks.

“…Could have, considerably," Aquila answers. There would be nowhere in the world she could exist without being reviled, rejected, and repelled as a monster. She would preserve her fundamental mind, but… if you’ve known someone before they became a witch, the similarities afterwards are often quite painful.

Uncertain how ‘considerable’ that ‘considerably’ is, Raum’s mind conjures terrible images. Feral warren-rats starved into man-eating animals… wild-eyed crackheads taking dick for their fix… his mother screaming at his father for denying her advances, as if she was being murdered… himself, on a bender, snagging three guys and eight girls he damn well knew had partners.

Face in his hands, Raum sighs long out his nose. His breath hitches. He forces it steady. It’s not like she’d be dead.

He’d deal with it. He’d help her deal with it. That was the only choice, except curl up and cry, pawn the problem off to somebody else. There was nobody else. Aquila could support from above, but the initiative on the ground laid on Raum.

This is all a hypothetical anyway. Chances are she’s fine; Aquila’s just being careful. Even as that warm glow of optimism comforts him again, the fact Raum could look this poor scenario in the eye at all leaves him thinking: wow.

Reyl either is, or is not a witch. These are the two core possibilities they must consider going forth, and the first thing they must confirm.

So those are the actions she has taken. What are the actions she will take? Aquila describes ways she could move, places she could go, whether she’s waiting for Aquila to misplay, whether she’s ambitious enough to actively pressure him, the settlements he’s scoured, the baits he’s laid, the traps she hasn’t taken. He dissects everything. He’s considered everything.

Everything except Sebilles! Raum runs some quick math. The journey from Joliet to Sebilles is a little over two weeks by carriage. Ferendaux to Sebilles is around three. If they move quick, they could get in before her. Aquila prattles on about this settlement, that settlement, this crag, that oasis, pointing all over the map — stalling! — until Raum prompts him: somewhere more quiet, less people…

Aquila smooths his hair, smiles bitterly, and takes the hint. He traces his finger over the map to Sebilles.

His smile as he stares down at that one blot of ink is so bland, it’s unreadable.

Raum, uncomfortable, shifts in his seat.

Aquila closes his eyes, feathers his fingers over his brow. Finally, he speaks. “Not even the desperate go to Sebilles. But you believe your sister has."

…Yeah, Raum confirms, feeling the hairs on his neck prickle inexplicably, as though kissed with the fine edge of a razor.

“You don’t seem to realise, in that case, how pessimistic her prospects would be."

It’s not the core of some goddamn volcano… Raum wants to retort, but the spite dripping into Aquila’s level words holds him still as a statue.

“That city is not abandoned by choice," Aquila smoothly swivels his chair around so that he no longer faces Raum. “We have been forced to forfeit it by circumstances that make it untenable for human life."

“Your brother’s there," Raum says frankly.

“That louse is disowned," Aquila snaps.

Raum shrinks back, glad not to have taken that venom face-first. Still, understood. Maybe Aquila still cares? Maybe Aquila still wants the kid’s guts strung up on a flagpole.

“Apologies. This nerve is still raw for me. It likely shall be forever." Aquila leans over the armrest. His fingers are steepled and his glare is sharp, only tempered from ‘homicidal’ to ‘hateful’ by the cold flatness of the rest of his attitude.

Raum glances aside apologetically.

He roughly knows Aquila’s circumstances. His brother burned down the country, enslaved hundreds of thousands of people, left a huge political mess for Aquila to clean up, stuck Aquila in a body that’s only caused more problems, and almost undoubtedly subjugated him under some batshit command only a child would find reasonable. If Aquila is fighting every day to loophole that command, or at least prolong it, then he can understand how the hate stays so virulent.

All the same, Raum wants to grab Aquila by the cheeks, twist his face around, and yell: GET OVER IT!!! You’re meant to be calm! It’s been twenty years! The war’s over! The kid is twelve years old! You used to have fun dicking around on the piano together. Can’t you go back to that? Hell, and you’re the older one, so you’re the role model here. Phoenix might be crazy, but he’s sincere about wanting the best for the country. Can’t you two at least find common ground on that? I don’t care what excuses you have, it’s better if you make up. He’s only getting worse. And I’d wager, so are you.

The chair back swivels minutely, back, forth, back, forth…

Nobody wins when family hates family. Like it or not, those bonds are forever.

“You never check up on him?" Raum ventures.

The swivelling stops. The dissonance between Aquila’s composed words and murderous tone twists Raum’s gut like a knife. “Upon death itself? Scarce few would. Even a willing suicide is better served diving from bridges. Have you not seen?"

Seen what, Raum reflexively questions, when the majordomo’s death flashes through his mind. Raum’s shoulders hitch. Never before has he witnessed, or even heard of, a man twisting himself to death in that manner, or of souls shearing out of the body in splinters as his did. So the cause of that had been proximity to Phoenix — even by an indirect depiction, through a recording of his voice, from before he became an Archon.

Raum’s face reddens and breath catches. With a long sigh, he ushers his thoughts elsewhere.

“No. I do not expose myself to that," Aquila continues. “Bar ignorance, I question why your sister would."

For its haughty dressing, why does that question feel so genuin—

—Wait. Wait, wait, waitwaitwaitwait.

Realisation blindsides Raum like a truck. This is it, isn’t it?

He doesn’t care about what Reyl’s doing.

He’s asking why she and Raum are alive!

A shot of adrenaline bursts through Raum’s blood. He shifts in his seat, wets his lips, hurries to assemble his knowledge versus Aquila’s confusion. If he plays this conversation right, he may force Aquila to present more of his hand.

Raum questions: That happens to everyone?

Aquila’s feathers rustle as he shifts in his seat. During daytime, a zone of inescapable death shrouds Sebilles. The range of this zone is bafflingly inconsistent — some relation to solar activity? An inherent resistance? — but the result is always the same. Nobody has lasted a full day in Sebilles. And none of the rumours otherwise have withstood scrutiny.

He’s been experimenting with the limits of the ‘death zone’. Aquila is slobbering for this information.

“It’s a familiar place. She’s been there before," Raum says. Aquila swivels his chair halfway, fingers steepled and expression only lightly questioning — as if he isn’t sucking every point of data from Raum’s face that he can. His silence itself is a prompt for Raum to keep speaking.

Against his every instinct, as his heart hammers and curses at him for being an IDIOT an IDIOT don’t let him KNOW you disobey just do what he wants or he’ll KILL YOU, Raum forces himself to sit still and let the silence continue.

He is rewarded. Aquila folds first by asking Raum to divulge his beans.

Raum assures he will feed Aquila the beans. But he wants clarity first. How big of a deal is it that he and Reyl survived Sebilles, and repeated exposure to that recording?

“Considerable." Aquila flexes his fingers, thinking, thinking, thinking. Then he laughs and shrugs as if casting off chains. Considerable. Frankly, it’s why Raum’s alive. Phoenix Valens, though dormant for now, is a permanent national threat. If Raum presents a means to disarm that threat, then yes, Aquila wants to know it. Furthermore, if Raum wishes to know Aquila’s goal, stated nakedly and without pretention, it is the absolute death of Phoenix Valens.

Fingers twined, head craned back, Aquila lovingly smiles as if watching cats drown.

It’s that hatred. Utter hatred.

Stripped of his soft mien, the impeccable majesty is a mere snarl of hatred. His venerated blood is nothing but poison, and his pure white body is naught but a cruel parody. Spawned in Nix, murdered by kin, a hungry ghost sustained by just the word: VENGEANCE!!!

Raum feels a questionable kind of relief.

It’s pitch black, but the attachment is there. Deeply, deeply there. This bond can absolutely be mended.

And though he innately detests the thought, he can’t help but agree that death would be a mercy for Phoenix.

“—I can do that," Raum assures, true as an oath.

Aquila’s back straightens in slight but genuine surprise at the seriousness in Raum’s tone. Strain comes over his smile. Understand, Aquila means to defy the rulings of an omnipotent, albeit slumbering God — the one who promoted Phoenix into immortality and Archonhood. Punishment doesn’t deter him, and he doubts Raum that timid either. But this is not something Aquila expects to square away in one generation. Whatever Raum commits, he may never see the fruits of it.

…The idea that Aquila doesn’t regard him as timid is a little mindblowing.

Because he’s certainly gutless. His commitment isn’t to the result. It’s to being useful, and helping the people he likes flourish.

Of course, this warning is important for Raum to understand. But it also sounds like Aquila reproaching himself.

…You’ll still take my help though, Raum confirms.

Yes, Aquila lisps desperately.

Abruptly nervous, Raum meekly checks, You’re not just gonna off me after I spill, right?

You’re very fixated on that, Aquila notes with a complex mix of irritation, apology, and black humour. Unless circumstances force it, Aquila can only see discarding assets as a rash waste.

…Not a strict ‘no!’ Raum forces the shudder back into his spine, away from his face, as he straightens himself to speak. Aquila prompts him to divulge everything that happened from the day of the cathedral fire to the twins’ arrival in Burmal.

Raum obliges, feeling in himself the sense of liberation that had surely overtaken Morgan and Toreas. Finally, the secrets come loose, the past gets its due, the foundations to the future assert themselves boldly, all cohering into a sense of mutual trust established—

—that collapses into petrified horror as, upon hitting the words ‘Tyrant’s Haunt’, Raum’s mouth refuses to move.

It’s the same thing as with the interrogator in Joliet. Though the command to stay in Asphodel has faded with Toreas’ death, the command not to speak about encountering Phoenix that day remains adamantly put. Realising that order had no end clause, Raum frantically swallows his panic.

He arranges his words to try and circumvent the order. But every implication, leading question, or oblique phrase of his is denied. Anything he says with the intention to guide Aquila to the truth becomes twisted, filtered by his mouth into clumsy lies, evasions, and frivolous changes of topic, failing to answer a single one of the questions posed by an ever more agitated Aquila.

I’M BEING MIND CONTROLLED! Raum wants to scream, baffled that Aquila’s not getting it. Isn’t he himself enthralled? Isn’t Phoenix infamous for this? Toreas’ words flit horribly through his mind. Toreas had implied Phoenix’s commands could be resisted, albeit painfully. But whatever is presently influencing Raum absolutely, unequivocally, cannot be defied.

Does Aquila not know Phoenix can dominate people just by speaking?

—Of course not! He thinks that just kills them!

Contrary to his internal anguish, and his burning desire to smack himself over the head with a book, Raum’s voice smoothly recounts that they exited the tunnels into Sebilles, sheltered there through the rain, and did enter the Tyrant’s Haunt several times, but never during day, never died, and never encountered Phoenix.

Aquila sits there, baffled. How did you get from the city into the palace through the rain?

Raum’s body smiles dumbly: Umbrellas.

Aquila feathers his brow, strokes back a lock of his hair. …A deluge as that, with umbrellas.

Oh we found a lot of them and tied them together into a tent and we snuck around under it. Yeah we wanted to go to the palace that much. Oh you know, seemed like a cool place — how often can anyone say they’ve been in an abandoned palace — guess you could call it sightseeing, hehe, y’know actually we were big into urbex back home, and uh we did need cash so figured to rob it too, palace, right, gonna have valua—HOLY SHIT STOP SPEAKING, Raum screams at his idiot body.

You robbed my house, Aquila says flatly.

Raum’s body loosely crosses its legs at the ankle, twines its fingers together like a talk show host, and grins cheerily. Uh-huh, we—STOPPPPP, Raum commands, cutting himself off there.

…And where did that initial tunnel deposit you?

Mina’s Fineries by the main square, Raum’s voice responds, picking a building at complete random.

Aquila, again, scissors his hair through his fingers. Seeming to surrender, he switches topics to directly ask for any speculation on how Raum and Reyl survived Phoenix’s ‘death aura’.

Truthfully, Raum does have some. Looking back, they got rained on, died, resurrected, then were fine. Raum can only reason that Phoenix did something to them while they were dead that rendered them immune — and what springs to mind is the purification. Have you ever put a person in the palace, already dead? Were any of the people you used to investigate Sebilles already purified? He wishes he could ask these questions.

Because what he says instead is: Guess it was cloudy?

Aquila slumps back in his chair, swivels to face Raum properly, and just stares.

Though his posture is that of a limp pillow, his eyes seethe like brimstones in Satan’s palm. For once his feelings are as plain as text on a billboard. A whole highway of them, in font so big and in such bright neon that the sheer distraction of reading them would smash drivers into a 50-car (and growing) pile-up.

Those billboards say: WHERE THE FUCK IS MY GUN FUCKING PLAYING WITH ME WORM YES LET US PLAY ANT I’LL MAKE YOU CHOKE ON IT.

The only thing stopping him from getting up, going to his armoury, and actually shoving a rifle down Raum’s gullet is the fact he is utterly stumped.

Raum’s said enough to confirm that he really did visit Sebilles, but his story is such incoherent bullshit that believing it requires less ‘gullibility’ and more ‘brain damage’. Probably, he knows Raum is sensible enough, and regards Aquila highly enough, not to get Aquila’s hopes up then mock him. He can deduce he’s being impelled. But that tells him nothing about surviving the death zone — and after trusting Raum to divulge that exact thing, that he fell for the wheedling of a romantic amateur infuriates him.

Thanks for the shit beans, asshole. I thought you’d be devoted enough for anything, but you failed where I actually needed you.

Then underlying that, the feeble question of: …why did you just hurt me?

Aquila straightens his posture, closes his eyes, shutters his expression back into bland calm. His gaze locks on the map, not making eye contact with Raum. All the while, immense guilt rips through Raum’s chest, and once again pathetic waterworks begin to stream out his face. He trusted you! He needed you! He trusted you, and you hurt him!

He burbles through tears: I’m sorry. I-I’m sorry, I,

“If you fear death as a consequence for speaking," Aquila lays one last hopeful lifeline, “do not. For a service as this, death can be very inconsequential."

I’ll resurrect you if this geas kills you. But Raum can only bawl: I can’t, I can’t…! I can’t…

Aquila rests his elbows on the table as he stares down at the map, ignoring Raum utterly. Through wispy sobs, Raum wipes his blurred vision clear just long enough to see Aquila is obviously thinking, dissecting, analysing… plotting, what to do next. By himself.

Though shame could silence Raum for an eternity, plotting what to do next means plotting about Reyl! H-hey, let me in on this.

Aquila airily replies that he’s considering what routes are most efficient to get in and out of Sebilles.

—I can go in tonight, Raum blurts.

You?, Aquila coolly mocks. I would suppose, dressed in ribbons and giftwrap?

Please! Just… Why am I arguing? Raum yanks himself back into his seat. Aquila is right. If Reyl’s whole goal is to kidnap Raum, then him going into Sebilles is a home delivery. It’s beyond stupid.

But fear loves stupid. And Raum has many fears.

Fear of Aquila not caring enough, then growing bored and negligent with Reyl. Fear of Aquila doubting Raum’s commitment, and permanently trusting him with nothing.

Fear of being purposefully left in the dark again, pacified with hugs and promises that all would be well, while people die and things go wrong that he could’ve changed. Absolutely, he could’ve defused an argument between Desiree and Reyl. She wouldn’t have even escaped if he’d been realistic enough to accept she wouldn’t compromise. Aquila could’ve even stopped it too, but opted to reinforce his immediate position with Raum by letting him handle Reyl instead. Handed him a deal out of a dream. And now…

…can’t he be a lure, moral support, anything? Can’t he at least get a play-by-play of whatever’s going on as it does?

Self-important nonsense. Telling a king, busy holding peace in a nation perpetually primed to explode, to give Raum preferential treatment about his fucking family drama. The fact Aquila’s personally bothering with Reyl at all, even if only as a gesture of binding goodwill to Raum as a political pawn, should itself be grounds for immeasurable gratitude.

His chin nested on his hands, Aquila calmly glances from Raum to the door.

A litany of anxious questions bubble in Raum’s gut, all insisting he stay longer and probe deeper until soothed with reassuring answers. What’s your actual plan? Are you going in? Sending someone else? Who? What are their skills? With what equipment? What kind of timeframe? Are there any big obstacles? Just endless, endless, endless begging for comfort, since hell knows there’s nothing practical he offers by knowing this crap.

Moreover, though he’s switched himself back into diplomat mode, Aquila is still pissed.

Velveteen pillow.

Raum squeezes the bridge of his nose and silently forces himself to the door.

Aquila calls out, irritation momentarily balmed by Raum’s obedience.

He’ll send an agent to scout the region from tonight. That is all the detail he will divulge presently.

Know, though, he is invested in these results, and will inform Raum of developments as they occur.

Aquila retrieves a knife from one of the office desk’s drawers, slides it flat over his palm. It’s an oathmaking gesture, but the blade remains bare.

“You may not understand how little I have." He sets down the knife, gazes at his open hand. “But for blame, and losses."

Raum’s grip on the doorframe slackens.

Aquila massages his thumb into his palm, tamping the oath in, or wiping it away, as he glances up. His expression, edging between rancour and rue, but not quite landing on either, is utterly indecipherable.

“You may go."

Days pass into a week, Raum’s mind churning over these events all the while.

Between everyday adjustments into his new lifestyle, there linger three main issues, or three main pillars, that dominate his thoughts.

One is Desiree. Though a numb zen had insulated him from breakdown in the morgue, the first thing Raum did upon returning to the Whitewood Manor that day was lock himself in the bedroom, blast the ensuite shower at full heat, and scream into a pillow while seared under lashes of water. Then he wrenched the dial to freezing, just to shiver, cry, and bawl incoherently on the bed for straight hours. Entirely over Desiree.

To contemplate the feelings lingering after that initial burst makes him sick. Predominantly, there’s relief she can’t hurt anyone anymore, paired with overwhelming sadness that she died without ever becoming a person who didn’t hurt others. After that are truly disgusting feelings of joy and gratitude. Joy, because he loves being able to help her even posthumously with the gravesite business, and gratitude, for giving him a purpose and mission that holds like an anchor against these otherwise turbulent circumstances.

Truthfully the only thing keeping him stable is the recurring thought of “still gotta find a good spot for mom. I’ll focus on that for a bit."

As such he’s been travelling a lot around Ferendaux and its neighbouring towns, an enriching experience despite its grim underbelly.

Two is Aquila. Where to even begin.

Things have changed since that strained conversation — calling it an argument feels wrong, since they weren’t really at loggerheads — but pinpointing how, exactly, is hard.

To say Aquila’s been avoiding him is wrong, because he hasn’t. To say he’s acting totally businesslike is wrong, because he’s not. But to say he’s become overly attached or possessive is also wrong. It feels like Aquila will find reasons to willingly interact with Raum over broadly trivial things, entirely within Aquila’s personal convenience, but show utter disinterest and end conversations quickly if Raum is the one to start them.

It’s enough to drive Raum nuts. Especially when he tried to ascribe some calculated, mastermind reason to it. But this repeated exposure has led him to grasp a little more of Aquila, and the actual reason’s more simple. He’s just not over that conversation. And his way of dealing with ‘not being over’ things is just fucking bizarre.

Emotionally, he wants to punish Raum deeply. Rationally, he knows that’s stupid. Aquila’s rational side is stronger, so that’s the side that wins out. All the same, what soothes him is to put a knife to the throat of whatever bothers him, watch them tremble, then watch them go, “here’s fifty reasons why I still choose you." It’s not conscious at all.

Desiree was similar; Raum’s trained to indulge it. But Aquila’s version is colder, sharper, more intellectual, more detached, and does leave Raum with a more genuine fear that Aquila’s investment in him could one day randomly plummet to zero.

Especially since, that drama aside, Raum only realised after cooling down that, even if wanting information on Phoenix explains why Aquila would keep him around, it doesn’t explain why Aquila would make him heir to the whole fucking country. He just likes you that much! Hey, no, loverbrain, let’s not be so naive. Even if he does like you, he’s a rational fuck who needs actual reasons to justify doing things. You still don’t know what those reasons are, and yes, that is still scary.

Raum sighs. That gentle doting royal twink he crushed on won’t come back. He really popped Pandora’s Box with this guy.

But the only solution seems to be to follow Aquila’s cues, give him his space, and let him figure out what he thinks of Raum in his own time. Mindbendingly unnatural for Raum. Well, hey, still gotta find a good spot for mom…!

Three is, of course, Reyl. Raum has accepted that Aquila does not want Raum involving himself in finding her — or, well, Raum hasn’t accepted shit, but Aquila has seemed to judge his own methods as optimal, and those methods simply do not involve Raum. Given that Raum has no great ideas on how to flush her out either, he’s resigned that his suggestions are most likely annoyances Aquila’s already considered, and if there’s anything Aquila wants to know, or any use he does have for Raum, he’ll ask Raum about it himself.

That’s not to say Raum’s ignored the things he can do, limited though they may be. He’s continued his daily reports to Phoenix, knowing Reyl still has that radio, futzing information to bait her. But, as Aquila testified with his own baits, she hasn’t been taking it. And Aquila’s reported no progress even in Sebilles.

It’s frightening. Raum knows the city is big and Aquila’s not using much manpower, so combing it will take time. This does not quell his anxieties that something may have happened to her between Indris and Sebilles, that they missed her and she’s not in Sebilles, or, most frightening of all, that she is in Sebilles, but she’s hiding because she has a plan. What that plan would be, Raum hasn’t a clue, but something about the prospect fills Raum with a dreadful sense of foreboding.

Incidentally, Raum’s been avoiding information on witches. The second he recognised he was doing this, he found himself forced to resign that, no, he is not in any mind to personally face and apprehend her. Aquila’d been correct to take over.

…He’d been correct, but…

It’s terrifying how things haven’t been moving.

And there are still some contributions Raum can try before he starts tapdancing on Aquila’s feet. Rather, there’s one, specifically.

Phoenix is there in Sebilles. Why not ask him for help? Reyl will overhear if Raum talks on the radio, but if he can deliver a physical note…

And, you know, still gotta find a good spot for mom.

Let’s focus on Deram for a bit.

Raum travels the three days by carriage to the dusty desert town of Deram. Since the party for his slaying of Toreas, and formal announcement of Aquila’s heir, is approaching very soon, Raum can only stay a couple days before he must return to Ferendaux. But, a couple days should be enough.

As usual for these outings, Raum is joined by a bodyguard. Even he seems excited that Raum is going to Deram. He speaks with the same tone Raum’s been hearing every time he’s heard the word mentioned: intrigue, wonder, a little mystery… not that he’s heard it much, mind. People seem scared to talk about it, to the point Raum regrets not wheedling more out of the bold Baron.

What is the goddamn deal with Deram!

Well, that whole mystery’s something he can think about after he's finished his business. En route to Deram, Raum writes a letter asking that Phoenix himself comb through Sebilles for Reyl. Though Aquila knows about the trip and allowed it, had he known these were Raum's intentions, to meddle in his plans by involving Phoenix behind his back, he surely would have pulled the breaks... if not finally lost his patience, broken into Raum's closet, replaced all his shoes with cinderblocks, and invited him to go swimming.

Then again, it's doubtful Raum's cover story of looking for gravesites here is convincing, given the place is an arid desert, and not anything like a pretty meadow. Preferring not to examine this unnerving fact, Raum seals his note in its envelope. Fingers crossed, Aquila is too busy with his own business to care and will never find out. Besides, it's already questionable enough whether enlisting Phoenix will work to find Reyl anyway, much less whether Phoenix will even agree to hunt her at all.

With the letter itself written and sorted, now is to find some tight-lipped capable daredevil who doesn’t mind doing some courier work, who can sneak into the Cardinal House overnight and plant the thing where Phoenix will find it. With Reyl still suspected to be in Sebilles, Raum, of course, cannot do it.

Raum touches down at daybreak, checks in to his lodgings, then cycles through various community hotspots to advertise his job listing. Taverns, inns, town hall — it’s a small place, and word that some noble hotshot’s looking to hire spreads quickly. But nobody seems to care who he is, so much as they care that his clothes, bodyguard, grooming, and carriage confirm that he has a wallet.

With that, Raum retires to casually tour the town, having arranged to meet any interested parties around noon at the tavern. That should give his courier enough time to prepare and ride into Sebilles just around nightfall.

Otherwise, going by his wanderings through the streets and storefronts, there doesn’t seem to be anything odd about the place. A little stumped, he settles outside a cafe to chat over brunch with his bodyguard.

A jovial-looking man plops himself down at Raum’s table and says: I can get you to the portal.

Raum recognises instantly that this is a conman who means to mug him. While his bodyguard snaps at this stranger’s nerve, Raum makes a great show of contemplating, then says: Alright, and what do you get from that?

The con explains that he simply wants to do well by a nobleman. Establishing a debt, forging a bond with a rich and connected person, making an investment for the future. Such opportunities are rare in towns like this. And so on, and so on, paired with an admirably convincing performance that has surely caught people before. Veteran. Unsurprising if he’s targeting guarded nobles. No, what shocks Raum is the con’s hand signals.

Because they’re the exact same ones used in the Thorns. Raum can read them.

He’s telling some accomplice that Raum is hooked and to clear any eyes off their escort path. From what Raum squeezes out of the con, there is apparently an invisible portal in Deram to the place where all the world’s secrets are hidden. The con emphasises that by discovering this portal, then exploiting these secrets against rival families, and warning the King of nascent conspiracies, the lowborn Whitewoods clawed themselves onto the noble ladder in the first place. If Raum wants to seize comparable power for his own house, this is how.

Interesting. Though obviously this is a sell crafted to lure a specific kind of person, parts do ring true. Raum looks to his bodyguard who confirms that these are the rumours. Suddenly Raum understands the intrigue around Deram, and why people get so shady about it around him specifically. They think he has some magic portal into everyone’s closets to go skeleton fishing. Well, if he does, nobody gave him a boat.

So what’s the con’s proof that he knows where the portal is? The con asks for Raum’s house. Raum answers Pikiny. The con, without missing a beat, says house Pikiny still owes a massive loan to house Abellu and is fearful that a legitimate blood Abellu may have survived the Tyrant’s Reign. Raum lets himself be stunned as he realises this has to be true. This guy has sources.

Hey. Raum.

Don’t actually get suckered into the magic portal nonsense.

Rubbing his temple, he exhaustedly flashes the con some hand signs. The way the con’s face freezes, shitting himself, is quite satisfying.

The con smacks his lips, glances about, and hisses: it’s just a gig.

Raum waves his hand. Yeah, yeah.

The con leans back and squints. “Fuck, you have got that look about you." Holy hell, thought you all were dead.

Yeah well I missed the party. Was posted in Ordanz, Raum replies.

The con accepts this with simultaneous shock and total comprehension. He looks awkwardly to Raum’s bodyguard, hesitant to speak with an outsider (of whatever this is) present, and moreover not really interested in staying. Raum dismisses the con, who gratefully scuttles away, with a lazy “aw what the hell mate just get outta here".

Raum slumps back in his seat and looks to his bodyguard shamefully. Never feels great pulling the gangster shtick, doubly so after weeks of not having to. No, rather, what the hell was that?

A failed mugging. But also more. That felt like a guy plugged into a syndicate. One that responds to the name Whitewood.

...If the secret of Deram is that it’s the front for some criminal organisation, Raum’s not sure he wants to probe any further.

At the same time, if it has something to do with his family, he can’t stop himself from wanting to know. Worst comes to worst, if his family did leave behind some scummy gang, investigating it now means he can inform Aquila and dismantle it later. With that justification driving him forward, Raum gets up, and heads to the church.

Something about the church has been bugging him for a while.

Specifically, it’s that it’s marked with the Whitewood crest. In all the other towns he’s visited, he’s seen churches with no emblems, and churches with emblems of house Asphodel, but never one marked with the symbol of a regional lord. So does that make the Whitewoods deified benefactors of Deram, bold enough to tag their mark on ostensibly holy ground, or is it a signal?

Morning service has ended, so Raum can just rock up. He tells the priest that he’s Raum Whitewood and he wants in to the backrooms. The priest both doesn’t believe his identity claim and doesn’t indicate the backrooms hold anything beyond church paperwork.

Raum switches to hand signals, upon which the priest confesses there is something down back. But he remains unconvinced of Raum’s identity. If Raum is actually a Whitewood, he should know the passwords and processes. Raum flashes his signet ring — a forgery! He notes his high-class attire — stolen! He has the bodyguard vouch for him — an accomplice! Well, fine, but doesn’t he at least look like a Whitewood? Reminiscent of one, maybe, but certainly no spitting image.

Raum abruptly finds himself stumped. How does he prove he’s the son of his father?

…He could always dig around the Whitewood Manor for clues and come back later… This is hardly urgent…

But fuck, it’s bothering him now. Raum decides to show his connection in the most obvious way — by imitating his dad.

He mimics Mason Whitewood’s mannerisms and speech as the rambles on for fifteen minutes straight about all the ways the world’s done him wrong. Raum’s spent how many years cooped up in Ordanz only to get treated like this? Even the glue-huffing idiots there at least know the meaning of respect. Oh, you’re going to tell him to waste nine days of his life twiddling back and forth from Ferendaux because you think you know who’s who and what’s what? You’re gonna be real fucking embarrassed come the end of the month, fella. I can wipe you out — snap! — like that. Hope you like dirt ‘cause it’s all you’ll be eating after your job goes to smoke. Gonna make your wife and kids penniless. Y’damn eggs-for-eyes, melon-sucking, harebrained goosefooted loon coot.

The priest holds his flat stare.

...No? Raum tries.

Doubt shades the priest’s expression. He can’t deny Raum knew Mason Whitewood — and considering how young Raum is, the reasons why Raum might know Mason are very limited — but if he doesn’t know the password, he doesn’t know the password.

Though not the result he wanted, the fact the guy acknowledges the link satisfies Raum. He feels no great reluctance about dropping the whole matter here and returning to Deram as a regular tourist.

But Raum tilts his head. Is there nothing his dad ever told him, taught him, or said, that ever seemed oddly significant? His father taught him to read, write, do basic math, decode basic cyphers, speak basic Asphodelean, and encouraged his interest in the language by introducing him to native radio dramas. Though he stopped interacting with Raum by the time he was ten, at least in those formative years, he did seem eagerly invested in keeping Raum tied to Asphodel. By reminding Raum he was an Asphodelean, smarter than Ordanz, nobler than Ordanz, and better than Ordanz, Mason had laid the bedrock for Raum to dream that options except Ordanz even existed, and that his inability to fit in was simply because he belonged elsewhere.

Not that Raum had ever seriously taken it as much of anything, except his father yearning for reconnection with Asphodel. If he had taken it seriously, and listened more to him than to Reyl, his caregivers, and his own heart, it would’ve likely turned him into an unbearable prick.

Still. When all that attention just stopped, in retrospect, it did so with less with the sentiment that Mason had grown disgusted and given up, than the sentiment he’d taught Raum everything he needed to know. If Mason wanted to escape his exile vicariously through Raum, or at least hope and pretend Raum would one day understand his legacy, would he omit this password as part of this inheritance?

Raum should know. But when was he told?

A memory dredges itself to the fore. His dad, a touch drunk, laughing. You’ll thank me for that name someday.

An odd curiosity fills his chest. He experiments: you know, my name is actually Lethi.

The priest’s expression cools, as if he’s waiting to hear just a little more.

When you run ‘Lethi’ through his dad’s most basic training cypher, the resulting word is Sight.

Though this is likely part of a longer phrase, it satisfies the priest. He gestures Raum to follow, leaving the bodyguard behind, and leads him down a hidden passage through a stone tunnel carved in the earth. Meanwhile Raum marvels fuzzily at the thought that probably, his father did actually love him.

Their footsteps echo through the long, cold tunnel. Raum, remembering this whole thing is tied to a band of criminals, forces himself calm. A mugger’s den is the last place to sally around like an idiot.

But that calm disappears instantly beneath a wave of awe, as the tunnel opens up into a chamber beyond anything Raum could’ve imagined.

The chamber is enormous. Raum questions for a second if he hasn’t teleported back to Ordanz.

He stands on an outcropping halfway up the wall, from which he can see the whole panorama. The ‘ground level’ is consumed with sections the size of city blocks, stuffed with endless, orderly lines of bookshelves and filing cabinets. The corridors between the shelves buzz with uniformed people, who look to be shelving documents, checking documents, retrieving documents, or travelling in trams to transport documents to their place. Upon spotting a reference desk at the threshold into the grid of shelves, Raum’s impression is solidified. It’s a library.

But it’s not just a library. Armed, uniformed guardsmen patrol the corridors and stand at every entryway, always in pairs. Up the flights of carved stone steps, on larger outcroppings, Raum double-takes at the sight of a tavern, a postman’s, a bank, a store. Seedy-looking individuals in everyday clothes mill about in these upper levels, obviously permitted to be here, but corralled away from the ground levels by the vigilant guards.

What the fuck is this.

Carved into the vast stone wall, overlooking the library, is the word E.C.Q.O.I., and the crow sigil of Whitewood.

The priest returns to the church, leaving Raum alone. Unsure where else to get answers, Raum goes to the reference desk and introduces himself as Lethi Whitewood, son of Mason. The librarian accepts this with absolute nonchalance, as if the entire family isn’t meant to be dead, and asks what Raum is looking for.

Good question.

Information on Sebilles, he supposes. Or a map, which would be useful for directing his courier. The librarian nods and summons an assistant to help Raum find the right section.

The vastness of the media stuffing the bookshelves baffles Raum as they pass. Endless recordings from every radio frequency, countless books both fiction and not, copies of documents from both federal and regional ministries, every copy of every newspaper, flyers, letters, journals, brochures, stamps, logos, a museum of product packaging, an entire wing of notes jotted on napkins, receipts, secrets told in confessionals, records of bank transactions…

…an intelligence network, an intelligence archive. One massive enough to dwarf the Thorns into a microbe. That is, apparently, the real strength of house Whitewood, and what all those rent profits are funding.

Raum hops off the tram at the designated stop, to find a man already in the Sebilles section. He looks gruff, seedy, and has a sword on his back wrapped in linens. He snorts at Raum’s arrival, shoves the book he’s reading back into its shelf, and stomps over explicitly to elbow Raum into a bookshelf before leaving. Raum, more baffled than hurt, looks to his assistant for an explanation on what the fuck that was about.

The assistant is cagey. He seems to know something, but as Raum swiftly intuits, isn’t in the habit of spilling easy beans as a librarian of this mysterious archive ‘Ecqoi’. Information divulged here is likely transactional.

As Raum wrangles the assistant, who seems unbothered that his employer just got manhandled, he checks the book the gruff man was reading. Grande Mason Work of thee Greate Royale Citie: a journeyman’s almanac to comprehend the secret stone art of the Cardinal House and Lacren’s other fine structures. Hrm…

Raum divulges that the Ordish houses Seacrest and Amracht have been feuding over house Amracht’s ambitions to introduce a paper ‘fiat’ currency. This has been massively unnerving to Seacrest as Amracht owns the lumber and paper mills. The assistant accepts this and divulges in turn that the ruffian who just left is an agent of the Crown, who has been dropping in and out of Ecqoi quite a lot this past month.

A chill tingles Raum’s spine as he puts the book back in place. Aquila’s agent. …likely, one he had tasked with investigating Reyl’s whereabouts, and is now using to comb Sebilles…

…He’s so going to spill that Raum is meddling, with this courier business, in places Aquila doesn’t want him to. Shit shit shit this is actually bad.

Of course, Aquila knew Raum was going to Deram, and didn’t stop him from that — but that itself may have been a test to confirm that, even with Sebilles in reach, Raum wouldn’t do anything shady. Or to be cruelly pessimistic, it may have been a pissed-off Aquila giving Raum grounds to fuck up and justify future restrictions or bullying. Well!

Raum jogs — sprints, chasing after the agent. He arrives at the reference desk breathless, and the librarian informs him (after Raum’s blurtings of personal trivia) the agent has left Ecqoi through the church entrance.

Raum clamours up the steps, asks his bodyguard where the agent went, asks shopkeepers and passersby on the street the same. Though the town is small, the agent isn’t anywhere in Raum’s immediate vicinity, and with the noonday sun hanging high in the sky, time presses in on Raum’s rendezvous with potential couriers.

If he can’t get to the agent first, then dismissing the prospective couriers now, begging the agent not to tattle on the basis he has dismissed the couriers, and secretly organising a real courier after the agent’s left for Sebilles may be the wisest option.

Raum enters the tavern, ready to announce his pick from a gaggle of capable-looking men and women — among which Raum spots, in the corner with his arms gruffly crossed, the unimpressed agent, observing this all.

Raum pastes on a smile. After lightly questioning his applicants, he announces he has chosen Aquila’s agent as his courier, then leads him to his motel to speak privately about the job.

The agent grunts that the walls of these shantytown buildings are paper and tells Raum to relocate a little ways out of town. Raum asks confirmation the agent actually is one of Aquila’s guys, upon which the agent presents one of Aquila’s feathers. Satisfied, Raum instructs his bodyguard to move the carriage out of town a couple minutes, into the lip of the desert.

Finally, he posts his bodyguard outside the carriage while himself and the agent talk inside. The bodyguard is uneasy about this, but since this legitimately is one of Aquila’s men, accepts that Raum isn’t in danger.

The second Raum’s bodyguard is safely outside, and Raum turns to face the agent, he is yanked forward by the hair, pinned to the ground under a powerful knee, and twisted into a painful hold with his arms wrenched behind his back. Struggling just makes it hurt more, and when he goes to yelp, a hand swiftly clamps his throat silent. The agent’s gravelly voice growls in his ear, warning him not to even peep. Obediently, Raum strangles his wail into a quiet, thin note.

You have been one fucking pain in the ass, kid.

The agent’s cruel bullying continues. He twists Raum’s limbs at agonising angles, yanks his joints, prods his sensitive spots with ruthless efficiency. This man is experienced at tormenting others in ways that are plainly antagonistic, and extraordinarily painful, but leave no marks. Dully, Raum senses these techniques have been trained.

Raum writhes underneath him, flinching away from each jab of pain as mindlessly as a bug from a finger.

Soon satiated, the agent releases Raum and reclines himself on the sable cushions of the carriage’s seating, legs wide, arms draped over the adjacent headrests, as if he owns the whole damn vehicle. Raum, still choking and sputtering, weakly heaves himself into the seats opposite.

The agent accuses Raum of meddling.

Though Raum has put out a call for a courier, he has not once specified yet that he wants that courier to go to Sebilles. If he wants to play a semantic game, and dumbly feign doing nothing, plausible deniability is still on his side.

Finding his voice, Raum instead asks if the agent has reported anything to Aquila.

So that’s it. Looking to shine my boots with your tongue before your shenanigans get ratted to the Majesty, the agent laughs. Well too bad. Aquila already knows about the courier call, and even an incarcerated half-wit can tell the only place any package’s going is Sebilles. If you wanna call Aquila a half-wit, and pretend that this is anything else, just know, whatever honey he’s feeding you now, guy turns to a demon when you piss him off.

A demon, the agent repeats, laughing with a familiarity reserved only for someone who has seen Aquila do quite heartless things, and not been on the receiving end.

Raum wets his pursed lips, frantically thinking.

Aquila should’ve just stopped me, Raum internally grouses. And communicated better that I shouldn’t do this, given me something else to do...

Or Raum just shouldn’t have tried to do shit he knew he would have to hide later.

—Aquila’s not the present problem. Trying to dissect his motives or preempt his reactions is a trap to rouse not just paranoia, but insanity. Whether consciously trained to counter politicians or just an innate part of his legitimately nonhuman character, no matter what flecks of understanding he captures, Aquila does not think in ways Raum can truly grasp. Aquila will do what Aquila will do. Raum can bandy excuses and explain himself after.

The man in front of him right now is the agent. What is Raum looking to gain?

Delivery of the note. …No, rather, it’s movement on Reyl’s situation in general. And even that may be something he’s simply pursuing for peace of mind, to fight this creeping feeling of inertia. This note specifically may not be the smartest plan to achieve anything; but what effective alternatives might there be?

Raum asks what the situation’s been like in Sebilles.

The agent frowns, plainly put-off. That sounds like something Raum should be filled in on through Aquila. What, don’t trust him?

It’s not that, Raum insists, clicking his tongue in frustration. Raum wants Reyl found soon. He can figure, so does the agent. Raum doesn’t doubt Aquila’s methods, or competence, but he isn’t a totally omnipotent mastermind, and there are still plays he’ll overlook. Raum thinks he’s found one of those and wants to augment the current search effort with it.

Trying to wheedle me in! The agent laughs. Muddying me with your dirt to force me against Aquila!

We all want the same thing, Raum explains. It’s actually a massive boon to everyone that the agent has intercepted him. Since you know the situation on the ground better than me, if you take this plan as a proposal, you can judge yourself whether it is or is not a useful idea you’d want to implement.

The agent flatly asks for Raum’s plan, since (as predicted) he does need to report it anyway.

Raum couches it. This plan is absolutely going to piss off Aquila. Whether the agent takes up Raum’s offer or not, he is going to need to lie to Aquila.

Hedging hard bets on my lack of loyalty, eh? The agent smirks, resting his cheek on his fist.

More on your lack of discipline. From the way you’ve been talking, your view of Aquila is way too over-familiar, Raum thinks, presenting the note. I know this is a crazy idea, Raum says, but let’s be clear, I’m desperate. If it doesn’t work, just junk it — and leave it at that.

As the agent’s gaze flicks over each line of the note, his amused expression slowly sobers into dreadful, flat cold. Raum’s throat freezes behind his plastered smile, and he forces the tension in his shoulders down to straighten his spine.

The note crinkles in the agent’s grip. He snarls, this is blackmail enough to put you in the ground.

What does that matter to you? Guy who says hello by wrestling my arm near out of its socket.

The agent stuffs the note in his back pocket, face twisted in disgust and frustration. The fact Raum isn’t cowering from his threats, or from Aquila’s implied favouritism of this man, or even at the thought of Aquila’s retribution, is troubling him. Though he wants to terrorise Raum for whatever reason, he seems privy enough to Aquila’s plans to know he cannot actually bother Raum much, at risk of disturbing those plans.

Fucking brazen of you to do that to the guy who’s gonna be heir, Raum continues.

The agent cricks his neck.

Then smirks, as if Raum is some clumsy schoolgirl, boasting she dropped out to become a dancer. Yeah, yeah, reach for the stars, meat. It’s not just snickering behind Raum’s back that things won’t be as dreamy as he thinks. It’s laughing, uproariously, in his face, that he thinks he won’t be an exception among hundreds of battered prostitutes.

It’s the kind of black humour that’s only this funny when you know someone is absolutely fucked. Raum’s seen it a thousand times in the Thorns.

He knows exactly what Aquila’s plans are. And their ending for Raum is not good.

It’s more than just arrogance. He actually knows.

W-what’s so f-fuh, Raum sputters, but fear constricts his throat before he can finish. He pinches the bridge of his nose, holding his free hand open flat as if asking the surge of heat and looming tears to stop, turn around, and please not bother him for just a moment.

But the agent offers no distractions, snickering silently as he lets the pressure build of its own accord. Raum lacks the mind to even think, Fuck! He found my button already, as he struggles to reign his hard, quick breaths away from proper hyperventilation. Calm down, calm down, calm down, he repeats to himself like a mantra, steadily losing everything but those two syllables: calm down! But his heart only tha-thumps, faster, faster…

“Alright, let’s hear your spin, kid."

H-huh?, Raum gasps, as if yanked out of deep water.

Let’s hear it, the agent repeats, grinning as he picks at his nails. Raum’s right, this whole letter business is an option the agent can take now. And more critically, it is not something he can report to Aquila. He’ll lose his shit and go ballistic. So, let’s hear it.

Only halfway collecting himself, Raum blurts: y-you think it’s not stupid?

The plan? Eh, manpower’s manpower. Aquila gives me four aces, I’ll pocket a fifth. The agent bites his thumb begrudgingly, but grins and raises his brows as if to say: c’mon kid, here’s your shot.

Amazed, Raum urgently stammers. The letter can be a letter to Reyl, and Raum sent it because he missed her and was getting sentimental, you know, how he does, and wanted to appeal her to come home to him. Really embarrassing stuff. Then, a good place to deposit it would be near the spire adjacent to the west wing bedrooms, since, as Raum doesn’t add, Phoenix would typically go there for his sunsets. The stonework there is badly scorched.

The agent knows where Raum means. The old King’s chambers.

Raum questions if the agent has investigated that area yet. The agent dismissively says it’s on the list, then peers out the carriage’s window to the sweltering sun above. It’s about time for him to leave for Sebilles, and so time to wrap this chat up. Raum instructs his bodyguard to lead the carriage back into town.

As the carriage moves, Raum and the agent arrange one last thing. Aquila will want this confiscated ‘letter to Reyl’ once the agent returns to Ferendaux. So, Raum better bust his ass writing an actual letter to Reyl for him to hand over. While the agent’s in Sebilles, Raum can write the letter, and the agent will pick it up tomorrow morning before Raum leaves for Ferendaux.

Feeling this is a good plan, Raum wishes the agent luck in Sebilles as he alights outside Raum’s inn. The agent snorts and clicks his knuckles, primed to wring Raum through another game of twister. But, with work to do, he boards his own dinky carriage and just leaves instead.

As dust kicks up in the wake of that rickety carriage, which bounces and creaks over every pebble like a ship in a hurricane, Raum can’t help but think: wow.

For being a hand of the Crown, you sure got saddled with one mean little bronco.

Hey Jay,

Nobody’s radar’s been picking your blip since you slipped out from Indris. If I struck the bullseye, and this paper’s in your hand — I gotta say, I just guessed. Put on the blindfold, got spinned round eight times, and pinned the tail on the donkey.

Hell knows where to start with this, huh.

Hope you’re doing well, first. Can’t imagine the shit you’ve been through crossing flats, dodging authorities. Have you slept in a bed this whole month? How’ve you been eating? Not gotten sick or anything from any weird desert plants or lizard critters? Thorny bitch like you can handle herself, I know, but look around and this isn’t Kansas. The air here moves, it gets dark, it gets cold. All sounds like you’re a good mark for some delicious smuggled wares, turkey dinner, tylenol, big fluffy snuggie, give the call and I’ll hook you up.

Fucked to think you’re just out there on your own. Seriously, even if shit is still sour, at least let me know you’re alive. You still have that radio? Buzz my frequency a little after sunset. I can’t track that. Promise.

Things with me have been alright. Haven’t been poisoned or woken up with a bomb ticking under the floorboards yet. Healed up well from all the nicks and bruises. Back’s still scarred like a map of Colorado but the ibuprofen’s been doing its work and my full-frontal’s still fresh as spring rivers, so invitations’re flowing as always to stand behind the rope when I walk in the MOMA. No national tragedies there ;)

Been travelling & meeting people. New house new digs. Dad left us a lot of neat shit. Crony work his side did was more than insert-praise receive-goodies. Massive demotion more than you think that he landed in Odz.

Thinking a lot about the shit you said. Some things you were totally wrong. Others I look back and think you were ri—

—ght.

It’s Aqi mostly. Puzzles the shit out of me never know what he’s doing. He’s more desperate than he looks but God below knows about what. He keeps dropping hints like he wants me to know then pulls back like he forgot condoms. 50-50 feeling all the time whether he wants to fuck me or fuck me. Not like he’s going ‘mwahaha’ in the shadows but like there’s a shoebox teetering above my head and he’s not sure just when to drop it.

If he’s faking even that then flat-out he deserves to sucker me. My ghost’ll give him a gold medal.

He’s setting me up for some bullshit can’t imagine it’s anything fun. I know this is what you warned me but I

can protect you because the same way you had to fight, I know I can keep him in love with me

Or if that’s too delusional I can love him hard enough to put him in my debt with hard interest. Put those dickbrains to use in a country where they actually work. Run the bullshit antics motor on a gushing sycophant heart until I’ve done something for him so big he’d sooner die from guilt than forget me.

Promise I’ll never be like her, but Ma hammered me with her tricks too.

Just come home.

This house is too swank to hog to myself, and too big for only one person.

As the dim light of dawn peeks in from the window, Raum leans back from the writing desk, reading the letter over.

It all sounds so sure and certain on paper. In reality, though, the only thing stopping him from begging Reyl to pick him up, fearful that choosing Aquila really was a mistake, or from fantasising about Aquila holding and cuddling him, fighting that fear with impotent denial, is the overwhelming guilt and shame he’d feel at, after staking promises and oaths and ideology, abandoning his life’s first-ever real commitment to change. And in barely a month, too.

But there is one thing he does know.

This was the letter he should have sent all along.

Maybe that’s his idealism talking. Maybe he should know better, after how his previous attempt to negotiate went. Maybe she’s a fucked-up goddamn crazy witch and can’t even read anymore.

But, this was the letter he should have sent all along.

Raum waits at dawn for the agent, but he doesn’t arrive. Seizing the chance, Raum pens a copy of the note so one may be genuinely delivered to Reyl. But even as he waits longer — and longer — the agent still doesn’t arrive.

He’s probably running late for any number of unspectacular reasons. Wouldn’t be surprising for a shitbucket like his to kick off a wheel upon hitting a pothole. Or so Raum assures himself, mentally noting to check with Aquila that the guy didn’t get in any serious trouble.

Time is pressing in for Raum to pack up and leave for Ferendaux. He can slip the letters under the door, with instructions, for the agent’s return.

Instead he goes to breakfast, nabs a second fork, and uses it to jimmy open the agent’s shoddy motel room door.

After all, there’s more than just delivery work that Raum must secure from this man.

The agent knows Aquila’s plans for Raum, and the whole situation in Sebilles. Everything Aquila hasn’t been telling him, Raum can learn from coaxing this man.

A hard sell, naturally. But for the duty and trust Aquila placed upon him, he’s plainly an arrogant deadbeat. As long as he feels important, he’ll spill, brag, and make allusions to his knowledge and power essentially whenever he can. That’s if he’s present, of course. But he’s not, and time’s ticking, ergo…

The agent’s room is close to bare. But a trunk sits beside the bed, and Raum cracks it open to find the motherlode.

Beside toiletries and changes of clothes, this trunk is stuffed with papers upon papers upon papers. At first skim — maps, diagrams, reference notes, brainstorms, all gloriously annotated. Excited and nervous, Raum hurriedly pages through the stacks hunting for mentions of Aquila’s core plan, but none promptly springs out.

As he hunts, he lets information flood from his eyes to his brain unimpeded. They’ve charted Reyl’s presumed path out of Indris to Sebilles. But their intercepts failed. Okay. Then a map of Sebilles, with city blocks crossed out with pencil. They’ve swept these areas. Okay. Traps set here. Tips from Ecqoi. Rumours. Research. Sightings?

Scummy but diligent. What a combination…

The man’s been working hard, but on each new page Raum’s gut twists tighter and tighter with nausea. Why? Think later. Hunt now.

Next is a map of the palace, amended in pen to chart Phoenix’s insane blockades. Some rooms crossed are out. Swept those. Indeed, not yet touched the west wing… but there it is — with an annotatation! Something special? Wait, it’s gibberish. No — it’s cyphered.

Gasping as if breaking water, Raum separates that page without thinking. He brings it close to his face, squints, traces his thumb letter-by-letter under each phrase, switching gears to break this cypher.

The second the print in front of him shifts off the mental backburner, into his consciousness’ focal point, Raum’s mind blanks.

This is not unfamiliar handwriting.

Actually, it’s his father’s. Mason Whitewood wrote these notes.

Reeling in disbelief, Raum accosts the rest of the stack, checking—

The door bangs open and in rushes his bodyguard, who Raum posted to keep watch outside the motel. The agent’s vehicle is on the road and imminently coming in to park. Still dazed, Raum asks for another minute to decode the cypher. Agitated, and without time to even find a pen and paper, the bodyguard rips that corner off the parchment, shoves it in Raum’s breast pocket, and frantically zips up the trunk.

Outside the thin door comes horse hooves clopping, wooden wheels creaking, then nothing as both settle still…

Raum jolts up, locks the door, unlatches the back window. No the trunk was on the other side of the bed flip it—yes, there, thumbs up. Reflexively Raum waits at the window, scoops his bodyguard by the wrist, gotta make sure he gets out first—

Footsteps sound from outside.

—The bodyguard struggles, training kicking in, Raum is the priority, evacuate him before yourself. Though the confusion holds for barely an instant, it’s still an instant they lose to Raum grabbing and shoving the bodyguard out the window—

The lock clicks open.

—Raum poises himself to hop down—

—and instead of forward, pitches backward, instead of the sky, sees a ceiling, and instead of grass, lands hard on a musty motel carpet. After weeks of tamed silence, the burns on his back from Joliet whine, then screech as he is yanked back across the prickly rug. Raum gasps and kicks to free himself, but an impenetrable vice has locked hard on his shoulders.

Soon what looms above him is the red, furious face of the agent.

Who leans down and welcomes Raum by horking, upon his handsome face, a glob of rank spit.

As Raum queasily squirms to rub the saliva off, a sharp kick from a boot lands itself right in his spine. An even weight then presses upon his head, as that boot plants itself firmly, and threateningly, with its heel over Raum’s temple.

“Bloody pest. Come rummaging in my room for what, a square of chocolate?"

Surely the agent cannot return Raum to Aquila with a shattered skull. Still,

“Eh?" The agent squeezes his foot down harder, the pressure making half the bone in Raum’s face creak. “Or how’s a massage for his Highness? Can give you a novelty, thing called a lumbar pop."

As his body’s survival wisdom kicks in, Raum raises his hands in surrender.

“What’s that flattery for? Hah," the agent growls, twisting his heel in even deeper. The wiry carpet pokes into Raum eye, niggling. “Squeak, weasel."

OK right. Moxie, audaciousness, bravado, with the right mix of these ingredients Raum will find the spontaneous charisma to rope this guy down. Rather, holy hell, Raum outranks this guy. So apologies for killing the power trip, but we’ll talk once your foot’s off my face.

…Is the attitude Raum wishes he could take, but every nerve in his body still wobbles like a resounding brass bell, shaken by a child’s urgent question of: Dad? Dad? Dad? Dad?

“You’re alive," Raum half-laughs, half-sobs, breathless. Taken off-guard, enough weight eases out of the oppressive boot that Raum can sweep it aside, prop himself up on the bed, and marvel joyfully at a development so unlikely he’d feel stupid entertaining it even as a delusion. His father is alive!

“—Thought something mighta happened when you didn’t show up this morning," Raum hastily adds, sweeping his face clean, under the agent’s cold stare. “Wondered if you had a line to Aquila in here, to powwow for a smidgen supposing you really stayed AWOL."

Something about this claim puts the agent on guard. Without any nonsense, he tells Raum to stand, then put out his arms, as the agent proceeds to check Raum’s pockets, rub the hems of his clothes, flip his waistcoat inside out.

Naturally he finds the scrap from the map. He it waves in Raum’s face, which reddens from guilt.

The agent unfolds the scrap, reads it over. His slight grin from catching Raum sobers again into that silent, wary, suspicious cold.

He mutters to himself, “that midget bastard."

Aquila? “Got your sizes mixed up ma—" the agent shoves Raum partway through his sentence, grabs him by the neck, slams his head upon the motel’s small desk. To the chorus of pens and pencils clattering, Raum’s vision blots to black. Though it clears again in an instant, the pressure on his throat only squeezes harder, strangling his voice into choked gogs.

The agent simultaneously threatens and explains he knows Raum’s weapon of choice is his mouth. Those charming, entertaining, needy, pleading tones that come to him naturally, the agent knows are absolute disarming poison. Now, either Raum behaves and answers with as minimal theatrics as possible, and maybe the agent will do something nice for him in return, or he continues pushing his luck and gets sent back to Ferendaux unconscious.

One: How deeply involved are you?

In WHAT!! I dunno, uninvolved. Nada. Clueless. Raum reflexively wants to answer, but forces himself calm. The pressure on his neck eases just enough for him to reply. —Pretty deep, probably. He thought he was moving independently in Deram, but maybe Aquila only allowed that because he anticipated Raum’s actions would benefit him of their own accord.

The agent accepts this, finding it truthful.

Two: Did anyone contact you last night?

No. No instructions, no proxies… as stated, he thought this was all independent.

Again, the agent accepts this and releases Raum’s neck. That’s all, kid. Good boy. The agent seats himself on the bed, spreads his hands. Now what can he do for Raum?

Well, the most pressing thing now is: what the hell happened last night?

“Eh? What’s that? You have a party to get to, your highness?"

Please, what happened last night, Raum repeats.

“And sounds like you’ll be late, supposing I don’t help chauffeur."

Dad! Please, Raum pleads, kneeling down by some unconscious instinct, only realising how smoothly his hands reach for this man’s sartorius when he disgustedly smacks them away. Raum flinches back in horror at his own ingrained, desperate, indiscriminate negotiation reflex. It’s because he doesn’t look like my dad, Raum frantically assures himself, but it’s still no great consolation.

The bed creaks as the agent shifts like a wolf about to lunge for Raum’s throat. Whether or not he cares that Raum has pegged him as his father is unclear, since the only thing showing on his face is repugnance.

—The letters. Raum backs off, reassesses. Could he maybe deliver one of these letters?

Raum scoops up the letters from where they’d been discarded on the nightstand, passes them over. The agent nods, opens one, skims, nods again, folds it up, squeezes the edges smooth, makes a great show of considering just what to do, just how charitable he’s going to be…

Then laughs as he flicks out his lighter and sets the papers aflame. As black, curled cinders shed to the floor, Raum squeals as if being stabbed. The man rises from the bed. He shouts at Raum, calls him a braindead whore, a spoiled menace, a cocky charmer that never learned how to stay inside the lines. Slimy cockroach that should’ve been dead fifty times over, but knows how to hide and pander just hard enough that, whenever his idiocy should catch up with him, it rushes by to hit someone else!

So get out! The agent grabs Raum, throws him whirling out the door. As that door slams behind him, Raum registers where he is, and sees his bodyguard upon his carriage before him, urging him to board.

Out of breath, but getting the message, Raum scampers onto that carriage, leaving Deram to the dust.

The carriage rolls steadily along the long road back to Ferendaux.

Raum spends one day decompressing from his rough exit from Deram. By the next, he wakes up composed enough to properly consider the more vital things he’s learned during his stay.

Ecqoi. Being part of Raum’s paternal legacy, the place is more than some random curiosity. Further investigation is necessary, as is an eventual revisit, but those priorities rank equal to finding a gravesite for his mom. Presently they’re destressors, distractions.

Still, Raum notices something. Truly restricted material, that is, information the Whitewoods wanted leaking by utterly no circumstance, is likely not kept in Ecqoi. The place has too much traffic, too many eyes. So maybe there is a smaller, secret archive in some other family stronghold? Raum makes a mental note to check the manor for hidden rooms in his free time, then judges the topic of Ecqoi concluded for now.

The agent. It’s Raum’s father. Or so the evidence suggests, but even Raum’s most impassioned attempts to be critical yield only more support for his theory. As such, his conception of this individual shifts from ‘the agent’ to ‘Mason’.

Though Raum wishes he could be more sentimental about this reunion, the implications of this discovery force only seriousness into his mind.

Mason’s been working with Aquila. Probably, since the beginning.

At the funeral? It was after Mason returned to the gallery that the cathedral fire began, and in his exact location.
At castle Indris? Cut away theories of Aquila holding on to a months-old envelope with Occam’s Razor; the recording trap was baited with Mason’s handwriting because Aquila had instructed Mason, alive then, to write it. And then, as Raum figures, place it.
And now in Deram, hunting after Reyl on Aquila’s instruction.

The logistics of ‘how’ Mason can be doing this is easy. Aquila can resurrect people. So Aquila has killed Mason at least twice, or let him die at least twice, and resurrected him each time into new bodies for the sake of doing his handiwork.

The logistics of ‘why’ are more difficult. How could anyone be so willing, or so desperate, to consent to something so twisted? He’s blatantly being used — even abused — as in retrospect he’s been tortured by Reyl, likely burned to death twice, forced into dangerous grunt work in Sebilles… why would Mason say yes to that? Rather, if Aquila cared about him, why subject him to more?

Was it to secure him freedom from exile, and sever all ties to Ordanz? They achieved that once he died the first time. No, it’s nothing that simple…

Mason wants to help Aquila execute his grand plans. Raum has no doubt about that.

But what is so compelling about these plans that Mason, as a confidant, didn’t pull Aquila aside once Step B became ‘ok now personally murder your children’? Is he seriously just that loyal? He’s never acted like it.

Though identifying Mason as Aquila’s co-conspirator is a major piece of the puzzle, Raum cannot find where to go next. Where one hand remembers ‘Mason pissed off the royals’, the other intuits a deep sense of trust on Aquila’s behalf toward Mason. Maybe Aquila has enlisted Mason specifically because he could leverage a chance to redeem himself toward the royal family? No, that’s still strange. It’s just as wobbly a speculation as any, though it’s the best Raum can unfortunately figure.

But that discomfort may be irrelevant in the face of the third vital clue: the cyphered note.

Raum recalls enough of the note to decode the important bits and fill in the rest. “6/28 + LANDLORD". 6/28 is the date two days before the upcoming party. ‘Landlord’, of the Cardinal House, is either Phoenix or Aquila. Phoenix doesn’t make sense, so Mason likely means Aquila.

‘Scan this area on 6/28 in the company of Aquila’. If Raum has interpreted this note correctly, then Aquila and Mason made prior arrangements to trawl through this region together. Given that ‘this region’ means the monarchs’ old living quarters, including the bedchambers of Phoenix, Aquila’s parents, and Aquila himself, Raum can conceive several innocent reasons why Aquila may want to join in for that.

But, he can also conceive less innocent reasons.

Mason’s attitude about Aquila flipped 180 over one night. By directing Mason somewhere that Aquila only meant for him to go later, did Raum accidentally lead Mason to find something he wasn’t meant to see? Raum’s gut says: ding ding ding, hole in one, kiddo.

What, if anything, he found doesn’t matter. If there’s even a chance Aquila’s masterplan went wrong last night, Aquila needs to know.

Raum’s fear of angering Aquila dampens under the guilt of failing to work in his interests, and a slight, but growing urgency to right things before they fall off the rails. He’ll still need to be careful about how he divulges his own meddling, but he no longer feels reluctant to expose what he’s done.

Raum’s first business upon reaching Ferendaux will be a chat with Aquila.

In the meantime, he crosses his hands over his knees, staring through the breeze as verdant green slowly cloaks the crags.

Raum’s wagon rolls into Ferendaux on midday of 6/28.

As planned, Raum goes straight to Aquila. His pissiness over their ‘argument’ before Raum left for Deram seems to have faded, at least enough that Aquila receives Raum without dismissing him two seconds later. Rather, Aquila has been expecting him, since after pleasantries he’s the one to initiate with: Now, where is Kingslayer?

—Uh.

The black sword that Toreas formerly wielded, Aquila explains. You received it.

No. He didn’t. What?

After some back-and-forth, Raum grasps what has happened. Aquila sent Mason to Sebilles equipped with this sword, then ordered him to return it while supervising Raum’s trip to Deram. Retrieving the sword, while achieving some practical end for Aquila, justified allowing the trip in his mind.

This little plan, like his others, has gone bust. Aquila’s eyes flick about as if chewing on an algebra textbook.

Raum doubts Mason simply forgot. Rather, his failure to complete this easy mission on day one suggests he already had some misgivings, or uncertainties, about Aquila’s judgement. As Raum feared, the cogs supporting Aquila’s machinations steadily are unwinding.

Raum broadly divulges what happened in Deram, but Aquila is only half-listening. Whatever plotting is distracting him, though, Raum is predictably not privy to it. Hey, how bad is this? What does this all mean? Is this guy running off AWOL (and did the hunt for Reyl just get cancelled)?

Only that last question gets a response: No. His movements have been exactly what Aquila expected, with nightly visits to Sebilles, as normal.

Right, the feather. So Mason held on to it.

What on earth is he up to. Unsure that it registered the first time, Raum again warns that Mason likely went to the west wing, and his attitude after that toward Aquila was unamicable. Raum knows Aquila is thinking about this, but the fact he so obviously is (while not exploding at Raum’s part in the mess…) underscores that he’s flustered. Whatever plan he’s in the process of conjuring up, is he sure he wants no second input?

Aquila looks away as if some faraway voice has called his name, unconsciously shaking his head. Then he returns his gaze to Raum, nods his thanks for the information, and marches skittishly off like a roe. As Raum leaves the palace through the balcony walkways, he spots Aquila again from afar, trekking to some corner of the grounds, this time armed with his rifle.

Raum purses his lips, slides his crooked, crossed fingers down the banister.

He stands at the base of the palace’s front steps, staring over the city. The guy can run a decent country, but he’s graceless once it gets personal. Raum cannot even imagine what outcome to hope for, outside the unhelpfully vague category of ‘good’, since, given how knotted and veiled and criminal is Aquila’s bond to Mason, to an observer as Raum, it is impossible to identify what future this relationship could pursue that even goes in the direction of ‘good’.

Raum sighs pertly. Aquila has stakes in this. Whatever comes of this will be well-reasoned, strategic. And, again, until Aquila decides he wants Raum’s input, Aquila will do what Aquila will do.

So what will Raum do. What can Raum do.

His stomach rumbles.

Well, go to lunch, he supposes.

Raum lunches at a cafe in the city’s central plaza. Pigeons scuffle at the feet of a bread-bearing grandpa, students chatter over their workbooks upon the lip of the fountain, and out of the everyday bustle appears another face — Reyl’s.

On a wanted poster, of course. Raum rises from his dirtied plate to inspect the bulletin board on which the poster is pinned, as if to once again check the guardsmen’s work in how they have presented this criminal. But, as always, there’s nothing missed, and still no epiphanies bought from staring at the paper.

…or so Raum would find, but today there’s another man at the bulletin board, staring just as intently in Raum’s place. Finding this odd, Raum strikes a chat with him, and without much coaxing learns that this man has seen Reyl.

—Where?

Taken aback by Raum’s intensity, the man falters a moment to speak.

I was one of the witnesses in that whole thing, Raum explains. Family that got kidnapped were friends, was in Joliet when it happened and got involved with the guard in the search.

Before the murder of that woman, Tiffany Abrams, the man checks.

Yeah, a little before that, Raum confirms.

Finding this sympathetic, the man divulges his story. He was working as a shop clerk some weeks ago in Indris, when a shockingly ragged but beautiful one-eyed young woman (unmistakably the one in the poster) entered the store. She bought a tube recorder with definite purpose, then just as promptly left.

In retrospect, this had been on the day of the murder. But in the time it took to hit the papers, the man received a letter from his brother alerting him to a better job opportunity in Ferendaux. So he packed his belongings onto his wagon and left, learning nothing of the strange girl’s criminality until a handful of days ago, when he encountered these posters.

The case has been in his mind since. Though he fears the information too old and incidental to be useful, he did tip the guard to his story last night. But that hasn’t cleared his mind. He cannot stop wondering about why she bought that recorder.

—He cannot stop wondering, did he sell this woman a product, that she would then use to preserve the dying screams of Tiffany Abrams, forever.

The clock tower shrieks a single ‘bong’, signalling an end to the workmen’s lunch. The man doffs his hat to Raum, curls his hands into his pockets, and departs.

Raum also hurries out of the plaza, as though fleeing from a bear’s den.

Indeed, what use is a recorder?

Raum looks furtively up the main street. His pace quickens without his noticing, as if carried by a growing current. Again at the palace, he stands a royal attendant aside. Did Aquila have any plans to make a speech, or address, about choosing his heir, over the radio?

The attendant answers: Yes, he has, naturally. It’s a vital thing for every citizen in this nation to know. And it’s quite exciting, that they have the technology now to do such a thing.

—Was that publicised?

The attendant presents newspapers from the last week. A blurb floats around the front page, where the local radio stations proudly announce the date and time of Aquila’s address. All of them will be playing it. In fact, every media outlet in the country capable of recording Aquila’s address will be playing it.

Alright. Alright.

And where’s Aquila now?, Raum questions over the brim of the paper.

He’s away on a meeting, the attendant answers, growing uneasy with the trend of these questions. Aquila won’t be back until tomorrow, and the only means to contact him before then would be through one of his feathers. Those are typically given to secret Crown agents posted outside Ferendaux — but, given this seems to be important, and that Raum is after all Raum Whitewood, the attendant can contact a nearby castellan as a proxy today, to inform Aquila that Raum wants to speak with him ASAP.

Yes, excellent offer, thank you thank you thank you Fidel’s Blood bless you with fifty promotions. Raum also asks that a reminder to Aquila be given, and that an alert be sent to the Whitewood Manor, once Aquila does return. The attendant arranges these communications dutifully.

Still, the effect of the attendant’s work at quenching Raum’s anxiety is about the same as a field mouse pushing at a boulder.

Because what use is a recorder?

Plenty, in Sebilles.

An image of calamity has cohered in his mind’s eye. It is though that workman’s passing factoid, stale despite its luridity, has fallen upon his vision like a child’s first pair of glasses.

The apparition: Reyl, in focus. In the cutthroat way of an Ordishman, she has just decided to war with a King. This is not a normal king, either, empowered solely by the gold of his land, the blades of his people, and his own finesse in politics. Far from it. It is a magical, bulletproof, maybe even flightworthy king who can handle a gun, strong both as a ghoul and as a human.

How does Reyl fight that? How does she even get into the ring?

By giving herself good weapons, duh. She buys some cheap shitty recorder, takes a cross-country trip to Sebilles, hides and waits to catch some humm or grunt or sneeze from Phoenix, and combined with that beefed-up cutting-edge Ordish tech radio, she now has the means to remotely murder not just Aquila but basically anyone in the country.

Sasuga Reyl. You utter MacGyver.

Of course Raum cannot definitively say this is what’s happened. There are plenty of points where things could have gone wrong. But given the disastrous implications of this scenario, and given there is a chance above zero that this is indeed truth, Raum feels absolutely correct in presuming himself right about it until proven otherwise.

The plan in this circumstance is clear. Aquila’s unwittingly given her the perfect set-up to snuff a few hundred thousand people at once. So if she’s going to implement her tools to their greatest effectiveness, then she’ll undoubtedly hijack these various frequencies with her homemade recording midway through the heir announcement. Then poof. Done. Have fun cleaning up that one, ol’ Majesty, if you’re even still alive.

Aquila’s careless attitude towards Reyl this whole time has been a massive mistake. But Raum can’t even fault it. Unless he was utterly paranoid, or unless he knew her justified confidence that she could outmanoeuvre an equally great power in Seacrest, how would Aquila even conceive this?

But Raum has conceived it — maybe two weeks late, but still two days early. There is still time to counteract this disastrous hypothetical before anything can happen.

Raum speeds to the headquarters of the city’s largest radio station. His identity as Raum Whitewood is known here in Ferendaux, and though citizens outside noble circles are not yet treating him as already the heir, by simply claiming his visit is on Aquila’s behalf, he secures a meeting with the station’s director.

Raum informs the director that the Crown has reason to think a witch will hijack the heir broadcast to hex everyone listening on the frequency. As such, Raum is warning the station to prepare to cancel that block of their programming, ideally not replacing it with anything at all, and urge listeners not to check in over that timeslot. Any radio broadcast will be unsafe from the time of the announcement until the subjugation of the witch, so it’s unclear when the Crown’s recording of this speech (which later will be given to the stations) will be safe for broadcast. Regardless, the media’s recording devices will be banned at the site. Expect a formal declaration about this from Aquila tomorrow.

Though dejected and frustrated at the news, the director reluctantly accepts Raum’s warning as serious. Raum requests the director spread this information to other industry leaders who he knows plan to air the announcement, but who aren’t based in Ferendaux, since Raum won’t be able to personally reach them in any timely way. Again the director accepts this.

And so Raum leaves and gives the same warning to the next-biggest station in Ferendaux, then the next-biggest, then the next-biggest. By the time he reaches the smaller, more obscure outfits, the sun has already set, and the stations already expect him.

With nowhere left to hit, Raum gazes one last time over the night-lit streets, and boards his carriage for the Whitewood Manor.

Has he done everything he can?

It doesn’t feel like he’s done much. Certainly, not like he’s done anything dramatic.

He can imagine holes, scenarios. One station not getting the memo, or not taking seriously the threat of the witch. Especially were that station based outside of town. Listeners congregating to that frequency like gazelles at a watering hole… yes, Raum can imagine that.

But aside from the actions he’s already taken, he can see no way to personally safeguard these gaps. For tonight, at least, he must accept the smartest thing he can do is to have a good dinner and sleep.

Still, even so, the potatoes go down like sand balls, and build in his stomach like silt.

Squares of moonlight spill from the windows into Raum’s bedroom. He scrunches up his blankets, turns away, stares instead at the wall. Hours have passed since he got into bed, and though he assures himself that he just needs to sleep, he cannot.

He turns back to the window, thinking. Would Reyl really do something like that? Are these contingencies going to work, if she does? How desperate would she have to be?

Is Raum really, really worth that? Caught in this loop of rumination and anxiety, able only to find more fears whenever he reaches for answers, Raum finally surrenders and casts off his covers.

He’d like to settle down with a cup of cocoa and listen brainlessly to some radio drama, but none air at this hour. So instead he stalks through the manor’s lonely halls, reaches the kitchen, descends to the cold cellar, and returns with a bottle of sherry.

That he bothers to pour anything into a wine glass exemplifies Reyl’s contemptuous idea of shallow ‘propriety’.

Liquid comfort. It really is. But already the fuzzy warmth congealing in his stomach is dulling the edge off his thoughts successfully, and what were once blades whirling through his mind soon degenerate into a soppy, churning sludge. Give him a pillow and he would sink into it. But what’s just one more sip… to hold onto this nice feeling just a bit longer.

He sighs, hiccups. Slumps into the back of the chair. As he stares at the ceiling, the tide shifts, and the cozy heat in his gut tightens like a knot around his innards. Tears leak from his his eyes, his nose, heavy in the pits of each.

God, god, god, god. What the hell has he got himself into? Raum plants his elbows on the table, forehead in his palms.

Though a haze garbles the worst of it, churning thoughts bludgeon him like furies. It’s so dumb. Everything he’s doing. It’s so so so so so so so so so so so dumb. Look at it… cozying to Aquila now Aquila’s not cozy but let’s be real who didn’t predict that? Raum predicted that. So why, why why why why why why bother, investing so much to this shady person, why latch yourself onto him, why act like there’s anything good to keep here… you just like being the cute harmless one beside him… you just like pretending you can turn him around… you just like feeling he’d get rid of you if he didn’t care… but you don’t really care… not really... you just need these diversions because it’s too much, too much, it’s too much…

Leading on everyone’s time you are. Hey, still have those painkillers?

Yeah…

Well hurry up and get them! Have a buffet!

—Wwwoah oh no okay there. Bad idea bad. Because… uh…

Someone would have to find him and that’s a horrible, horrible thought. Imagine Reyl finding out. Or Aquila. All those people glad that a Whitewood survived… you’ll hurt them. Cause problems. That’s horrible. So horrible…

Raum pinches his nose. Ooooo he’s drunk. Or needs to get more drunk. He sloshes his glass about in contemplation, but ultimately pours the sherry down the sink. Can’t be hungover for Aquila tomorrow, he thinks dimly, then washes the glass, sobbing while singing Chiquitita.

He sniffs. Thinking to sober up, he retrieves a loaf of bread from the pantry to graze on as he returns to his bedroom. God that moonlight is bright. Which dad grandpa of his hated curtains so much he had to throw them all out. Stricken with a brilliant idea, Raum goes to heave a bookcase over to block out the window, but, heavy with books, it barely budges an inch. Though he blearily tries to fix this issue, he soon tires, gives up, forgets about it, and conks into bed with his loaf.

Not even seconds later, sleep does consume him, finally.

When Raum wakes up, the sun still has not risen.

His head pounds. His thoughts, though somewhat more cogent, only reach his brain after trudging through murk. He groans, sits up, squeezes his throbbing temples. Some tiny gritty pimply things itch at his back. Oh god wha—Raum checks under his covers—it’s breadcrumbs. What. There’s a whole loaf of bread on his pillow. What.

Raum massages his forehead with the butt of his palm. Gifts from drunk Raum. Thanks man.

He lets his arm slump back down to the pillow. Nausea pulses through his temples.

Okay he’s a little hungover. So you know what screw everything right now he’ll just sleep this off. ‘Night.

But however he tries to get comfortable, the crumbs itch at him relentlessly. He’s not getting to sleep before he cleans this mess up… and that means waking up. Goddamn it.

Still reluctant to commit himself to being awake, he lies there and thinks for a minute. Shit, he got pretty buzzed last night. Earlier this night? Not enough to black him out, but remembering how that glug of sherry spiralled down the sink, certainly more than his prescribed three-to-four glasses. (Also goddamn it ugh, he wasted good alcohol).

Man. It’s been ages since he slipped this bad with his liquor. Usually Reyl would stop him before… well.

Slip-up explained.

Raum scooches to the edge of the bed, squints to check his clock, and only now notices the hole gaping open in the wall where the bookcase once was. The bookcase itself has shifted out of position, like an opened door, and messy piles of books litter the ground.

Raum wheezes a single thin laugh, then checks the hole.

It’s indeed a secret a passage, aborting soon into a ladder that descends into darkness. Raum stares out the window.

Come on.

Unwilling to presently face the passage, Raum throws himself into his usual morning routine. He showers, stretches, cleans his sheets, makes his bed, has a light breakfast, checks the time properly (a couple hours to sunrise), and all wrapped snug in his robe and blankets, settles in to the big leather armchair in the living room, curious to what radio dramas play at this hour.

After his program ends, and the commercial break comes, a PSA airs. Please stay alert for changes to our scheduled programming…

With the hangover marginally tamed, Raum heaves himself out of the chair and rubs the heavy pits of his eyes. He’d still rather just sleep. But it’s far too late for that now.

He returns to the secret passage, armed with a neon torchlamp. Though queasy, clumsy, and hesitant, he does scramble down that ladder, until all that surrounds him is black.

Raum’s feet touch solid ground. Before him, at the end of the ladder, is the neon-lit door to a bunker. It has been left unlocked, as if Raum’s visit had been predestined, and Raum himself, acknowledged long ago.

The bunker is built on the principles of an Ordish vault, but furnished with Asphodelean baroque. After finding the switch for the diesel lamps, Raum unearths lounges, bedrooms, bathrooms, storerooms, a kitchen stocked with non-perishables, and a small library. Inside that library is a door whose face bears the onlooking crow of Whitewood, laurelled with its motto E.C.Q.O.I.

Raum kneads his temple with his thumb while massaging his forehead with his third finger. He shuffles through papers left upon the library desk, as though he will find some better pursuit in this mound of half-finished letters, but they offer nothing so conveniently relevant.

Defeated, Raum turns to the crow door.

Inside is a records room. Though narrow, it is structured like a block of the larger Ecqoi, with five distinct gridded rows of bookshelves and cabinets. But these shelves are only half-filled or empty. Plainly, they were meant to store more generations’ worth of information than they ultimately did.

Carved upon the head of each row is a sigil.
One: A flower twined over a bloody sword.
Two: A crow with a key in its beak.
Three: A weeping mask.
Four: Pearls in a skeleton’s fist.
Five: Liquid spilling from a taut rope.

The first two are the symbols of house Asphodel and house Whitewood. The last three are completely unknown, and match no houses that Raum knows, nor do they follow the conventions of house crests.

Well those first two rows must hold the sensitive records of the Asphodels and Whitewoods. The image of these bookshelves side-by-side reinforces every allusion Raum has caught to the families’ closeness, but, satisfied he has already grasped the most important implication of these two shelves (that they were collaborating, as the Whitewoods would not blackmail the Asphodels), he feels content to leave them be.

The other three, though…

Raum cannot explain his reluctance to investigate these archives.

He needs to know. If not to fill out the tapestry of his personal family history, then to comprehend the dealings and relations his family had, the ripples of which still may linger, that could follow him or that he inadvertently casts as its remaining head. So until he understands these symbols, he cannot leave this room. Though, it’s not that he feels obligated to it. It’s just that turning away now means running away, as if his foundations in Asphodel were a blank slate irrelevant to whatever future he wanted, into another stupid cowardly fantasy.

Already he must sense these archives do not hold great things. He just wishes he had a little more prep time before he was invited down to them.

Kneading his hands, Raum steps forward and inches a book out of one of the shelves. Though he has braced himself for it, and though his mind has warily distanced his body by lightyears, with every flip of the page, the knot in his stomach only balls tighter, and tighter, and tighter.

These are assassination contracts. Rather, this is a record book logging the distribution of assassination contracts. Who took what hit on who, for how much money, completed or incompleted, commission details, expiry date, so on and so on. It does not take a genius to realise that house Whitewood was mediating these hits — not conducting them, but forwarding the commissions and money to the parties that would.

The next row holds little better. These are archives of brutal repossession contracts, ordering the return of loaned gold, jewels, artworks, clothes, swords, horses — and whatever extras the commission-takers could find to meet that initial loan’s interest. Though more complicated than murder at ruining a life, Raum is familiar with how such a gig can scalp unwary men, over time, to nothing.

The last row is for narcotics and kidnappings. Shockingly, these do not simply organise the sale distribution of Asphodel’s existing drug scene, but are massive bulk orders of product, and proactive buyings-up of whatever is left, all to be sold off instead in Ordish markets. The kidnappings are not just kidnappings either. They are meticulously vetoed, but assuredly extant, trafficking gigs of certain undesirables into the Ordish slave trade.

Raum’s arms slump to his sides. He doesn’t want to read any more of this. And besides, he’s seen what he has to.

The Whitewoods weren’t just Asphodel’s intelligence service and spy network. They were, in effect, the kingpins of its whole underworld.

Your mom’s side, your dad’s side, it’s all the same shit, see? All that changes is the coat of paint. He can feel Reyl grinning, victoriously.

Raum wants to rebut, No, look, the tenor here’s different…, but the phantom in his mind snaps back: Denial! Semantics! Fantasy! Delusion! Look at you walking backwards straight into hell.

Raum rubs the bridge of his nose. If he’s going to argue his point, he’d rather do it with the real thing, not a banshee. Sighing, he winches the most recent logbook back into its shelf, pauses halfway, winches it out again, and stares down at the thing.

Shelving it now feels like some weird concession he doesn’t need to be making. Like he’s been begging for a sword, only to be given a gun, then disregarded its use because it’s unfamiliar and unexpected. A strangely calm feeling of confidence, unlike anything he’s felt before in his life, settles upon him. Were he to once again pit himself against Reyl’s cynical worldview, the things he’s seen in this room would be final silver bullet to annihilate her utterly. He can’t explain it, but it’s true.

Raum returns to the manor, taking this logbook with him as a focus for this odd state of mind. Pressing his palm against its cover, he tells the servants, who have awoken now before dawn to prepare Raum’s breakfast, that he’s going for a walk.

For once, he wants the time in the peace and silence, to think.

The sun still has not risen yet.

But the very first hints of twilight have come over the sky, and people have begun awakening for their everyday rituals. As he traverses the city streets, Raum observes: This prosperity isn’t rooted in the underworld. It’s the underworld that’s subject to the judgements of this society.

Aquila, through his intimate association with the Whitewoods, commands — or commanded — how money flowed into those criminal syndicates. And though he can be mercurial, he is not dumb to the dynamics of control. Groups obedient to him would become powerful, while those that defied his edicts would drown. That is Raum’s confident read of what he has found.

Sort of like recognising you had a rat problem, but domesticated them to run into a cage and do tricks.

Raum trudges up a hill of debris to his destination, the burnt-out remains of the cathedral. The skeleton of this formerly magnificent building has cracked, blackened, and fallen completely, but still behind the altar there stands an untouched marble statue of the world’s creator, grinning over the splintered pews proudly.

Its immaculate perseverance, among the destruction, chokes Raum with inexplicable fear. He clenches his book tightly, and with the cautiousness of a mouse sneaking behind a cat, circuitously navigates to the base of the statue, so he can sit in its shadow.

He checks with his fingertips first, but no thunderbolts strike him for leaning his back against its base.

Following the statue’s gaze, Raum sees the palace below and the city surrounding. Raum understands immediately that building this statue in this cathedral precisely opposite the palace was purposeful, and that no other structure would ever be allowed to stand taller than Aquila’s home. Simultaneously, only now does apprehension strike Raum about the gravity of Aquila’s long, vengeful, nascent crusade to annihilate Phoenix, who this entity marked.

Give the guy a bone. Hey? Raum thinks at the statue. Else don’t let him corner himself so much lower and lower, just sweep in to conquer him now.

It’s impossible to tell whether Raum’s request reached anything’s ears. But the grin of the statue unnerves him, such that if anything did hear him, it was surely something far more great and far more devious than Raum could outsmart or Aquila could outplan.

But that’s all a higher battle than the one Raum came here to contemplate. He flicks open his book simply to open it, and gazes again over the brilliant, purposeful, artful, symbolic architecture of the city.

So Reyl, what is power? Is it simply the liberty to destroy others so they cannot kill or rob you?

Power is knowing all the ways you may achieve your aims, paired with the means to actualise them certainly, that you are left having compromised nothing. Understanding of one’s own desires is an intrinsic requirement of power. Though Reyl intuits these dynamics, Aquila understands them far better.

Because Aquila did not build this kingdom on rats. They would have naturally betrayed him and undermined this society’s faithful culture, the true locus of his power. So Raum suspects he did not enable these criminal syndicates to toy with weaklings, who would compromise themselves for an ounce of status, or because he values their services more than a healthy society, as Reyl would argue.

Rather, it is a net. Or a filter. Something to catch and repurpose the nation’s useless dregs, and if such garbage fails to cooperate and serve Aquila even at this filthy level, that is not just a green light but a warning bell to destroy that garbage outright. Though an unnatural train of thought for Raum, and not one he particularly likes, it makes sense filtered through his half-built understanding of Aquila.

The methods by which Reyl soared in Ordanz are the same ones by which she’d hit bedrock in Asphodel. To get what she wants here — that is, to become powerful — means at some point accepting her ‘strengths’ only work when others are hedonistic, stupid, or fearful, and this place breeds for none of those traits. Whether Aquila’s in the picture or not, Reyl would not survive here.

Is that being idealistic, or just being mercenary, from the top’s perspective?

Raum flips through a couple pages of his book, snaps it shut. He heaves himself to his feet, done with his meditations, and takes his first step back to the manor, through the blackened debris, under the pink light of dawn.

But mirroring him at that first step, a figure emerges over the crest of the hill, making him pause.

It is Aquila.

Despite all the time he has spent this month familiarising himself to Aquila, and learning how to approach him casually, Raum instantly tenses in place.

Even his foot freezes at the head of some mound of wood, reigned by fear from pressing properly down. That debris may crack or creak under him. Allowing that to happen, somehow, would mean firing a shotgun.

Something is off.

Though it looks normal at first glance, Aquila’s posture is wrong. Raum struggles to pinpoint how — are his shoulders sagged? Is his gaze lowered? — until he realises that every individual feather holding Aquila’s form together is subtly loose, as if tied on flimsy string, and near spilling.

Seeming not to register Raum’s obvious unease, or his own abnormality, Aquila tilts his head and does that helpless smile. He mildly jokes this is a weird place to read books.

“Just getting myself immersed in the atmosphere. Don’t help though," Raum presents the surrounding ruins while flashing the cover of the logbook. “Novel’s a bit crap." Aquila’s eyes lock on the book with instant recognition, then jitter about in that analysing way. Before he can get wrong ideas about what Raum’s implying, Raum flips its pages cover-to-cover while clarifying, “too old."

Aquila’s feathers deflate slightly. He looks aside, then again lightly jokes that he’s surprised the moths hadn’t eaten it.

He’s stalling. And that both unnerves and agitates Raum. Though he plays along for a while with Aquila’s bland chitchat, waiting for him to collect himself properly for whatever topic he’s actually trying to push, Raum quickly tires of this circuitous game. Despite the warning bells reminding Raum that Aquila likes setting the pace, he asks frankly what Aquila wants to talk about.

Aquila tilts his head as if this is an odd question. By the messages he received upon returning to the palace, Raum was the one who wanted to speak with Aquila?

Erm. Crap, yeah, well, but… oh no.

Semantic judo with this guy will land Raum concussed on the floor while Aquila prances in the clouds shooting arrows. Forcing himself not to fall into that pace, he sincerely, and weakly tells him: you look terrible.

Aquila dramatically combs his hair aside like a matador flaring his cape. “To hear that from you, especially—" he cheerily begins, when a moderate gust sweeps over the ruins of the cathedral. Though by no means a strong wind, or one Raum has not seen Aquila withstand before, this time it rips off the edges of his silhouette, plucks off chunks from his extremities, splays a stream of white feathers into the sky like a surface-to-air missile ramming into a dove.

Aquila’s levity drops instantly and he snaps his palm forward. The stolen feathers freeze midair, rippling like flags in a storm, then return as if magnetised to Aquila’s body where they belong. He smooths them back into place on his hair, his breast, his arms, curled small as he focuses on nothing but staying together until the gust dies down. Every inch of him ripples.

Raum can’t help but wince.

The wind passes. Raum prays for Aquila not to ignore what just happened, or to downplay it. He is rewarded, as Aquila sets his arms evenly back to his sides and flatly purses his lips. Without a word, he gestures for Raum to follow him, then pivots to depart down the hill without even checking that he obeyed.

Without question, Raum follows.

Aquila leads them into the city, then down a corridor of alleys and onto a vacant lot. There he instructs Raum to winch open a neighbouring building’s basement window, which Raum does despite reservations, so they both may enter it.

Inside is another of those tunnels, like the one Raum and Reyl found under the cathedral. As Aquila leads Raum down it, Raum intuits both by the span of these tunnels and by the number of forks that this is indeed part of that massive tunnel system.

Only Raum’s steps peal off the quiet stones; Aquila’s footfalls make no noise. Raum wishes to break the eerie silence with chatter and questions, if only to confirm Aquila truly present, but restrains himself to just one: where are we going?

Aquila curtly answers, ‘to privacy’.

They come to a section of tunnel that strikes Raum as familiar. Cross-checking his direction sense, he realises this is where that membranous red screen formerly was blocking the way. Raum cannot help but note: it’s gone…

Aquila answers that it’s been deactivated, temporarily. He then gazes off to nowhere, sending his mind away, and with a burst of fragrant summer flowers and ozone, the glowing red screen crackles back into life behind a startled Raum. Aquila grins at Raum’s reaction, but then drops that amusement and strides forward.

The nation of Asphodel, that of my forefathers, Aquila announces to nobody in particular. Is before all, a nation of death. What land but ours could claim, we are the asylum of the individual soul? Whether perverted, broken, or damned, the curses of our unsanctified sun will dissolve all bones gilded or whittled into hell — then shall you escape by the diviners or by the sabbat, forfeit your self to the all-dominating architect or to the animal dirt. Look to the celestials in the night sky: it was not always like this.

It is our branch alone that adheres still to our maker’s funerary sensibilities; that was indeed, made to adhere to them…

So might you pledge your death to this divine steward, and in doing, know him as your master…

Carved reliefs of flowers and baroque ornaments seep progressively into the flat stone. Then crowned upon an archway overhead: ‘by the blood of God, we rest’.

To me, that yoke is quite comfortable. With that, Aquila stops still.

They stand at the entryway of a vast chamber. Unlike that of Ecqoi, this one is neither utilitarian nor Ordish. It is more like a large ballroom, with grand columns, vaulted ceilings, and intricately artful brickwork. Strange sculptures stand on bases all across the floor like gallery exhibits. These sculptures look like fountains, ornate vertical structures with ten tiered rings. On each of these rings are sconces, chambered inside themselves like doors to a cathedral, and decorated again just as artfully.

From those countless sconces of countless sculptures, there shines the flickering blue light of souls. It is like the stars have been plucked from the night and enshrined here, in this room.

And in fact, that’s exactly the case. Raum realises, gobsmacked, that Aquila has just introduced him to the national crypt of Asphodel: terminus for every good, loyal, average, and repentant citizen that was ever born to die in this country.

This room is not something anyone is ever supposed to see, or ever talk about afterwards. Raum would like to feel privileged for the exception — but in truth, it just makes him uneasy.

Seeing that Raum has grasped where they are, Aquila guides him up a spiralling stairway. Here and there he glimpses other floors in their ascent, some filled with discrete mausoleums, but most with more of those sconces.

Aquila stops them at their destination: a smaller floor dominated by an odd stone contraption inlaid with a glowing red gemstone. A beam of shifting fractals descends from this gemstone into a stone basin, on the rim of which is a white feather, and inside of which is a fresh splash of blood. Though he can’t certainly say how it works, Raum correctly figures this is the mechanism powering the teleportation field.

Aquila, for the first time since leaving the cathedral, pivots to face Raum properly.

His expression is complex. He squints, as if trying to unpuzzle something, but folds his arms behind him, as if too disgusted to reach out and pluck that ‘something’ to where he can see it. Beneath that lingers guilt, confusion, indecision — fear? No, not quite…

He straightens his back.

“Open your mouth," he orders.

Okay. Raum does.

Aquila inserts his middle and index finger into Raum’s open mouth.

Though ostensibly something he could squawk at, laugh at, and turn into a joke, this isn’t a frivolous tease.

Actually, all of Raum’s survival instincts are screaming at him to stay deathly still. It is as though the thing in his mouth is a grenade, and if he bites down, Aquila will pull back and leave him with the shell. He strains his jaw open, stretches the corners of his mouth wide, and presses his tongue flat, frantically aware that if he lets his gums or lips or tongue touch those fingers, he will actually die.

Not by some metaphor where Aquila pulls out a gun. Literally. Literal. Those fingers reek of cyanide.

Aquila holds this position, staring at him, watching, but at the same time looking far past him into some crevice of his own mind. Raum cannot figure what he’s thinking or what signal he’s looking for, but…

He can imagine Aquila, right now, is stuck.

Raum’s mouth is pinned, so he can’t talk. In fact staying paralysed in acknowledgement of Aquila’s control feels like the correct choice. But he hopes if he thinks hard enough, the following sentiment will communicate:

He’s scared. He’s been scared this whole time. From the moment he chose to follow Aquila, he knew this was on the table. Though—despite the claims he made to embolden himself, that doesn’t mean he ever truly accepted it. He’ll panic and regret and curse everything and beg for Reyl the second he knows he’s dying. No, it just means he has strong faith.

Even in this situation, he still has strong faith in Aquila.

Aquila cracks a single bitter laugh as he withdraws his fingers. Then he spills another, and another, convulsing like a sick man. His entire body drops as though gravity clicked its fingers — his palms barely catch the rim of the basin — that everything from his waist down compacts upon the floor. What were previously his legs and coat have now melded together into a quivering, shapeless fan of feathers.

He hisses at the sight of his own deformation, flares out his coat, and pushes to hoist himself up by the knee. Like some crude, scrambling effigy, melting and unmelting as clay, this effort fails both to stabilise his form or to lift him from the ground. He tries instead to pull himself up by the shoulders, only to dislocate his torso and nape from his stomach and collar. Blood cascades from the splits.

He eases forward, carefully letting his upper body lace itself back into shape. The feathers across his whole half-melted form relax flat, still, and calm, in surrender. Finally, he lets himself slump upon the basin.

There’s falling apart, and then there’s falling apart.

“Dude," Raum can only say.

Raum looks for anything that might help Aquila compose himself, or some chair to scoop him into, but Aquila grumbles for Raum to stay put, not approach, and not bother. The bitter familiarity in his tone tells Raum that this is not the first time this has happened for Aquila, though it may be the first time it’s happened in front of another person.

Blood oozes incontinently from his misshapen lower half. It pools on the ground in floral patterns and flashes red in Raum’s vision, hallmarks of its divine pedigree. Raum’s feet instinctively inch away from the spreading puddle, every nerve from the top to the butt of his spine warning him that this is poison and that letting it touch him is a bad idea. Raum offers a towel from the basin’s shelf, but Aquila struggles to manipulate the weight of even this, and it lies quickly abandoned.

Aquila taps his thumb to his forehead, gazing at the grey stone face of the basin.

“I am coming to terms," he says carefully, as if defusing a bomb in his mouth, “with the purposelessness of my efforts for the past twenty years."

Raum kneels aside him.

Tell me everything.

You adjust your rifle’s set upon your shoulder and reaffix your gaze down the tunnel. Your prospective new protege, Raum, has urgently demanded your presence. You must attend to this promptly, as you doubt these summons are trivial. But truthfully, in the wake of this past hour’s events, whirling yet as a tempest in your mind, you question your ability to regard his report as much more than noise.

Memories blaze through your vision, battering you like a pleading eyewitness: have you considered this? Considered this? Considered this? As though any conclusion raised from any alignment of these scenes could fix the miscarriages that led to you almost dying this night.

Mason solved your scheme before you could reveal it. On the very night you had fantasised of for months — years — decades, what you ultimately saw was not this man curling in revelatory horror, dread, betrayal, and despair, but instead of him holding your natural anathema, the blade Kingslayer, over a vessel of your soul, the feather. He ordered you to talk. You barely distracted him long enough to retrieve your feather and run.

You could have realised sooner he wouldn’t need Kingslayer, and not armed him with it in the first place.

You could have committed properly to either reliance or distrust toward your protege, before he found a need or opening to work at cross-purposes to you, and consequently not led Mason to your vault of his family’s confiscated letters and presents.

You could have not bothered with Raum at all, and snuffed Mason’s jealous suspicions before they were roused. And removed the complication of this witchhunt. And wisely accepted you truly did have nothing left but this loathing, as you had accepted long before.

Ah, poor Faron, he would weep to know what you’ve done.

You could have stuck to your first plan.

You’d have won.

Raum turns this information around, repeats it back, patches the implications together.

“You were always going to backstab my dad," Raum chooses as his starting point. Aquila nods yes as he hoists himself to sit on the rim of the basin. Though still ragged and weeping, enough form has returned to his bloodied lower half that he can set his hands in his lap and receive Raum’s observations patiently.

“Or that was the point… to backstab my dad," Raum tests. Again Aquila nods.

What the hell kind of conspiracy was this where you destroy your own national property, exterminate your own loyalists, and start a terrorism scare just to fuck over one guy? No, Raum needs to understand more.

“But you changed your plans, because of me," confirms Raum. Again Aquila nods. Correct.

“…So were you maybe going to, figure out something with him, last night?" This time, Aquila shakes his head, smirking bitterly.

Too hopeful. Dumb question.

Raum takes a breath and tries to reorient his track, but there are so many tangled threads to everything that’s happened that he cannot find where to begin. Aquila advises him to start from the beginning, wherever he reckons that beginning might be.

Well, for Raum, this all began with the invitation to his grandfather’s funeral. Obviously that had been a pretext to get Mason out of Ordanz. That Raum, Reyl, and Desiree came too wasn’t strictly essential, but inviting them simply made sense given the set-up and cleaned up those loose ends. So the funeral had been the best opportunity Aquila could find to get his hands on Mason?

Aquila tilts his head and strokes his hair. Somewhat close. No, there were plenty of pretexts he could have used to draw Mason from Ordanz. In fact it was more difficult, when first he proposed his plan to Mason, to find a good lie as to why Aquila hadn’t simply lifted his exile years prior. The significance of the funeral is that it was a comprehensive gathering of the Whitewoods after Faron Whitewood, their patriarch, was dead. Faron was Aquila’s godfather to whom he owed a life debt; he was not going to move against the family until he had naturally passed.

…So me and Reyl?

“Incidental," Aquila answers. “I’ll admit I was curious to see what…" Aquila’s mouth quirks and he glances aside, but dispels the discomfort with a shrug. “…hilarious, gutterspawned mutants he might have sired in Ordanz, by what shameful thing he had taken as a ‘bride’, and whether he had formed emotional bonds to either. But among the slurry of vault genetics, it seems that decent stock found him." Aquila tilts his head, smirking. “Not that that went without hardships either, I hear."

Geeeeez.

This was the kind of honesty he was looking for, but beyond the harsh tongue that apparently runs in the family, the edge to Aquila’s antagonism is flatly just cruel. Shitheap’s worse than me… suddenly, Raum can believe it.

Seeing Raum’s uneasy silence, Aquila smiles thinly. “These are not glorifying admissions to my ears, either."

Raum pinches his brow and forces his judgements aside for the moment. “…Right. But — right." If part of the funeral’s significance was that all the Whitewoods would be there — that is, that the Whitewoods dying was integral to the plan… well, why? From Raum’s view, it’s beyond drastic.

Aquila says that to answer that question he will simply explain his machinations directly; but does Raum not have any suspicions first? He is curious how his actions look to a reasonably informed outside perspective.

Raum recounts his speculation from the night after his dinner with the Baron of Pikiny: Aquila had been following an accidental command from Phoenix that forced him to give monarchical power to one of Phoenix’s agents, such as Morgan. In retrospect, Raum sees this theory does not account for Mason at all, nor can Raum begin to imagine how Mason plays into the picture.

Fist to his chin, Aquila grins slyly. “How rudely seditious. I would hope those notions came from known terrorist and usurper, Toreas of Lacren."

A good chunk of them did, yes.

“But, ah, how might I say," Aquila pats the ruff of his coat, as if stroking the spine of a snake. “He did know that much, at least."

There were two dimensions to Aquila’s plan.

The first was political. Mundane as it was, and straightforward as it was, the issue of succession was as much of a problem as messy inheritances always are. From the instant, twenty years ago, when Aquila realised he could not sire a child, his mind shot first to methods to fill the void in succession.

However, the greatest concern for Aquila was not finding a suitable person to inherit the country. Any heir chosen to rule after Aquila’s departure would inevitably lose everything, since without the Asphodel family’s sanctified blood holding the nation together, hundreds of ancient territorial vendettas would burst back to the fore, old kingdoms would secede, and old kingdoms would war. After the Tyrant’s Reign, nobody wanted that. Such, short of resurrecting some departed ancestor, Aquila would have to remain in the picture to supply his blood, just not as a ruler.

Most likely, that would mean some religious, or ceremonial position. Aquila can see the compromise: some Duke’s son takes the throne to continue court politics as usual, keeping the nobles happy in their influence, while Aquila abdicates or is otherwise sidelined into a position as the head of church, in itself a decently influential place considering he should be naturally dead. It’s a hard proposition to argue against without seeming a despot.

The problem with this is that Aquila has no plans to abdicate and no desire to relinquish even one scrap of power. Indeed, as is the rationale of a despot. It serves him better practically to war against God as a King than a bishop, for one, and emotionally the insinuation nobles deserve a ‘turn’ ruling a kingdom sovereign to Asphodel deeply disgusts him. Any nation lacking his blood in its rulers ought not be called Asphodel, even. Still, there are only so many times you can say ‘no’ to nobles before they get antsy and conspiratorial, so if Aquila were to be a good diplomat, he would fold.

How to maintain his influence upon the throne, then? Ingratiate himself to the new Kings and Princes the same way the courtiers do to him now?

No.

He would just do the same thing that Phoenix did.

He would subvert the souls of young monarchs with compelling geas, such that they would be his puppets. He could say, jump, rebuff, ally, kill: they would assuredly do it. Of course this was all inhumane and a moral atrocity that would earn him infamy right next to Phoenix, but unlike Phoenix, Aquila understood the definition of ‘subtlety’.

The murder of the Whitewoods was conducted to leave behind one very obvious and powerful pick for heir, which Aquila could single out as his subverted puppet.

And in the question, ‘who?’, strikes the second dimension to the plan: the personal dimension.

He would use the body and identity of Morgan Whitewood, exonerated and revealed to the public.

Contained in which would be the soul of Mason Whitewood, Aquila’s pet thrall, henceforth passed down, body by body, through the miserable generations.

This was the proposition that had hooked Mason. Ascension into kingship for centuries or millennia, as the loyal agent and sole confidant of his powerful friend as they duped the nation, with a dash of revenge against his family for texture. Of course Aquila didn’t mention the part where he would geas Mason into his personal china-doll, but, details. Aquila kicks his legs playfully at this thought, like a child on a swing.

Raum’s stomach twists. Every answer Aquila gives just leaves him with more questions, most of them accusatory. But the truly sickening thing, beyond his openness to soul-warping witchcraft and callousness at the fate of the country, is the note of deep desire and affection in Aquila’s tone every time he talks about obliterating Mason.

Raum wonders, again, if he’ll be leaving this crypt alive. His body’s basic prey-animal senses are beginning to doubt it.

Fleeing those chills, Raum forces as much of a different track as he can find. Aquila has divulged his plot, but mentioned nothing of Phoenix’s geas upon him. Maybe he’s barred from talking about it, but surely he isn’t dominated into silence like Raum is. So time for hints? Hotter, colder?

“Yes…" Aquila squints and purses his lips, dropping that unnerving glee in an instant. He clutches his hand over where his heart would be. What do you suspect? Given your experience with him. What maladroit bounds would that myopic imbecile place upon one with my unique position?

“Eheh, hey, PSA, my experience with that kid’s a nada," Raum’s voice says automatically, accentuating his claim with a swish of the fingers.

“Tah hah hah, que juegos tontos, de nada." Aquila waves his hand as if dismissing a waiter. “Hypothetically, then."

Clean. Raum knows Phoenix disliked the Whitewoods, and that despite his crazy, he does like the country. He did speculate earlier that Phoenix may have bound Aquila to destroy unsubverted Whitewoods from a personal grudge, or perhaps fear.

But as Raum considers this thought, another possibility strikes him that would just as easily, and in fact more effectively, reach such an end without fretting over the mechanics.

—Did he make you hate the Whitewoods?

…Is that kind of thing even possible?

Maybe he’s hoping too much in the intrinsic goodness of man, but Raum would like to believe Aquila’s joyful loathing of Mason is at least a bit artificial.

Aquila stands up with a grim smile, clenching his breast feathers tightly.

He releases his hold, pats the feathers down, looks aside while grinning. “Not them. I ask, how thoroughly have you read that ledger?"

The darkness in Aquila’s smile whistles down Raum’s spine like a dagger. As if urged at knifepoint, Raum’s fingers clench the ledger on his belt. He withdraws it promptly, flips through pages, and pages, and pages, like a bushman shouldering his way through tall grass, hoping for his mark to pounce upon him like a snake.

And it does. At the threshold to a wall of blank, unfilled lines, the pages settle still on the very last entry.

Among its chattels, the ledger of kidnappings lists one ‘Phoenix A.’.

The unsaid implications of this entry obliterate Raum’s thoughts to nothing, even as his eyes tell him flatly everything he needs to know.

“It is sublime," Aquila laughs, “that your father believed his exile a judgement by Faron."

Stuck in his mind, Raum cannot respond. Aquila patiently waits for him to think.

These logs date before the Tyrant’s Reign, and the handwriting of this entry (as most others) is Mason’s. The signage of a completed delivery into Ordanz is absent here, though the fact it is written at all suggests it was attempted. Mason was no doubt exiled over this, and apparently believed his family had thrown him under the bus to clean it all up in the aftermath.

Whatever honey he’s feeding you now…

Pissed off the royals so much, that Aquila didn’t weasel him out of it…

Even if Mason didn’t like Phoenix, what the hell was he thinking!! Why didn’t he think Aquila would loathe him after abducting his kid brother, who, at least back then, he adored!

Fuck! He deserved to get exiled!

Though knowledge of how badly Mason suffered afterwards tempers Raum’s indignation with guilt, he can assert that much as fact. Mason deserved to be exiled.

…And if Aquila’s still so furious about it twenty years later, that he doesn’t just enjoy the thought of Mason suffering alone in some pit of Ordanz, but designed this whole plan in major part to personally torment him further, that means—

“—You still love Phoenix."

Or, maybe, something like that.

Aquila, again, fingers his breast, then heaves himself to sit upon air as if nestling on an invisible platform. He laments, “whether by idealism or by romance — that you speak your charities so frankly is what truly unravels me. Truly.

“This feeling that consumes me," Aquila begins, “cannot, conscionably, be called love. That your father’s pain excites me is not love. That his anguish exhilarates me, too, is not love. If I may tell you the things I’ve envisioned, these fantasies I have courted daily for the past twenty years… I would hope you would be revolted. By that revulsion, perhaps you will feel a tickle of the smog roiling in me, and understand how noxious is this malice inside me.

“The thought of your father broken in misery fills me with nought but euphoria. I could not once feel reluctance or sorrow, when I designed these plans, that I might extinguish my loyalists, or even that my closest friends would lie murdered, for the way these killings entrapped your father afforded my heart only glee. Equally, it was with giddy ecstasy that I ordered him after yourself and your sister, my head rife with images of his face once he truly saw what he committed upon his own children… that would be a sin I could use to torment him forever. When he would learn that I exiled him, I isolated him, and I facilitated every one of his greatest miseries… it is for these singular moments of revelation that I have waited for twenty years like a child over a platter of candies.

“Because it is these dark feelings alone that have kept me tied to this world with any passion. Consider the gifts left to me by my mindless brother: A shattered nation I was to tend, a body that forbids me from material pleasures, and these unyielding flares of enmity when I so much as think his worthless name. My soul will not accept them, but he is unfortunately a master of the craft. I am left with this wandering feeling, that demands to be placed somewhere, somewhere, and no channel for it but the things I already resent at an equal par… the things upon which I may instead blame this hatred, for they truthfully were in part responsible for the madness that consumed my brother. By the fact I shall die should I even approach him, there is no solace or succour I can give to countermand these furious obsessions. The only thing I may exact for him now is vengeance. Else I see no purpose in this crown, or in the continuation of this country.

“Previously you stated I wished to backstab Mason. The understatement in these words is egregious.

“For as long as Phoenix is tortured, I wish for Mason to be tortured. That is the only negotiation I have found in my powerlessness, and the sole desire that has sustained myself as something I broadly recognise. It is a calcified, crystallised lump that has encysted itself over the ghost of my values.

“As of last night, however," Aquila flicks out his hand. “Even this lost its purpose. So what have I now? Truly?"

Though these words carry immense gravity, they also carry such an unconcerned frankness — as though he were remarking on the weather — that Raum cannot help but fall speechless.

‘I have lost all purpose to living because I can’t vent my hate on your dad like I wanted anymore’… surely, that cannot be true. In fact it plainly isn’t. Reading between the lines, he’s saying he only reclaimed the nation because it was something he could do for Phoenix. But what is the right angle to negotiate this?

…Is he saying he’s going to quit?

“More generously I would hear ‘retire’." The feathers in his body spiral like snowflakes in a storm, destroying the illusion of bone and muscle completely, until his shape reforms and settles with his legs crossed as he shrugs. “Perhaps from my pretence of humanity in general. For I am shucked of my mortal limits, lingering obscenely past death to govern the living, and rooted by birth outside man’s essence regardless… I may fancy a pilgrimage to my family’s homelands, that is, the hollows of Nix."

Raum can’t say he knows much about Nix, but things that go in there rarely come out again. Aquila’s not serious. Is he? What about Phoenix? What about the country? Raum senses these are the wrong tracks to push.

“What about finding Reyl?" he lets take precedence instead.

“I question if that might not be easier without the trammels of kinghood," despite his light tone, Aquila winces.

“Fucking warzone that’s gonna be," Raum replies. “Think I’d move in with the kid. Keep the blood flowing. He’d be down, eh?"

“Dare not joke," Aquila snaps.

“Well be real. Why not? Straight up, that is what I’d do… if you’re gonna throw away the crown and land me as the heir anyway."

“I confirmed nothing of that," Aquila mutters sourly into his fist, his eyes twitching in thought. His shoulders soon slump. “Why do I foul my tongue with this worthlessness? My prospects of success are already so little…"

“Just take it easy," Raum urges.

Aquila’s eyes continue to flicker, his mouth unconsciously flashing a vile smirk to Raum, until the channel in his head seems to switch. He straightens his back and runs his fingers through his hair.

His chest feathers fluff, then deflate, in some approximation of a sigh. “These plans I have described — by the fact I have divulged them, are shelved. Still, I have struggled to commit myself to the alternate course with which I have been flirting for the past months. My inability to choose, even at this hour, discomforts me immensely… but, as you should recognise, this course hinges upon you."

How?

“I am envisioning," Aquila says, staring across the room, “that you might take a role in the Cardinal House. That is the position in which I wished to place you, not as an influential mark for the court… I have arranged a pretext to facilitate your transferal there."

Hold on, step-by-step, what role. Like, a liaison?

“I envision the more precise word as ‘attendant’." Aquila traces his finger down his arm, absently.

No.

Aquila, no.

Raum gently presses, “a butler?"

Aquila’s eyes squeeze shut. He wipes his wrist across his cheek, tracing some memory of tears.

“A caretaker," he breathily admits.

Well done.

Though Aquila regains his outward composure promptly, something in his air has changed. His mind remains facing a deep well of sadness. Probably, said well has not been tapped like this once in the past twenty years Aquila has spent hating Mason.

“Scream if you need to," eases Raum.

Aquila considers these words quietly, his gaze still locked on some unseen dimension. He nods minutely. “It is with due thoroughness, that I ought explain why I regard such a post necessary. My brother… Phoenix," for once the word carries no spite, “is not accustomed to being treated with kindness. There is a degree of comfort he finds in isolation and rejection. Of course, to indulge in such comfort does not reflect a temperate mind, nor does it reflect his desires… but the worth of distrust has been so affirmed to him that I now suspect it as much ingrained to his character as his dutifulness or generosity. My hope had been, that proper nourishment of even one positive bond would, regardless, reinforce his maturation into his eccentricities gracefully. That… it did not occur."

Aquila clutches his breast. Hatred and anger flicker over his features, again, and again, interspersed stubbornly with that distant sadness.

“My efforts were insufficient. …However I fancied that my devotion would bring him always to shelter, what I did was house him with threats, for I called those very threats friend. My failure to mediate the collisions between the hearts I treasured was fundamentally, what undid each. A child could see the incompatibility of my intimates. Yet I would not resolve to favour even one, lest I spurn and forfeit another. I am here still, and with none else beside me. Just as much as did my father’s grief or my playmate‘s jealousy, my indifferent pretence of easing these pains kindled the fire that burned down my home, with all my treasures, and left them as ruins. It was my position… more than any other, that ought to have stopped this.

“But I cannot tell why, why I did not…" he mutters, trailing off as he looks down, fingers to his temple. His pupils jitter, thick with fury, sorrow, and deep, deep confusion.

Seeing him struggle, Raum carefully reminds, “what do you want me do to?"

“…Yes." Aquila nods as he looks to Raum, lowering his hand. “You — I envision you… simply, looking after him. There are practical concerns… I suspect he hasn’t been eating, and the house itself is poorly kept. But, principally, it is…" Aquila circles his hand in thought. “…bluntly, even if I did not hold an… optimistic, hope, that your demeanour may be a positive influence upon him, and that your unfortunate upbringing may have predisposed you to handling his type, you are one of the only known two in the world who can even approach him. Hence, for the simple demand of companionship, there is none other to ask but your absentee sister."

Moved automatically by an implication against Reyl’s honour, Raum sets his hand on his hip and juts out his shoulders. “Rey’s better with kids than what the knives got you thinking. Noting, she looked after me."

Aquila folds his hands. “I see. I would still be reluctant."

Yeah. Phoenix is scary as shit.

And this is one hell of a babysitting job.

“Understand, I present this as an order," Aquila hops down from his invisible platform. “That you will attempt it is not in question."

‘Attempt’. Raum nods absently and descends for a moment into thought.

For how Aquila claims that choosing his course was a struggle, it’s obvious now there was never a question. From the moment he offered his proposal to Raum back in Joliet, and Raum accepted, Aquila locked himself into discarding Mason. Mason could not now be the heir. It means the easing of Phoenix’s suffering is the one thing he desires more than revenge, such that even one vague flicker of hope in that direction made him junk twenty years of plotting in an instant. It affirms, despite his doubts, that he does love Phoenix.

But that makes the fact he did wait so long to reveal his intentions frightening. Doubly so given it doesn’t feel Aquila ever consciously tested for Raum’s capabilities as a caretaker or compatibility with Phoenix. In what way, this past month, has he been straightforwardly pursuing his own ends? None. He’s been fumbling over pretences and self-deceiving conspiracies to somehow, as a backup, include Mason.

That is, he did not drop Mason the second Raum came in the picture. He still wanted that safety net, in case Raum failed.

Or maybe he just could not dare to think that something so fickle might actually work.

There can be great catharsis in failure. If the vengeful core of Aquila’s sadistic underbelly is as intense as described, then indulging it might be better than orgasm. His fantasies of raping the regents, leaving for Nix, and otherwise destroying the country are just that, his version of a comforting fantasy. They are his release from the reality of the almost impossible mission he faces to release a loved one from an eternity of torture. This is the sentiment he pursues when he thinks, ‘this is too much for me. I’m overwhelmed. It’s in god’s hands. Can I give up?’.

Thing is though he does have both the drive and the position to realise these fantasies without care. But with Phoenix existing to ground him, he doesn’t. He can’t. He invests everything into achieving the opposite of what these comfortable desires demand, by bolstering and restoring the country dutifully, without suffering any apparent personal unwillingness or incoherency for the fact that he indeed is.

How the hell has he achieved that?

By living in that mindset of comforting, vengeful, sadistic fantasy for twenty years. By working to Phoenix’s ends, again and again, while telling himself this was a stepping stone to torturing Mason. By letting himself salivate at the eternal reward of torturing Mason. That was his blanket. That was what sustained him.

Choosing Raum does not just mean juggling in pieces of a new plan. It means an entire shift of mindset where he lets his open love of Phoenix predominate despite overwhelming challenge, risk of failure, and demands of faith. After all, there is assuredly no forcing anyone into becoming a genuinely good friend for anyone else, much less someone as touchy as Phoenix, or for that matter, someone as devious as Aquila.

And, holding on to both Raum and Mason does not just mean balancing logistics of how to shift from plan A to plan B under condition X. It means teetering as a mess of denial and dissonance while trying to negotiate the simultaneous holding of two contradictory worldviews.

Love against hate. It’s not just a hope that Phoenix will get something. It’s a hope that Aquila himself will be allowed a merciful comfort in something other than domination and vengeance, too.

Having himself faced the challenge of committing to such an overwhelming shift in — everything — recently, Raum understands the hesitation.

He’s probably scared, Raum thinks, then is stricken with the bizarre question of whether Aquila even gets scared, in the same way that Raum understands the emotion. Deeming that an unproductive topic for the moment, Raum forces aside the question and refocuses on the central matter of babysitting Phoenix.

At the thought of Phoenix without his neuroses, Raum’s heart leaps to say ‘yes’ as a bride says ‘I do’. The very next second, when he actually thinks about the logistics of living in Sebilles, around a mentally unstable child whose existence is itself a bomb, that sentiment sinks into an unease that sticks like miasma.

It’s not fair, he lets himself inwardly moan. By moving into Ferendaux, connecting to his famous heritage, and winning the favour of a nice country’s King, he had acquired all the comforts and luxuries his younger self ever dreamed of. That Aquila is now telling him he cannot have these, at least not without compensation, makes that inner child want to scream.

But those are the anguishes of a child, and Raum is older now. As he blinks away a thin sheen of tears, he breathes out long, and so breathes his mind clear. In the place of that anguish burbles a serene sense of confidence, that he has been trusted and chosen as capable for this responsibility, frightening as it may be, and an eagerness to indeed make it work.

Can Raum do this?

Any uncertainties about how much he can actually offer, and how much Phoenix will accept, will have to be negotiated once he’s on the ground. Else he can do chores, games, and silly faces. For most kids, that does make them happy.

But staying in Sebilles all his life (or longer) sounds miserable. It does not fit remotely with Raum’s own life plan either. If only for his sanity, some labour limits ought be in place here.

Raum jogs his hand upon his flat palm. “Two seasons on, two seasons off." That much, then, he can probably manage.

Aquila sets his hand on his hip. “…Truthfully, I would wish to hear three seasons at the minimum. If that is the limit you judge, however, then with that you ought begin."

And another thing — a decade, maybe two, that’s all fair on the table, but even in a million years he’s not doing a century. One of the first things to get ironed out is a plan for Raum to be replaced and retired.

Aquila nods slowly, then jolts with some vital realisation. He strides forward a step and offers his palm.

Not quite the right tenor, that, Raum thinks, and instead gives a bow, which he holds as he smiles up at Aquila.

Aquila pauses to digest this sight, then smiles as if tickled, curls in his fingers, and lets his hand relax at his side. Raum closes the gap to join him as he settles himself on the rim of the basin.

“For how little it pleasures me to invest in uncertainties," he says, gazing warmly from his lap up to Raum. “I will say, this once, I am happy."

Raum and Aquila proceed to talk about the pretext Aquila has arranged to transfer Raum into the Cardinal House. Aquila towels his bloodied legs clean (never before has Raum seen those pristine feathers even slightly discoloured) as he explains, Raum seated on the basin next to him.

The need for a pretext is a factor of Phoenix’s personality more than anything else. Aquila doubts he will just accept housemates, especially well-intentioned ones, simply because they showed up and offered a hand. He would discern, correctly, that they had been coerced, conspiring, or otherwise cornered into miserable pursuits that barred them from a healthy life in proper society, and in all cases demand them soon gone.

Hence, alongside Raum himself sincerely desiring to be there, there must be an official state-backed reason for Raum to be in the Cardinal House. It does not need to be a legitimate reason — but simply one that exists, that the people believe, and that overall serves the country. Aquila so means to make it an issue of national importance that Raum stays in the Cardinal House.

He would say ‘perceived’ national importance, but honestly, the peace of mind this all offers Aquila is more than trivial to the nation’s future. It just won’t be important in the angle he presents it.

Raum is, as expected, going to be announced heir. Aquila is reluctant to explain beyond that, as he would like Raum’s reaction before the crowd to be genuine.

Raum accepts this but notes it sounds like Aquila’s going to bomb the party.

Aquila just reaffirms the need for a genuine reaction without elaborating further. Raum drops the subject, unnerved, but not urgently curious.

Raum asks when the transfer can reasonably happen, given Reyl… Raum trails off. Is still in Sebilles? May still be in Sebilles?

Aquila also falls silent, knitting his lips uncomfortably. As always, that he shows any unease is ominous.

“Raum," Aquila begins, “there is a thought I have had that I must tell you, about your sister."

Raum hunches forward, shifting even his knees upon the basin rim to face him. “She’s not, dead?"

“That was not the thought," Aquila affirms vaguely. “Kingslayer, the sword I have given to Mason, is a blade that confounds magic. Such, it has been the bane of witches and ghouls for centuries, and its wielders far more apt to survive such encounters. I, myself, am also susceptible to its effects.

“Cause of the feathers?" Raum asks. Those are from a ghoul.

“Because of my blood, also. It is anathema to the entire house Asphodel. I cannot overstate, truthfully, how much of a boon it was that you had disarmed Toreas, upon that bridge," Aquila says. Regardless. Aquila had given the sword to Mason as protection, on the conceit that Reyl could be a witch. But it only occurred to Aquila some time after his strained conversation with Raum, a little before Raum left for Deram, that this protection would be completely useless.

Because Reyl couldn’t be a witch. Once Aquila finally calmed down from that conversation and thought about it properly, it was obvious. Raum had clearly been impelled by Phoenix, which to Aquila’s mind meant he had been resurrected by Phoenix for soulsmithing — meaning that he had died, and been purified. This would also be true of Reyl.

To become a witch, one must proactively destroy some fundamental part of themselves to sever a fragment of their own soul, allow it to rot upon exposure to air, and then eat it to reintegrate it with their selves. But if Raum and Reyl had been purified by Phoenix, their souls would not be able to rot. Reyl, if she had attempted the ritual, would have been stuck with a crystallised fragment of pure soul.

Aquila has no idea what the implications of this are. Such a condition does not have any precedent.

In the case of a typical witch, though, the time spent waiting for the severed fragment to rot is usually agonising and fugued. Depending on what region of the soul got severed by the ritual, and how large of a fragment it was, prospective witches could lose the faculties to even eat, breathe, or think, if not fall into a coma outright. Obviously these did not happen to Reyl, as she wasn’t found disabled at the murder site — but it does leave Aquila questioning whether she was ever in a condition to travel to Sebilles, and whether her priorities might not have shifted.

Raum quietly digests this, his chest hollow as a deflated balloon. He notes that Reyl had to at least be well enough to get out of Indris.

Aquila concedes this is true. But what he is trying to emphasise is that he has genuinely no idea what state she could be in, and by Mason’s failure to locate even a sign of her over a month, he doubts she made it to Sebilles. She is genuinely a missing persons case now.

The implications to this sit: they may not find her for years. She may be too preoccupied looking for ways to fix her soul to be thinking about Raum at all. She may have found herself in a condition where she needs to depend on others, but is trying to manage the complications herself. She may have, disoriented, just wandered into the wilderness and died.

Raum questions if she couldn’t just eat this fragment to solve the problem.

Aquila can’t explain the mechanics as it’s highly intuitive, but rotten souls are less stable than pure ones. In his own experience working with souls, rotten ones almost have a desire to spread and change forms, while pure ones sit fixed as diamonds. Because of this property, though he realises it is just conjecture, he wonders if a pure soul might not want to reintegrate as a rotten soul does, or at the very least not with the same speed.

Raum notes that the very idea of her attempting to become a witch, itself, is still just conjecture.

Aquila again concedes this is true. But he also flatly admits he thinks it the most likely reason she would have returned to Desiree, since personally, were he Reyl, he would hope himself resolute enough to murder Desiree for power, before he would ever think to cooperate with his brother’s rapist.

Raum falls silent.

Aquila apologises. He is just trying to prepare Raum for this possibility, as well. He recognises, after Raum has agreed to something so important to Aquila, that he is not doing a good job of reciprocating to Raum’s desires. Once they do know what state she is in, however, Aquila will spare no expense in returning her to Raum in as decent a condition as his powers can manage.

Aquila can scan Sebilles in the nights of the week following the party. He can do this more efficiently than Mason. If not even he can find sign of her, then he thinks it safe to assume her absent, and the city suitable for Raum to enter.

Meanwhile there is no suffering in death, Aquila reminds, and Raum knows this is true. Nor is it custom here to damn errant souls, and Raum knows this also is true.

Though these are logical reassurances, Raum can’t help but look away.

Aquila is asking him to consider Reyl already gone. Even if she can come back, even if she can be resurrected — fundamentally, he does not like to think of her being dead, lost, or unaccounted for. But isn’t that just being realistic? Isn’t Aquila’s judgement on her one he can trust?

What if she’s just good at hiding?

Aquila tilts his head in puzzlement.

What if she is in Sebilles, and she’s just good at hiding? Raum insists. Aquila has consistently underestimated Reyl, at every single juncture he could’ve. Maybe Raum is overidealising, maybe he just cannot shake his longheld sense of Reyl’s omnipotence — but what if Aquila is also just wrong again?

Moreover, if the possibility exists that Reyl could have gone to Sebilles to secure a recording of Phoenix’s voice, then Aquila is the one endangered by going there. Letting this sense of urgency take over, Raum explains his encounter with the shopkeeper who had sold her the tube recorder, and outlines the precautions he’d taken by warning the radio stations.

“—Then we must go now." Aquila bolts to his feet.

Shaken by Aquila’s abruptness, Raum lags a step in following.

“Rather, Raum, I may go on ahead. If I were to tell you to leave by the third exit upon the western wall, on the level two floors below us, to loop around and exit by the tunnel through which we came, would you be able to navigate that?"

Yeah, but, wh—

A shrill squeal sounds from the basin behind them. Raum glances back just in time to see the beam of red light twanging like a plucked guitar string, reverberating back into stillness. Aquila, cursing, lunges for the basin and frantically towels up the blood inside it. When he withdraws barely seconds later, the light that had shone upward, out from the crystal and away from the basin, is gone.

“Someone has passed through the barrier. I expect it was your father," Aquila quickly explains, dumping the towel, “I have temporarily disabled the wards to ensure he does not corrupt them with Kingslayer." He hops into the air and squints around the crystal, inspecting it for flaws, but returns to the ground, seeming relieved.

He stares up at the crystal, as though contemplating it, but is more likely plotting and masking it.

“Hey, thought process," Raum nudges.

Aquila nods, turning his gaze to Raum. “I am considering, by the deactivation of the wards, that your father must know I am here, and weighing whether he is bold enough to attack the core were he to come and find me absent. I am concerned, also, that he may corrupt resting souls as is convenient. I may need to distract him."

Aquila strides for the stairway, gesturing Raum along quickly.

“—There weapons you keep anywhere here?" Raum asks to address that angle, understanding that Aquila expects this to come to conflict, as he jogs down the stairs. Aquila leaps down the hole around which the stairway spirals, landing on air two stories below.

“No. Regrettably," replies Aquila as Raum reaches him. “I did not expect our conversation to last so long, else I would have summoned guards beforehand," he continues, “hence the contingency of myself being here…" He turns to look at the passages along the wall of this floor, and advises Raum he will avoid Mason completely by using the route Aquila indicated earlier.

Despite his desire to ask more of what’s going on, being that Aquila wants things to move quickly, Raum accepts this without complaint.

Aquila instructs Raum to, in this sequence: order the head of the guard to send a contingent of troops to a church on the outskirts of the city, escort a second contingent into the crypts, leave them with a feather, and order a formalised cancellation of the heir announcement broadcast. Aquila passes Raum two feathers to facilitate all this.

Aquila will be taking a shorter route, he advises. He may exit before Raum.

So briefed, Raum asks no further questions, and sprints down the tunnel alone.

Raum exits the tunnels to find the city in unrest. He hires a carriageman to transport him to the barracks, and during the trip he sees several unsettling things: guardsmen already in motion, and corpses being ferried on stretchers out of homes. Though not yet at the level of chaos of Indris or Joliet, being that he only catches this sight once every three or four blocks, Raum barely restrains the urge to jump out of the carriage and ask, What happened!?

Instead he urges the carriage faster and soon arrives at the barracks. The commander there is also perplexed, and is still putting together the situation herself, but has reason to suspect the city has suffered a terrorist attack. Raum forwards Aquila’s orders, and with the feather attesting their importance, the commander in turn radios her troops to new stations, while Raum departs with the handful of troops still stationed at the barracks. He meets up with more at the entrance to the tunnel. The military efficiency to it all is stunning.

Raum escorts the troops and leaves without issue. That his inclusion is necessary must mean not even the guards of Ferendaux know the layout of these tunnels.

This time Raum aims for the radio station, and arrives to find the place already in frenzy. When his carriage pulls up, he is immediately accosted by the director, who asks with incredible stress and exasperation if Raum is the palace transport. Raum affirms he will be going to the palace after, which is not quite the answer the director was looking for, but is apparently close enough.

The director leads Raum to the broadcasting room. Blood spatters the walls, and slivers of soul are scattered all across the room like shrapnel from a grenade. Though the bodies are absent, this is plainly the same cause of death as what the majordomo suffered in Indris.

Which, in itself, explains what happened. The director supplements Raum’s assumptions with confirmation that the hosts of this channel were airing their usual segment, then boom, the screaming started and he busts in to see this.

The director shoves a box into Raum’s hands. Raum, uselessly, advises the heir broadcast is cancelled. The director snorts yeah. Now every other broadcast is too. The director sighs, dropping the issue, but Raum feels the accusations on his skin. You said it’d be safe until the day of that announcement.

Raum winces with guilt. The director looks to Raum, then over the room again, and shuffles away.

Getting the hint, Raum sets to boxing the fragments of soul, letting the brainlessness of the work fill his mind with nothing.

Aquila, in one of the palace’s offices, sits across the table. Between him and Raum is an ornate box, its lid off, which is lined with red velvet cushioning. Upon that cushioning is spread the many fine splinters of a soul, fractured by even indirect contact with Phoenix.

The total death toll numbers to 631.

If Raum had been a little smarter, a little more insistent, that’s 631 deaths he could’ve prevented. As he considers this, he can’t help but stare at the floor.

“Your judgement in warning the stations was fundamentally correct," says Aquila. He sits easily in his chair, back straight and fingers lightly knitted, with what seems the coolheadedness of a capable leader in crisis. In reality, it’s just the coolheadedness of a Machiavellian who faces no threat of consequence. “Simply, that they broadcast their intentions to alter their programming was an error." Aquila smiles. “Such is the fear of too abruptly jolting the routines of your customers."

Really letting your hair down around me now, huh, Raum thinks, though the consolations do numb the edge.

Moreover, this means Raum’s read of the situation was correct, Aquila reminds. This death tally could have very well reached the hundreds of thousands. To fixate on the imperfections is to disregard the breadth of his achievement, and the lives he hence has saved. Which may, Aquila notes, include mine.

Raum disputes that, if he had just let the information flow naturally through the official channels, it would’ve reached Aquila, he would’ve figured it out, and he would’ve handled the instatement of the order properly.

Aquila asserts that the official channels are not so efficient that such a minuscule detail as the purchase of a recorder would have reached Aquila’s desk within two days. There is incredible luck and incredible initiative in what you have done, Aquila slides the lid over the box, stands, and smiles to Raum reassuringly.

The message in that smile is clear. ‘Don’t beat yourself up over it.’

Easier said… still, he’s right, fundamentally…

Aquila slides the box off the table and begins making to leave, but pauses to consider Raum again.

“—You may claim a chamber in court tonight, if you wish," Aquila offers.

Huh?

“I shall be here into the night, once I have addressed this," he waves to indicate the city, “business. I wish to be available, and I suspect you may use the relief." Further, Raum’s already committed more than enough service for Aquila today, and ought consider himself off-duty from now. Start resting up for tomorrow.

The concern from Aquila does warm Raum’s chest enough to smile. Aquila departs, handing the box off to an underling waiting in the hallway, and marches on to a balcony stage overlooking the outer palace lawn, upon which many citizens are assembled. Without hesitating a breath, he delves into an address about the tragedy, mourning for the lives lost, condemning the wickedness of the terrorists, boldly affirming that the spirit of Asphodel will not bend to these threats, and ending with a definitive, furious challenge that Phoenix Valens face Aquila directly, instead of using his underlings to torment noncombatants like a knave. Even as Raum crosses the palace to think, echoes of applause for this pronouncement linger in the halls, for straight minutes.

After he closes the heavy door to an empty sideroom, he finally finds some silence.

Two major concerns have stricken Asphodel today. Raum has been debriefed on the status of both.

First is Mason. Though Aquila did encounter him in the tunnels, and managed to lure him away from the crypts for a successful escape, he failed to draw him into the ambush waiting at the church. Rather than pursue Aquila out of the tunnels, Mason simply turned around. Since the guards in the crypt have reported no sign of him, he is either still in the tunnels or has escaped into the city through an alternate exit (there are many and Mason, as the former vice-head of Asphodel’s national intelligence network, and as a friend of Aquila’s who often played in these tunnels, unfortunately knows all of them). In either possibility, Aquila has judged sealing all except the most heavily guarded tunnel entrances — such as the one in the palace — as the best plan. Mason is now either stuck in the tunnels or stuck in the city.

If he’s in the tunnels, the guard unit is ready there to intercept him. Aquila has arranged a supply line to this unit and will keep them there for a week; if Mason is still a no-show, then he will either be dead from dehydration or he will not be in the tunnels, and the wards can be presumed safe for reactivation.

If he’s in the city — frustratingly, were it not for the additional chaos, he would have already been caught. Aquila keeps Ferendaux’s patrol routes close to tunnel entrances for exactly incursions like these. But with people dying all over the city, such patrolmen were naturally called out of their normal stations to respond. So nobody’s seen him.

Now there’s not much to do except keep an ear for him, double down on guards (both for himself and Raum), and start proactive sweeps of his likely hiding places. Probably, more than just emotional support, there’s an element of safety in staying away from the Whitewood Manor for now.

If there’s any question of his aims, by the way, he’s looking to shove a sword in Aquila. That slavery business still has him t’d off. Tee hee.

Though Raum wonders whether going ahead with the party tomorrow, instead of waiting to secure Mason first, is wise, Aquila has affirmed this course as optimal. Aside from the hassle of rescheduling the party, and the hit that would incur on public morale, if Mason is bold enough to target Aquila during such a guarded and public event, well, he is essentially throwing himself into prison. The guards have his description, and Aquila will have traps all over this thing.

When was the last time Aquila’s traps worked? Is all Raum can really say on that.

But the guards here must be capable. He’ll, also, stay vigilant.

So issue two: Reyl. She has, as predicted, broadcast a snippet of Phoenix’s voice over a public radio channel. As with the majordomo, everyone who heard that broadcast died. The grisliness, suddenness, and randomness of it, turning a completely mundane and even joyful aspect of life into a deathtrap, combine to make this tragedy uniquely terrible.

It’s caused considerable damage. But when Raum puts aside his emotions and considers it all rationally, he can’t help but regard it as an extremely weak move.

Sure — the radio stations announcing their shift in schedule tipped her off that someone had seen through her real plan. You could call her firing it off early an adaptation to the circumstances.

But for what?

If the goal was to cause chaos, and force Aquila into addressing her as a serious threat, so that he might be tempted or cornered into forfeiting Raum, she failed. The disruption wasn’t nearly enough. It was, very obviously, never going to be enough.

She only hit one channel. She could have easily hit every channel. She didn’t — so what does that say?
She also hit a crap timeslot. Mid-morning is not the ideal time for radio; breakfast, lunch, and dinner are. Why not wait another two hours?

All she’s really achieved is telegraphing to Raum and Aquila her present state and resources.
Her last known location is now Sebilles — which means she was well enough to travel to Sebilles.
And she’s sufficiently armed that Aquila now knows to take proper countermeasures against her. Beyond just that gauntlet, he can actually deafen himself at will. Now that the possibility of her having some strange, dangerous magic is ruled out, he literally just needs to show up and she loses. In other words, Aquila just needs to ‘offer’ to ‘negotiate’ again, get her in the room, and she loses.

If she’d just done nothing, even if it took another month or season for another good opportunity to come, she would be in a vastly stronger position where ambushing Aquila over the radio might actually work. In fact, give it one more day and Raum would be openly moving into the Cardinal House. But as it is… as it is, Raum can’t help but wonder if she’s just given up.

In only a month? What’s that half-heartedness? Doesn’t sound much like his sister.

But that’s the image that coheres in his mind when he aligns these pieces together. Reyl, seated against the wall in some rundown attic, fires off the recording, then tosses it to the floor and buries her face in her hands. Raum retrieves his portable radio, and stares down at it, steeling himself.

She doesn’t want you enough to keep you. Pushing aside the nausea, his trembling fingers press down on the transmission button.

He missed his opportunity in Deram. But now feels like the right time to ask her, again, to surrender.

The words don’t come as fluently. He wonders if she’s even there, listening. But slowly he dredges out those sentiments he already drafted in those destroyed letters, though not with the same touch of levity. Reyl’s desperate, Raum’s in control, and more than anything, she ought to come home.

He signs off from the transmission, sighs, presses the butt of his palm to his forehead. The only reply from the radio is static. Without even thinking about it, he knows he will send this same message out nightly, and keep this radio on him constantly on the off-chance she will respond.

That, for now, is probably all he can do.

Or is it?

Though he’s an off-duty guest in the palace at present, he judges it unwise to throw himself into court, where everyone will be hungry to mine rumours about today’s disaster, and Aquila’s response, out of Raum’s brain.

And more importantly, thinking about the palace just makes him anxious again about Mason. Like Raum could turn a hallway and bam, the guy knew a route, he’s there.

But wouldn’t that be nice if it happened? If he caught his father alone in a hallway, could Raum not talk this whole situation down?

One hell of a feel-good fantasy, that. Indeed, as Raum wanders the halls and chambers, Mason does not spontaneously pop out of anywhere, nor do any conspicuous ingress points assert themselves. What Raum actually does come across is a servant struggling to reorganise a bookshelf, and, determining this as good a use of time as any, helps her out. When that’s done she advises the gardener may have work too. And when that’s done he advises that the dovemaster may have work too. That Milord Whitewood is doing menial labour disorients particularly everybody, but once he sells it as a curiosity, that uneasiness fades.

The evening comes; purple light falls upon the palace grounds. Raum prepares to leave the dovecote for dinner and bed, says goodbye to the dovemaster, and just a minute or two after the sun disappears completely under the horizon, runs into Aquila, apparently on his own way to the dovecote. The automatic relief Raum feels upon seeing him, that he didn’t get attacked or die in the short time Raum was absent, underscores how anxious he truly is.

Barely a second after observing, ‘he’s safe’, though, the anxiety tightens Raum’s chest again worrying, ‘has something gone wrong? Why’s he here?’.

So what’s up? Come to look at the birds?

Aquila laughs and assures everything’s fine. He’s just taking a break after hours of finangling comms and monotonous deskwork. Though, it’s a little disconcerting that his presence itself has become a signal of trouble.

Raum returns his slightly amused, slightly self-deprecating smile. Well, it’s been hectic.

I almost envy that you may call it that, mutters Aquila, staring distantly over the palace. But he shrugs, dismissing his own comment, and tilts his head with a grin. No, he’s not here to look at the birds. He’s here to invite Raum to games over dinner. He’s tired of work at the moment and keen to just hang out.

Hey, Raum is down for that. What the heck?

Excellent. Aquila smiles and leads Raum back to the palace, chatting about this and that. You’d be surprised how tedious governing can be, when the ramifications of your choices remain distant. Moreover, you’d be surprised how many of the truly important decisions happen outside the board rooms…

They situate themselves in a small room overlooking the chambers of court. From this vantage point, they can watch everything going on downstairs, while remaining unseen themselves. Aquila gestures Raum to settle himself into one of the armchairs around a small table, while he files through an assemblage of games and retrieves a chess board.

A servant takes Raum’s dinner order, while Aquila seats himself in the chair opposite and sets up the board.

Feels like a proper VIP booth, Raum muses, thinking back on his mother’s clubs.

“Naturally," Aquila grins, and offers Raum his preference of white or black. Rooms like these, to take respite from court while eavesdropping on its dealings, are an essential fixture of any royal house. Aquila glances to examine court, but nothing too exciting seems to be going on. He hums lightly, then continues. Decent chunks of money have changed hands in rooms like this as well, since gambling is an accepted vice here.

Really is like his mother’s clubs then. Raum moves out his pawn, then stretches his arms behind his head. Invite some landlord here for a night and sounds like a scheme for keeping down taxes.

Tah hah hah, Aquila laughs. Truthfully, there was one Viscount…

The conversation flows on, through stories, anecdotes, gossip, jokes. Aquila asks Raum about culture shock, Raum asks Aquila about the old kingdoms. Raum divulges his thoughts on humanitarianism, Aquila contemplates the potential of wireless electricity. It dawns on Raum, slowly, that this is the first time he’s ever talked to Aquila without feeling that lens of constant evaluation upon him. What dominates in its place is a sense of liberation, that he’s free to truly talk about anything, and Aquila will probably like it and respond with his own unguarded thoughts.

Aquila’s posture gradually shifts so that he is draped horizontally over the armchair, not looking kingly at all. Actually, this is also the first time Raum has ever heard Aquila enjoy the act of talking just for the sake of talking. Though that observation should thrill him, what spears through Raum’s heart is unease.

He leans forward in his seat, knuckles curled over his mouth, as he stares down at the chessboard.

“Hey, Aquila…" Raum glances up, struggling to phrase it. “Should we really, be, you know."

Raum trails off, circling his hands.

“…If you will call me without a title, you should hope I see no issue to this conversation.“ Aquila picks up the silence. “I did not let even your father get away with that."

“With everything," Raum tries again, “I just… did what I wanted."

Aquila’s eyes half-lid with contemplation. He points to Raum as if calling a bet. “Why do I like you?"

Sorta, it’s more like…

Why me?

Why trust me?

All I really did was return a brooch. Everything else was just… just…

But even with Aquila’s prompting, Raum fails to articulate the thought. Seeing that Raum is contemplating whatever he’s contemplating seriously, Aquila straightens his posture, lightly knits his fingers, and gazes down at the chessboard, before flicking his gaze up.

“You might ask why there is such a phenomenon as falling in love," Aquila muses. “I recognise in you perspectives that I will never have, though I desire their influence near me. Truthfully, if we might take them individually, the specific traits that entice me are not rare." Aquila tilts his head. “To find them in such a combination, however, upon a background with reason to cross mine… that is peculiar.

“I would say, the qualities that shape you are not easy to emulate with flattery," Aquila takes a rook with his pawn. “Perhaps it is simply a matter of being the right person."

Because you’re you.

If this is the kind of honey Aquila can produce, Raum would gladly spend the rest of his life lapping it out of his hand.

Trying to discourage him with anecdotes of fuckups and East Welding sexcapades feels overwhelmingly stupid. Doesn’t he already know?

…But what if Raum went back to that? How can Aquila be so confident…

“Else, I might note," says Aquila, “if you have done all this," Aquila gestures to the palace and beyond with one hand, while the other promotes that pawn to a queen, “in accordance with your desires, then I am doubly secure in my judgement. Continue that, by all means."

all of what ALL OF WHAT lying cheating wheedling running fawning meddling meddling meddling meddling making TROUBLE

AND BUT WHAT IF MY DESIRES ARE TO GET DRUNK AND TAKE FIVE HUNDRED DICKS IN A WEEKE—Raum plants his hands over his eyes, his face underneath burning red. Though not hitching yet, his breathing does grow more than a touch ragged.

“Have I spoken poorly?" asks Aquila.

“No," manages Raum, drawing his hands away. “I—ugh," he cringes, wiping away tears.

He takes a breath, calms himself minutely. Aquila’s gaze on him is a strange mix of intrigued and bored. Raum stares over court, sighs, returns to the chess game in silence.

“I just don’t wanna fuck up," he says.

Aquila tilts his head. “And how might you do that?"

Oh god no does he really have to answer that.

“Truthfully. How might you?" Aquila folds his hands in his lap. “Perhaps we will imagine another man, in your exact circumstances. How might he undermine the successes he has claimed?"

Well. There’s lots of ways.

But after mentally discarding the most outrageous and frivolous, the one that truly concerns Raum is — what if there was someone new.

Someone who would spoil him more. Who would give him more. Who made fewer demands of him. Who spent more time with him. Whose nature was more tender. Who would hold him. Who would adore him. Someone who could provide all of this, even more than the goddamn king.

Does that kind of person exist? Honestly, they don’t even have to. His mind dressed Aquila in finery, and it worked to direct Raum to his side.

What if he dropped Aquila for such a person? Backstabbed him? Betrayed him? Even him, in the end.

But the more he considers these fears, strangely, the more they dissipate.

I love Aquila, Raum thinks with a bizarre kind of certainty. And it’s not that beams of light spear out from his head or a rush of joy shoots through Raum’s chest at the thought. It’s just a fact. I love Aquila. Raum doesn’t even imagine them in bed at this. Hell, Aquila can’t even do anything in bed. It’s such a silly idea he could almost laugh. What swish of sheets? What brushing of skin? But still — I love Aquila.

An immense surge of gratitude wells inside Raum, though he can’t grasp why. He breathes out lightly, a smile rising in his cheeks.

“—Guy might romp downstairs fling his pants ‘round his head and go home with a strapful of fivers."

Aquila pauses, the only hint of reaction being a slight upwards tilt of his chin. But that, paired with his speechlessness, is enough for Raum to deduce that he’s at least a little disgusted.

Raum’s smile quirks bitterly. “It was Ordanz."

Aquila nods, the slight tension in his shoulders releasing, with acceptance. “You fear those habits have become compulsive?"

“Y’know, funniest thing," Raum tilts his head, “I ain’t had a single thought like that in my brain since coming here."

Raum leans back in his chair, a little mystified. Was a change of environment really all it took?

“Guess it’s been less stressful…" he muses.

Aquila falls silent, his eyes widening slowly.

“Euhm?" asks Raum.

“Raum Lethi Whitewood," says Aquila.

Raum straightens in his seat.

“Since your arrival to this country," Aquila begins, “you have been locked in a burning building…"

“Yeah."

“…left in the wilds, subjected to death, housed with assassins…"

“Nnnnyeah."

“…imprisoned without resources, paraded for execution, embroiled in a terrorist attack…"

“Yeah."

“…survived open waters, combated the scourge of Lacren, endured my own, ah, eccentricities…"

“Yeah."

“…suffered temporary madness, and faced terrible news within your family, among other atrocities…"

“Yeah…"

“…this has been less stressful."

Well it hasn’t been a damn cakewalk. But, “…yeah."

Aquila slumps back in his chair, closes his eyes, feathers his brow.

“Iunno, nobody’s been yelling at me so much…" though framed like that in retrospect it is all a little odd, huh…

“Hah," laughs Aquila. “Hah! Haha. Raum."

Raum straightens his back.

“My judgement is firm." Aquila leans forward. As if sharing a terrible secret, he grins with a hiss, “This country will war itself to cinders before such a culture may reign."

Speared with the sharpness of Aquila’s venom, Raum flinches.

Raum hates Ordanz? Right. Like Raum fucking knows what hate is.

Aquila hates Ordanz. Were that country a person, Aquila would slaughter it. And that is a sentiment uniform across Asphodel. Raum chokes. Did his stupid life anecdote just convince Aquila to declare active war?

But as Aquila leans back and smiles, that anxiety melts away.

“How stabilising it can be, to know what you do not wish to become," he observes.

A tenseness pent in Raum’s every muscle releases all at once as a sigh. Like a master of acupuncture going in with his needle, that one observation dislodges a knot that has been lodged in Raum’s body for decades. Its presence now is so normal, that only by its loosening does he even realise it was there.

Alongside a rush of blood and energy comes a rush of heat and tears. For once that heat doesn’t sting. The light and fullness in Raum’s chest feels beyond real, with the tears themselves as airy as a delicate sunshower. He’s cried in delight before, even in relief before. But this is the first time he has cried with the sentiment of: thank god I heard that, thank god I’m here, I’m going to be alright.

He breathes in and out wispily, laughing between light gasps. Ah, man, get it together…

Aquila reclines over his chair again with a smile.

The sun rises.

Attendants button the vest of Raum’s outfit and winch his belt tight. One goes to take his radio — Raum smiles and gestures her down, she bows in deference, and it remains hooked under his coat. He strides out of the changing room, adorned in threads so ostentatious it makes his usual digs look cheap, and is received by Aquila in the hall outside. A ceremonial sword, in an ornate silver scabbard, dangles on his hip.

The two share a smile. Raum pauses a moment to breathe out, breath in, nods, and falls into step beside Aquila.

Though the confidence in Aquila’s smile is reassuring, Raum cannot stop himself from glancing down the halls and through open doorways as they pass.

Is it paranoia to think Mason could spring, sword drawn, from any of them? Are his snap assessments of whether so-and-so servant seems shady or not just a little too much? Given nothing has happened, yeah, probably. Raum tugs his cuffs taut, fiddling.

They come to a stop in the wings of the balcony that Aquila orated upon yesterday. The area is crowded, with guardsmen up top and a lawnful of citizens chattering beneath. In fact, with the immensity of the crowd, not even an inch of the green is visible. A band on the pavilion plays raucously. As Aquila gazes with satisfaction over the turnout, Raum quickly glances to check that none of the suited guards are wielding a blade with the dimensions of Kingslayer. Indeed, none are.

Focus. Chill out.

Aquila nods a signal to an attendant and strides into view on the balcony. The guards blow their trumpets. All the bustling noise flips into absolute silence.

His Majesty speaks!

Aquila sets his hands on the banister, once again scans the crowd, and begins.

“It graces me that many ears may hear this proclamation. Hear, you artisans, you warriors, you frontiersmen and you scholars. You wives and mothers, you teachers and doctors, you servants and men of the guild. My people all, I ask today, to what does our nation strive? I will tell, we strive ever onward to our future, sovereign upon our own principles. Shall we bow to the dracht, or preen in our Maker’s bassinet? No, we shall not! We are the blood of Asphodel, and our souls are whet on rain and war. Where others flee, we tread — and by no power but our own wit, prevail.

“So we strive, that the free and valorous spirit of our kingdoms may never again bend, not to the most wicked or to the most driven of tyrants…"

A servant shuffles in the opposite wing of the balcony. Raum arcs his head up to watch them. Though they look somehow familiar, Raum isn’t sure from where. Discomforted, he asks another servant if they know that guy, and they whisper that they don’t, but also that they may simply work in a different field of the palace. If they’re familiar, it’s probably from seeing them in passing on the grounds.

Right. Well, nobody else seems to mind them.

“…Twenty years ago, the horizon before me was nought but ash. Now it blooms again with towers and rumbles as the tank engines pass. For the length and difficulty of these past decades, even the silhouette of the land around us symbolises our resilience. We have not merely recovered our old peace, but through innovation won a prosperity ever superior! What must this mean? I shall tell: the sun has shifted, and the shadow that our enemy casts falls imminently away from our lands. But has he not grown bolder, these months? No, my people, I shall tell. He has grown merely more desperate and cowardly. As with any panicked beast, what we see are his death keens as our jewel of a nation slips finally from his reach.

“And I shall tell you the fruit of his efforts. The Knight of the Archwitch, scourge of Lacren, Toreas is slain!"

Barely a second after that last word crosses Aquila’s lips, a storm of cheers and hoots rises from the ground below. Full minutes pass with no lull in volume or enthusiasm, upon which Aquila finally gestures for silence. The familiar servant in the wings shuffles off.

“Toreas is slain. Too, the last of his minions are known and extinguished. What remains is only the Archwitch, punished in the ruins of Sebilles. His impotent hands cannot reach outside it. Hence, I deem the time of his terrors now ended—"

Another round of hoots rises, and again Aquila must smile blandly and pause.

“—and our stability as a nation enough assured that we may focus, whole-heartedly, upon the concerns of our present and the pillars of our future."

Raum stares after the servant’s blank space, torn on whether his discomfort warrants sending a guard.

“It is by that ethos that I shall now announce my heir, who, upon my passing or abdication, shall become the one hundred and fiftieth monarch of the United Kingdoms of Asphodel."

—Showtime. Nevermind. Through the stark silence of the crowd, broken only by nervous shuffling, Aquila bows his head.

“My time cannot be infinite. Even without my presence, far in the future that may be, I have assured a continuation of the covenant."

All the shuffling in the crowd settles instantly. Oh.

“I have chosen a man, not of my blood, but of a soul so closely twined that I might call him brother. A valiant heart, honest mind, and humble faith are what mark his aptitude as the greatest servant of this nation — further, you shall know, here is the man whose diligent service has undone our enemies by the root, and whose own blade felled the Knight of the Tyrant. I name this man, who is my heir.

“Earl of Daversham, Duke of Morraine, Duke of Haverford, Baron of Lacreloix…"

Aquila nods to Raum in the wings. Raum takes a quick breath and strides forward on legs that, despite his efforts, quake.

“…Dauphin of Quilonne, Earl of Ullessi, Count of Feser-duqoi-Neman, Duke of Guellicurotte…"

Flecks of plaster sprinkle down to the balcony floor. Something creaks in the walls. Hold on, thinks Raum, eyes snapping wide at the realisation that it’s more than just his legs quaking. Waitwaitwait, Aquila, hold on.

“…Earl of Oronaux," the silver sword shings smoothly out of its scabbard, its raised point glinting in the sun, “and slayer of Toreas of Lacren…"

Raum steps into position just an arm’s length from Aquila. From the corner of his eye, he glimpses unrest over the grounds as people look questioningly between their neighbours, some too transfixed to respond; ‘do you feel that?’. Aquila’s eyes before him, in a perfect counterpoint, flare like a junkie’s.

“…Raum Whitewood!"

BOOM.

An artillery of explosions rattles the palace grounds; shrieks rise from the lawn below. Raum anchors himself on the banister, straining to keep his footing against a quake so massive, he feels himself sliding down the back of waking giant. Holy shit he DID bomb the ceremony, Raum barely can think, blinking through a smokescreen of loose plaster and yellow dust.

Despite that thought, his body yanks him forward to assess the situation below. Who’s hurt? Between the thinning ribbons of dust, Raum glimpses people fallen and people shaken and people screaming, but no victims disembodied by the blast zones. In the lingering mist, Raum’s heart jumps at the hallucination of a figure surging toward Aquila — but it is only an illusion, and another wave of shrieks rises. As Raum’s focus snaps back to the lawn, his throat locks.

A curtain of fire covers the sky from horizon to horizon, casting everything in red. The ground still rumbles with an earthquake, and paired with the crackling of the inferno above, the stench of the smoke, and smothering heat, the world has fallen into hell.

Raum looks to Aquila for a cue. But Aquila is too busy to even acknowledge him, jolting forward to the banister, his jaw set forward, eyes wide in a complex sequence of confusion, shock, betrayal, fury. Raum judges, Wait, holy shit. Actually this doesn’t look planned.

Sweat dribbles across Raum’s body, both from the heat and the nerves. What’s going on, where are these flames coming from, how can Raum help fix this? But just as Raum calls, “What—", a thick column of flame surges down from the sky and crashes into the space between himself and Aquila. Raum flinches back, shielding his face with his hand; the column dissipates like a discarded shot shell, leaving black scorch marks on the ceramic floor.

Aquila is presently a teenager shitting his pants. That’s all Raum can see in the brief moment that their eyes meet, before a roar a rushes down from the sky, casting up vortexes of wind, itself laced in merciless fire, course locked to incinerate Raum from the head down like a fingertip squashing a bug. MOVE MOVE MOVE MOVE, scream his instincts, and dear god does his body listen, tensing—

“Halt!" roars Aquila, lunging forward with a wide swing of his sword.

Raum freezes. Then thinks, I’m dead.

He’s not. As he dares to peek upward, and break the spell of this moment’s stillness, he sees the finger of fire has stopped, only some meters above his head.

Aquila straightens himself, sheathes his sword, smooths his hair, and finally looks up again, focused. He strides to the banister and announces dryly: “I see the blackguard casts his final threat." Then scans the crowd, to confirm none are injured. He glances over to Raum again, checking his safety also, then looks upward to the burning sky and calls, “Does my voice reach even you, locked as you are in your palace of ruins? Mayhap that be another of your god-given punishments, to know the progress of a nation that you shall never again claim."

The fire in the sky crackles, and withdraws a slight like an animal reeling.

“We know your nature. It is betrayed by your very name, Tyrant. You are the wicked king, who strangles the souls of his subjects — but subjects you must have, else over nothing you may call yourself master. May I guess, you delusional relic, that you feel the last of your claims to Asphodel slipping? Are your servants gone, your intrigues extinguished, and even your entitlements of birthright now faded to dust? How perceptive you must be to your future. Lost of your prospects of kingship, even your blind eyes see what God has made you: A little wicker-man, built merely to burn."

The flames creep back, and back, as if frightened of Aquila’s words. Then surge forward, roiling, furious, the pillar above Raum retreating and stabbing down like a knife. Horrified squeals rise from the onlooking crowd—

“Halt! Halt," Aquila again urges.

—but again, it does not crash over him, instead jerking to burn another mark on the floor. Raum slowly straightens himself, breathing through his adrenalin, and sets his hand on his hip, as a ring of flames draws itself around him, licking up to his knees. Aquila seems to have this. Rather, oh god, Aquila better have this.

“I shall examine the rationale of this threat. Allow myself to do so without more interruptions. Very well; the flame does love you as ever. But here is the nature of your curse: all you shall touch, you shall burn, and all you shall meet, you shall kill. Even the dead you once abused shatter themselves before you may leash them. What, then, shall you rule but the ashes of suicides? Why have you not smote me in twenty years, but intervene as you have on this ceremony?

“I find, you must seek a rule, as you have been cornered to, made legitimate by my very mouth!" Aquila laughs. “As ever, what madness! What absence of reason. After the destruction you have wrought on this country, you fancy that I should make you the heir?"

All the fires leap and flicker to blue with an emphatic hunger.

Aquila leans away from the banister, taken aback. A note of caution enters his voice, as though he is watching a scales bob, precariously.

“Shall this be your voice, then, fires cast upon the unlawful?"

The flames recede and crackle dimly, as though the hand directing them stares into a deep pool of water. Then they bloom, licking slowly up to Raum’s torso, and spreading out from his feet like a halo. Every hair on his body tingles, his skin shuddering cold through the heat. Though previously the Tyrant had moved to smite him like thunderbolt, this time he squeezes like a slow fist, inevitable.

Even with that pressure, Raum’s mind locks on the image Aquila has crafted: pillars of fire crashing randomly from the sky, incinerating everything from pickpockets to conspirators to murderers to jaywalkers without any nuance or trial. Not even Ordanz could be so draconian, or so founded in paranoia. What would be innocent? What would set him off?

Oh god, oh no, and after finally securing a place in this country…

“That’s gonna make everyone crazy…" mutters Raum.

“Even you must recognise what you would become," Aquila continues. “If you have hesitated so long to use such means."

The flames dim to orange, but this time do not recede. Beams of gold and soul-white lace the fires, as they snap blue again, and whorl with unmistakable shapes of cities, seas, and continents. The earth shudders, and a roar like a thunderclap peals from the sky, as if declaring: So be it, then! I am a god!

It’s a transfixing show of pure dominance. Not even the lawn can scream or wail — even those natural instincts to signal help realise such things have no purpose in the face of this power, and only serve to draw the attention of a finger that shall slam down upon them. But for the sound of light weeping, every person here might as well be a doll, relevant only as props in the Tyrant’s punitive game.

The flames around Raum smear together, like a rag sweeping over a countertop.

“Hold," says Aquila with jarring calm. “I consult our advisers and return with our judgement. The lord Whitewood numbers among that; release him."

With a relieved promptness, the fire around Raum drops to nothing. Too, the lacings of gold and silver ebb from the sky, and the rumbling of the ground stills silent. Though the flames still cover the world like a ceiling, idly churning and crackling, under the blue glow, there comes some illusion of calm.

Aquila nods to the crowd, jerks his chin for Raum to follow, and strides back into the balcony wings. The instant Raum steps out of the crowd’s view, his knees disintegrate into jelly. Every nerve wants to dribble out of his skin, as he stumbles behind Aquila, covered in sweat and struggling to breathe through his panic.

He’s not the only one with this reaction. The servants they pass huddle together in little pairs or groups, curled in and whispering, while the guards strain with hard grips on their weapons, their postures and expressions kept stable only by a discipline trained up over years. Still, gazes fall on Raum and Aquila unilaterally, all rife with question and expectation: What do we do?

Feeling the fear behind this question, Raum forces his neck straight, breath even, and gait marginally more steady. If people are going to look to him for leadership, his own fear must take a back seat. Maintaining this pretence of strength is difficult, though, as Raum glances forward to Aquila for his own reassurance, and finds only a look of quiet, strained dread.

Aquila instructs a servant to assemble the council and advises he’ll join them shortly. A second servant, at his command, opens the heavy wooden door to a side office.

Aquila and Raum enter. With this moment of privacy, before the door even finishes closing, Raum slackens his shoulders and urges the question: “What do we do?"

Aquila hoists himself to sit on a table, his back to Raum. Blue light from the window plays over his feathers, strobing gently as the flames dance.

The door thooms shut.

Aquila glances over his shoulder, hand over his mouth.

And he laughs, drawing his hand down, revealing a gleeful smile. “I might propose you applaud my pyrotechnics. Ahah. Tahaha, haha, hahakkthhahaha!"

As Aquila descends into a fit of laughter, Raum’s brain twangs like a snapped cord. Aquila, get it together! Is it stress? Are you stressed? There’s a situation going on, and there’s people…!

Aquila only laughs, more mild this time, and composes himself with a vaguely amused, vaguely guilty smile. There is no situation.

The cord in Raum’s brain twangs. What. Nnnn? What?? Water isn’t wet? Feathers aren’t light? Hold on, is 2 + 2 = 5? Wait, no, but…

Seeing Raum’s mind creaking under the dissonance, Aquila’s demeanour falls more serious. He reminds Raum that he had designed a pretext to move him into the Cardinal House. As such, here it is.

The pressure straining Raum’s mind in a tug-of-war loosens a slight. Okay this was a plan by Aquila. Wait but no then how… that. Out the window?

Aquila beckons Raum over and reveals, hidden in a cabinet, the silver gauntlet he had used to bring rain in Joliet. It is stuffed with white feathers, which peek out from its bottom, and floats a few inches off its shelf in defiance of gravity. Only after staring at this image for a full minute does it click that Aquila has taken a few of the extraneous feathers that form his ‘coat’, and shaped them into a hand that may operate the gauntlet, which Aquila has remotely manipulated to summon and puppeteer fires. Half of Raum recoils in squicked disgust that Aquila made a disembodied hand, the other half questions in astonishment if the gauntlet is seriously that powerful.

Aquila says that it’s technically the gemstone inlaid in the gauntlet that carries any power, but yes, it is. Along with the holy blood and the blessed sword Renderdall, it is one of the three divine relics granted to Fidel Asphodel, the founder of Asphodel, in his fateful delve of Nix. Though the rock is less fashionable, it’s equally strong.

That said, there is only so much air Aquila can combust before he starts running out of material, so this better get wrapped up within the next, say, thirty minutes. Which, well, should be plenty of time.

Digesting that, Raum’s brain flips again. But what about all the demands, the people held hostage…

Aquila emphasises again that he has orchestrated all of this situation and everything that has happened in the past fifteen minutes is entirely a production of smooth words and waggling fires out of a glove. There are no demands. It is theatre.

Finally, slowly, Raum starts to comprehend. Aquila’s confessing those emotions he had shown during his ‘talk’ with the ‘Tyrant’ had been false. But of course they were false. If Aquila’s openly emoting in public, that’s false. The logical if bitter observation sobers his mind into clarity, and his perspective shifts into a more accurate one of the present dangers.

Aquila is trying to sell that Phoenix will kill Raum if he is named heir. In essence, he’s holding the position of heir itself hostage.

Extremely close, says Aquila. The Tyrant’s intentions shall specifically be an entitlement to the throne by blood right. He will smite not just any heir that Aquila names, but any lord that tries to take dominion over the ‘Tyrant’s’ lands above himself or Aquila. To prevent the Tyrant from claiming jurisdiction over the country, Aquila will be forced to remain in the seat of monarch for as long as Phoenix lives.

Clever move, Majesty.

But not foolproof, Raum thinks. Couldn’t the Tyrant just kill Aquila and take the country, by that logic?

Technically yes, says Aquila. But it would not be in his character. Aquila has built the Tyrant over many many decades; one of his most pronounced traits is cowardice paired with delusion. He fears a repeat of the circumstances that brought him such ruin, and the loss of his lingering humanity to the more careless position of ‘god’. He cannot simply be this nation’s ruler; he must be known as a just one. Aquila has not done anything so publicly egregious that his assassination would be just, and without Toreas, the Tyrant has no agent through which to bend public perception. Of course, without a path to rulership, he will in desperation choose violence.

Extremely clever.

How does this get Raum in the Cardinal House?

We will concede a diplomatic solution to the present threat and submit you to him as a dignitary, says Aquila.

Wait, wh—

—people will buy that? That’s going to look like Aquila’s submitted to the Tyrant, or if Raum’s still heir that he’s selling the country out to a guy who is going to get mind controlled. The commoners won’t trust him, the nobles will flip…

Indeed. It will appear such. There will be pains, in the short term, says Aquila. But this is a long-term solution, to establish a framework that ought last for centuries. Commoners will calm after a year or two given their quality of life remains stable, while nobles will be penned with the threat of unleashing the Tyrant. The dignitary position shall become a seat of office tied to the heir, and as such Aquila must not leave the throne. Although I do expect the nobility’s games will need some new outlet…

Regardless. Aquila hops down from the table. He best see his advisers now. You are presently undergoing a sanctification that allows you to survive the voice of the Tyrant. Aquila rings a small bell; a servant opens the heavy door. He flashes one last smile to Raum before the mask of suppressed worry and dread falls over his face again. Toodles.

The door shuts. Raum sighs.

Geez!

Now that he’s gone, Raum regrets not bitching the guy out more for giving him a heart attack with that fire show. He gazes out the window, over the lawn of terrified onlookers. Though guilt slashes through him, by consoling himself that indeed nobody is hurt, and nobody is in real danger, Raum tampers his misgivings down.

Though…

Raum withdraws his radio from his jacket. Something is keeping him on edge. Well, it’s around his usual time for ringing Phoenix, and that usually helps him calm down…

What is Aquila going to do if a noble actually tries seceding, for example. Is he seriously going to smite them with fire? And if the position’s tied to the heir, is Aquila saying Raum has to have… kids? Though these are worries he could get lost in for hours, he finds it’s not the one itching at him presently.

Raum traces his thumb over the transmission button, but does not press it. In the contemplative quiet, the servant that was bugging him rises in his mind. Fuck. He forgot to mention it to Aquila. Raum taps the radio under his chin, lowers it, and exits the room. Has anyone seen that guy?

Though Aquila’s speech and the arrival of the Tyrant have distracted others as much as they distracted Raum, people have seen him. Raum orders a guard to track that guy down and bring him over, or to simply throw them in the dungeon if Raum isn’t available. Meanwhile, Raum stations himself outside the advisers’ room, to wait for Aquila to finish up and exit.

He taps his thumb against the side of the radio. Minutes pass and the guard does not return, but with himself in place to supervise Aquila, Raum doesn’t find that all too concerning. It’s probably a good sign that there’s no tumult going on. But then again, the most successful murderers…

Raum crosses his arms and stares at the door. One-one thousand, two-one thousand. The hard edges of the radio press into his palm.

Aquila exits the room and receives Raum with faint surprise. Raum, remembering the ostensible threat of the Tyrant, forces himself not to naturally flash a reassuring smile as he clips in his radio and falls into step beside him. The halls back to the balcony stretch on, spotted with passing servants and armoured guards outside every doorway.

Raum lowers his voice to ask how the meeting went, glancing back at the string of advisers now shuffling nervously out of the room.

Acceptably, Aquila replies, then asks if something’s happened.

There’s just this guy hanging around that’s been bugging him. Already sent a guard after him.

Aquila nods. Their description?

It’s just this very average looking man in his forties, maybe fifties, a little sallow around the eyes, long curly hair, had this beaky raven nose. It’s just, the way he was watching the speech wasn’t engrossed so much as analytic, like a spy in the corner of a tavern, eavesdr…

The faces of similar men flash into his mind from Ecqoi. Raum’s stomach drops.

Simultaneously, the clanking of armoured footsteps peals from the hall behind them. Raum and Aquila turn, and there is that exact curly-haired beaky-nosed manservant, wide-eyed in the grip of a fully-armoured guard. The guard bows lightly to Aquila and Raum, while the servant squeals, “Sires! Dear sires, said by your summons, this sir with great force apprehends me. I fear, I fear, what have I done wrong? I swear it, I am no enemy…"

To the dungeons, orders Aquila. We are occupied.

Again the guardsman bows, and the servant squeaks, “D-d-dungeons!? Sire! Please no, Lord Sire, I cannot go to ther—ack! Do not yank me! I am bruised! The sir bruises me! Owowow, I cannot, I cannot, I do not belong there, sirs mercy, mercy please sirs no, no—auuh!" He wrestles against the guardsman’s hold, pushing, scrambling, putting up quite the resistance and attracting the whole hall’s attention. The guardsman is stronger and will win, but…

As Aquila, shrugging, goes to turn back to his business, Raum stops him halfway and tells the guardsman to take off his helmet.

After the Tyrant’s arrival, whether for comfort or from battle-readiness, many guards do have their visors down like him. All the same.

The guardsman bows low, then reaches fluidly up to his neck, over his shoulder, where there peeks a pommel…

A sharp note of metal sings through the air.

Raum, without thinking, surges forward.

The bow and the slash of the guardsman’s black, unsheathed blade blend together into one swift motion. Guards posted around the hall rush forward—but their starting line is simply a few steps too distant. Aquila flinches in shock, pivots to face the blade, and swoops backwards like a kite in a gale—but for his unearthly speed, the arc of the blade during his retreat is just long enough to clip his chest.

Had Raum not interceded, and caught the blow instead, that would have been the end of the King of Asphodel.

Shouts ring through the hall—the servant breaks free—Raum can focus on none of it. His mind tunnel visions as he tackles the guardsman, and though the blade skims between his ribs, the agony of it fails to break though the euphoric blaze of adrenalin. Raum and the guardsman topple to the floor. In the tangle of metal and limbs, another slash nicks along Raum’s stomach.

Raum, arched over the guardsman, flips up the visor.

Revealed is the furious red face of the man he met in Deram, who had back then been Aquila’s confidant. It confirms this is Mason Whitewood, Raum’s capable if roguish father.

Why do we have to do this?

We can work something out, just…

Caught for even a moment in these thoughts, Raum’s muscles slacken just enough and focus breaks just enough that Mason can kick Raum back onto his heels and flick himself onto his feet. Raum, panting, sweating, struggles to think. He grapples on to Mason’s legs, buries his head in his crotch, in what is really more of a hug.

He might be an asshole, but Raum really does owe a lot to this man. It’s nice to see him again…

A force yanks Raum onto his feet, shoves him away, he stumbles a couple steps backwards. Before he can gather himself, an impact as strong and abrupt as a hammered nail spears through Raum’s midsection, his insides shlucking wetly as the tip of the sword punctures out of Raum’s back.

His mouth tries to scream, but his strained throat only squeaks. Heedless of his body’s complaints, and too tunnel visioned to recognise how severely he’s injured, Raum snatches Mason’s wrists to keep him pinned until someone else can properly restrain him. Mason eases the blade down and forward. The force guides Raum to lie on the floor, still impaled.

Though adrenaline still fogs the pain, Raum’s mind hazes as if smothered in opium. All the sights before him are blurring. Gravity weighs down his raised arms like barbells. But as long as he keeps this hold on Mason’s wrists, everything is okay. Even as his cheek grows wet with blood, that’s okay. Even as the taste of iron wells in his throat, that’s okay. He still has those wrists. Everything’s okay.

Mason kneels down. One hand shakes off the hold — but Raum still has the other, it’s okay. That free hand then rifles through Raum’s clothes, checks through his pockets, splays open his coat, yanks his waistcoat to rip away its buttons… all the while, Mason’s gaze stays locked at something at the end of the hallway. Where Aquila went.

A froth of blood leaks from Raum’s mouth, bubbles rattle in his nose. It’s getting harder to breathe.

He’s looking for one of Aquila’s feathers, Raum dully realises as a hand sweeps down his chest. That’s what he’s checking for.

Raum’s hands slump to the floor, too weak for anything else. The corner of the radio digs into the butt of his palm. Raum doesn’t have a feather. Mason isn’t going to find one. Still, seeing the intensity of Mason’s stare down the hallway—not fearful, not desperate, just irritated, just methodical—a sober zen falls over Raum’s mind.

It’ll always be like this. He doesn’t care what he could gain or lose.

Raum weakly grasps the radio, and as if lifting an iron statue, brings it to Mason’s mouth.

His thumb hovers uselessly over the transmission button. Even as he is dying, Raum cannot bring himself to knowingly kill a human being. Everything in him screams, no! His body, of all things, heats with tears.

Mason notices Raum’s raised arm, goes to grab the radio.

Your call, Phoenix, Raum decides. Whether you let these reach you.

Raum cannot, as Mason’s hand closes roughly around his, tell whether it is his own thumb, or Mason’s palm, that clicks down on the button.

A snippet of Mason’s breathing transmits across the airwaves. Despite claiming radios too dangerous for him to approach, and ostensibly never checking in on Raum’s transmissions, in truth, Phoenix is listening. As with the majordomo, and as with some six-hundred civilians yesterday, Mason screams as he contorts himself inside the armour, snapping his own limbs, and his soul bursts out of his body in splinters. His corpse slumps aside.

Raum’s moment of mental clarity, that had brought him to raise the radio, fogs over now that it is done. Voices blend together, shouts echo, lights flash, shapes move, blurry mounds drag him and scuffle. A swath of red is painted down the opulent hallway. Calls for medics thunder through the air, a fountain of blood spurts upwards as Kingslayer is removed from his stomach.

The image that rises in Raum’s mind is that of Reyl, in Desiree’s hideout, puddled in her own blood.

From some faraway dimension, a familiar voice echoes: “…Raum Whitewood, heir to the Throne Efflorescent, and envoy to the Archon, Phoenix Valens."

Hearing those words, Raum blacks out.

Raum jolts as if defibrillated. A man in bloodstained scrubs draws away from him, a foul-smelling capsule in his hand, and calls, “he is back."

The sharp odour of the capsule, which the doctor closes, stabilises Raum enough to make some observations. He is laying on the floor of a lounge in the palace, not far from where Mason’s surprise attack took place. The light coming in from the windows is no longer blue with fire, and instead has the subtle quality of noon. Some time has passed since Raum fainted.

In that time, Raum has undergone surgery. He traces a trail of stitches across his stomach and chest, aghast, as he slowly pieces the situation together. The onlooking surgeon gently tells him to lay still and confirms what’s happened. He has suffered an extremely serious injury, and needs to focus on recovery for at least the next month. For now, that just means lying still — too much movement could easily rupture the sutures keeping his organs together…

The doctor’s advisories blurble into mush as the rush of the smelling salts fades. He sits up, distressing the doctor, and puts his hand to his forehead. A sheen of sweat cakes his fingers near immediately, his clothes stick clammily to his back, a rush of snails draw tracks down his arms. The back of his throat convulses, and his vision blurs. He needs to puke.

Nothing comes up when he retches, so nothing eases the nausea. His head throbs, his skin burns, even his blood burns as if pumping not life but venom. He retches again. Something is very wrong.

The doctor, observing his fever, notes that he may have caught ill during the operation. This looks quite aggressive. But, the palace does have remedies from the north for that. The doctor turns to speak to someone else, across the room. A regimen of cleansers, a week of bed rest, and another three weeks of dedicated recovery. Then we can begin to consider whether he’s out of the woods.

Aquila puts aside his book, rises from his chair, and comes over.

A flush of pleasant warmth blazes across Raum’s cheeks, momentarily driving the fever out. Man, Raum thinks, he’s hot.

But once he registers the vaguely quizzical, but altogether serious look on Aquila’s face, that momentary infatuation snaps away. He cringes as he wipes his palm over the cheek. Not the time.

“I shall hope it is only fever," Aquila quietly tells the doctor while squinting at Raum appraisingly, then smiles and begins a light back and forth to gauge Raum’s responsiveness.

Finding himself able to follow conversation, despite the dizzying nausea, Raum groggily asks what happened.

Aquila quickly explains that the attackers have been subdued and diplomacy with the Tyrant has concluded in line with Aquila’s expectations. Things are broadly settled for now. That said, Raum was right to suspect that servant. Preliminary questioning has found him affiliated to old, long-disbanded assassin groups, and it was likely with his aid that the terrorist from yesterday managed to infiltrate the castle. Similarly, the guard Raum had sent to apprehend this man was found stripped of his clothes and bound in a closet. The motives behind this duo warrant further investigation, but given they appear to be lone wolf attacks rather than parts of a syndicate, for now that is not important.

‘The terrorist from yesterday’. Aquila might skim over that topic, but Raum’s mind catches on it firmly. Mason, by Raum’s own hands, his own father… a dark shudder rises inside him, coursing through his skin, heavy with so much guilt he could bawl.

—Rather, I wished to confirm something with you, interrupts Aquila. Raum takes the distraction gratefully.

Aquila asks how Raum is feeling.

Like shit. Like all the fluids inside his body are pus, crap that he needs to puke out. Like his head is filling with tar, and his sweat is tar, his body is tar. Everything just feels sick.

Is there much pain? Aquila asks.

His stomach hurts when he moves, but otherwise nothing’s burning. Kind of tingly, just everywhere, though.

Does anywhere feel notably strange, or peculiar?

No… just—another wave of oppressive nausea pumps out from Raum’s core, squeezing out from his chest to his arm a glop of cold semen. Screaming, Raum bashes his arm over his knee, claws at the skin, desperate to puncture the sac of rapecum and drain it all onto the floor. The doctor quickly restrains his hand and pins him to sit still. Raum holds the afflicted arm as far away as he can, sobbing, as another pulse finishes like a deflating cock and another run of milky filth shoots into his arm.

The sac sags in his flesh like an ill-fitted implant. A consciousness then strikes him, as he yells, that the inside of his mouth is vacuous. A dryness scrapes from his throat to his tongue, insisting, thirsting, why have these cavities not been packed full…

The filth in his arm settles, no longer bulging uncomfortably, into his flesh like a stain. The accompanying nausea subsides momentarily, but that still isn’t any great comfort. While the rest of his body tingles, as if in the field of a lightning strike, only that one stained patched in his arm feels stable, settled, and normal, though its edges burn against the rest of his flesh. The doctor runs his thumb over the area. It produces a pleasant tingle, like a gentle scratch or a rub of the roots of the hair, which Raum tries to focus on instead of everything else.

The doctor presents Raum’s arm to Aquila, pulling back the skin. A patch of small white barbs peek out from his underarm, just barely revealed.

As Raum squirms, Aquila appraises them. “Pinfeathers."

The doctor releases Raum’s arm. Raum scrapes his tongue across the roof of his mouth, swallows just to fill his throat with something, retches, sweats, and as if it will uproot the whole rotten patch, goes to pluck out the barbs.

Aquila raises his hand and tells him not to. That will only hurt him.

Raum itches at the barbs, letting himself take the comfort through his shuddering, squinting miserably.

This will be difficult to hear, but it is important that you stay calm, Aquila begins. I am able to diagnose your state.

Raum exhales out his nose. Keeping his mouth only half-open feels weird.

Raum has taken a hit from Kingslayer, which has the property of confounding magic. One of the ways it may do so is by reversing the conceptual polarity of a magical effect. Further, the blood of house Asphodel, which purifies souls of rot, is susceptible to Kingslayer’s effects.

What has happened is, the polarity of the purification Phoenix performed on Raum’s soul several months ago has been reversed. Since Asphodelean blood is not a transient effect, but an enchantment that holds upon a soul permanently, now that the polarity of that enchantment has been reversed, Raum’s soul is not simply susceptible to rot, or rotting as it naturally would have upon his death prior, but actively and aggressively being corrupted by deviant Aspodelean blood.

In short, Raum is currently, and quickly, transforming into a ghoul.

Though Raum recoils, he questions: …what does that mean? Ghouls aren’t common in Ordanz the way they are here. What does it mean to ‘transform into a ghoul’? Raum goes to ask, but flinches upon opening his mouth, and rubs his throat, swallowing.

The end result of this process, Aquila says, seeing Raum’s confusion, is that he will lose his faculty of conscious thought and degenerate into a quite literally inhuman monster of some supernaturally malevolent stripe. Though not a compassionate term to use, he is vaguely fortunate that his transformation has manifested by priming his body for the changes first, thereby reducing the pain substantially, and extremely fortunate that the process seems to be slanting more physical than mental for now.

Aquila cards his fingers through his hair, presses his palm to his forehead.

To state it bluntly, Aquila continues, you are already lost.

As comprehension of his situation finally clicks, the dread properly sweeps in. Raum’s hand trembles on his throat, his cheeks and gut strain taut. What Aquila’s saying is—but this can’t be right, there are things Raum needs to do. What about everything? Their plans?

And how is Aquila so goddamn calm? Granted, it’s the only thing keeping Raum from panicking himself, but…

“Wh-wha," Raum manages, not so much restricted by his strained throat as simply clueless what to say.

There is a cure, says Aquila, flicking back a lock of hair.

The surgeon goggles at Aquila as if he just confessed to the existence of Nessie. Ignoring him, Raum’s shoulders relax an inch.

Aquila flicks out his hand to barter. How well can Raum stand?

As the surgeon carefully (and reluctantly) helps inch him up, the answer is, ‘painfully, but able’. But, why…?

Aquila nods, thumb to his chin.

And he says, “You must run."

Sweat slices across Raum’s skin as he sprints through the tunnels.

The knives stabbing through his stomach, the sickness choking at his limbs, the fog throbbing through his head, the iron welling in his lungs — every part of his body screams that he shouldn’t be doing this. Sand weighs his every cell down. And though his footfalls peal on and on, the end of this hallway looks no closer than it did half a mile ago.

Exhausted, Raum’s pace slows. He pauses to retch, spits up blood, cradles his stomach. Panting, he sets his throbbing forehead on the cool, stone wall.

He started this marathon at noon. It is spring, so it is approximately in eight hours from then that the sun will set.

Given the speed of the transformation so far, Raum thinks as he runs his claws through the blanket of black feathers covering his arm, Aquila was right to call that his hard deadline. If anything, the changes have been acceller—

Raum squeals as another lash of frigid cum whips itself across his shoulders. His muscles underneath writhe, swell, tighten, squirm, like a single swipe of a chisel, pulling that one line of his body into a subtly different shape. As his shoulderblades grind lower, he pushes himself off the wall and again refocuses on nothing but running.

—The cure Aquila mentioned is not in Ferendaux, or anywhere else from where it could be delivered. It is in the treasure vault of the Cardinal House in Sebilles.

Nobody but Raum can go there in daytime. But even if an envoy went in faster than the injured Raum, and evaded Phoenix to reach the vault, it wouldn’t matter. The vault is locked with wards, the combination to which Phoenix changes regularly. Not even Aquila can crack it.

Raum must reach Sebilles, find Phoenix, and get him to retrieve this holy panacea from the vault.

He turns the corner of the hallway. The glow of red light from the crypt wards falls upon him, and the jump of distance as he passes through, teleporting to the other side, dizzies him with momentary relief. But truly, only momentary. He can only make this trip in this timeframe at all because teleporting through the ward cuts out so much travel. In terms of miles he must actually run, he is still only barely halfway.

Raum grits his teeth and takes a breath. His jackhammer heart begs for rest. The feathers down his arm flare out, and fold in, in time with the hot and cold flashes of his panting, where gelid sweat glaciates and burns against the swelter of blood-rich skin. He can not stop. Must not stop.

A pressure in his gut tugs at him on his first stride. Hey bub, say the stitches. Hold up.

Raum presses his palm over his stomach, hisses as he bites his lip. Reluctantly, he lowers his pace to a fast walk, then slowly accelerates and relaxes in a hunt for a jogging pace that won’t rip his stomach. Feeling he has found it, with only a minor strain, he proceeds.

He has called Phoenix in advance to prepare him for the visit. If Raum is lucky, he may arrive to find Phoenix waiting in the courtyard with the panacea in-hand, but if Raum is unlucky, his interest in something so valuable might have rankled Phoenix’s paranoia around thieves. Perhaps the most hopeful thing to wish for is—

Like a punctured bellows, Raum’s abdomen collapses.

Agony as intense as a white-hot knife drops Raum to the stone floor. Though his palms and knees cushion the fall, their support crumples like sticks of paper. Fallen on his side, with wetness spreading around his middle, Raum vomits up thick, bloody chunks. Even the strange thirst that has been haranguing his throat, with its needy demands to suck and to swallow, panics with the knowledge that oh no oh no ohnoohnoohnoohno this is wrong wrong wrong wrong WRONG.

With the dim orange glow of the neon strip shadowed behind his back, Raum reaches down to his stomach to assess the damage, pulls back his bandages. His fingers catch the lip of open, flayed skin and trace laggardly down its length. For every inch he finds, the goosebumps down his neck prickle higher. But what truly freezes him is his discovery at the end of the slit: tubes of intestine, half-seeped out of his belly. Carefully, he scoops the mush back in.

One rope of guts lays out, a little more distant than the rest. Raum goes to sweep this strand inside also, but the labour of extending his arm so far is more than he can manage. He reels it in inch by inch, dimly mindful not to shred the slippery flesh on his nails.

He pats his organs steady. Spatters of arterial graffiti cover the wall in the half-light.

A thread, he thinks, picking at the corner of his jacket. He needs to sew it up… put back the bandages…

Patch job he’s done plenty of times, in the Thorns…

A thread…

…he just needs…

…

Wet heat prickles around his eyes. His fingers, slumped on the ground, pinch air.

…

h-he, can’t… reach…

jayden, help

i don’t wanna—

Like the first sign of a tsunami, the surface of Raum’s soul ripples. As the wall’s rorschach twists and blurs in Raum’s fading vision, a seismic tremor in the root of his heart casts out waves, like a spastic up and down on the theramin, that his cells shudder with in time. Before blackness closes on the world completely, and before the strange vibration can even register, the quake hits, and the geyser blows.

Absolute pain wrenches Raum’s consciousness out of the dying murk. His torso clenches inward, outward, his limbs spread, arch in, flail, dip, alongside his screaming as his convulsing muscles yank and pose him like an articulated doll. His head and arms go to the floor; his ass rises into the air. The lips of his mutilated stomach pucker together and knit decisively into a plane of smooth, lean flesh, as though never injured at all.

Desperate times, desperate measures, or so his body has decided. To survive means to push the transformation forward. Of course, it doesn’t stop there.

Like a sculptor fine-tuning his work, or a whore fitting herself into garters, Raum’s thighs tighten, his stomach flattens, his hips slim, his torso rebalances for just that right subtle mix of slight fat and lean muscle. Feathers strain out of his other arm, down his shoulders, out his coccyx, the last of those pinned uncomfortably under his pants as they try to flap up, flap down, fan out. Organs shift. Bones crackle, growing lighter. His feet scrape at the floor as if to run, but the motion changes into kicking off his shoes as talons burst and shred through them.

Raum’s throat and stomach weigh as if forced to chug tubfuls of semen. One of his new stomach muscles pulls a stitch as he retches, violated beyond violated. Cut him open and every muscle, vein, or organ would be frosted with thick, dripping bukkake. But that’s wrong. The profanity isn’t in him; it is him.

He remembers many pairs of broad hands pawing at his waist and rear. Even now his ass remains raised as if hoisted up by these ghosts, and though the sensation of fingers plays on his skin, no force is holding him there, since his muscles are no longer locked. It is simply that, when this body is totally relaxed, this is the kind of position it defaults to. He is actually slumped, right now.

When he tries to move himself down, he finds he can only either roll his hips backward to dredge his imaginary punters deeper inside, or rut forward in accordance with the itching of the fingernails working up his perineum.

“Stop it!" Raum shrieks like a child between whacks. “Don’t! Stop it!"

But the voice that echoes back off the tunnel walls laughs, with cruelly refined satire, staaahp it, don’t staaahp it.

The molesting phantoms fade off his skin and dissolve into his hips. Now when Raum tries to lower his rear in a normal, unsuggestive line, his body answers with shrieks of dysphoria. Instantly, he flinches back up. The compromise he finds is to swoop his hips down and aside, hoisting one leg up to his stomach, the other smoothly extended to frame his crotch.

Minor tweaks of muscle definition and feather alignment continue like tiny aftershocks, each its own rope of cum. Raum sobs into his forearms. As the tingling and vibrations slowly settle, so does the comprehension that much of his body has accepted this new constitution. There is a fifty-fifty shot now, when he regards any inch of his body, of whether it will still feel like burbling tar, incomplete, or just normal.

A thick sheen of sweat glues his shirt to his back as lays there, heaving each breath. The physical exertion of this change has wiped him out even worse than the running. He fishes his tailfeathers out of his pants and pillows his head upon his crossed wings, preening their feathers smooth between his fingers. What he should do is rest and rebuild his energy, so that when this refractory period ends, he’ll be ready to help the next set of changes along.

The sensation of incompletion is honestly more frustrating than any other aspect of this situation, currently. He has a semi and is thinking of jacking it. He already can’t be clean anymore.

Because, when he considers that changing will mean more cumshots, more rapes, that he’ll hate it, and that it’ll feel horrible, the part of him that this excites isn’t the ghoul, which regards such things with an innocent ‘hm? what’s so exciting there?’ disconcern, but him. The human part. The ‘good’ part.

He might actually be more filthy than the ghoul, which is nothing but filth.

That is the kind of thought that makes him want to drown in the bottle. That is how his idiot soul has contorted in some discordant pretence of managing this pain.

In complete honesty, most of Raum’s actions have, in major part, been to escape this pain. That is not to say things like believing in hope, pledging himself to Aquila, or wanting better for Phoenix were fake or ever pretexts, but he would admit a calculated underbelly in that the more time he could spend focused on others, and away from the cruel ethics that had personally injured him, the less time he would have to spend thinking about being in pain.

The ghoul doesn’t feel that pain at all. The only sense Raum gets from it is one of easy peace, curiosity for life, and a slight anticipation to be finished and born, which Raum finds himself sharing too.

Raum flips himself over, tests his legs and hips to let them move how they naturally want, analysing.

His heart screams with horrified disgust, no, no, no, no. His brain observes, cooly, holy crap. Mom couldn’t even do that.

This thing he is turning into might just be his true self, refined into its most powerful form.

No, no, no, no! That isn’t true! It’s disgusting! His heart continues its tantrum. Raum rolls his teary eyes. What is he so goddamn scared of? For all his crying, he likes this. Further, this is, for once, a realistic solution to the problems he has always faced. And it’s like Reyl said. This thing is way more sincere than you. It is way more pure than you. This is the strangler, you are the pillow. Hey, aren’t you tired anyway?

Stop being mean to me! I’m good. Aquila—

At that word, a wad of sun pulses through Raum’s chest, his eyes squint in pleasure, and he thinks one thing: Delicious.

His tongue feathers over his lips. Stunned by this response, Raum reels in silence. Ideas of returning to Ferendaux and seducing Aquila down into a husk flit through the back of his mind, but he quickly advises himself that Aquila will be guarded and this isn’t smart. After barely a moment of consideration, an instinctive kind of agreement comes beneath his mind. Yeah, better not. I’ll find someone else. But wow, wowowowowow. Wowwww.

Glad that’s settled, Raum thinks, as the tent in his pants deflates. No interest at all once the meal’s off the table, huh? Raum lifts up a wing, spreads out the feathers, folds them back in so the primaries hug his arm underneath. Can these things actually fly? They’re sure pretty.

Raum lets the wing slump back to the floor, swishes himself onto his knees.

He’s bored. How long until the changes start up again?

What should he do for now? Nap? Jack off? Well on count one he wants to be conscious while it happens, and on count two he’s weirdly not in the mood…

Aquila’s going to be disappointed, neeners Raum’s heart, returning.

If that’s the only argument I can make, that proves I really do have no self-interest, because I am a whore, Raum thinks, as he eases himself onto his feet. Step by step, he marches down the hall on awkward new footing, laughing.

DUHHH! COWARD! HYPOCRITE! YOU ARE SO DUMB. YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITHOUT ME! YOU JUST DIE!

I don’t need to do anything except get so strong nothing can hurt me.

Loser, Raum snorts, accelerating. Counterbalancing his exhaustion, this body is much lighter and quicker than before.

—Heads up, Cleopatra, you are shaking your ass like a master.

Raum’s stride falters, ashamed. But if he just walks, he won’t be quick enough… he needs to run, or he won’t make it…

Despite that knowledge, he does pause again. Every time he thinks about what his body is doing, the disgust is too great to continue. He wants to just scream. He wants to just bawl. Antidote or not, he already is this, why bother. If he’s going to keep stop-starting like this, then he’s not going to make it either.

Raum takes a breath, steps forward again.

Phoenix will come.

Mm, pardon?

Phoenix will come. He heard Raum’s call, got the panacea, and is coming through the tunnels to deliver it personally. However far Raum runs to, in the end, that is where Phoenix will be. He just needs to keep running until he reaches Phoenix. That is all he needs to do.

Oh please come the fuck on. But for how stupid and optimistic of a fantasy this is, it does work to kick Raum back into motion.

And is Phoenix going to fix everything else for you, too? He’s gonna make it so Ma never touched you? So you never fucked those some-hundred nobodies?

One, two, one, two, doesn’t matter. Phoenix will be there.

You want him to see you waggle your nethers around? Like you are now? Traumatise the kid?

One two one two one two one two…

You look like a monster. He’d just put you down.

…one two one two one two one two…

Goddamn it, he won’t even be there!

…one two one two one two one two one,two one,two one,two one,two one,two one,two one,two one,two one,two!

Suit yourself, idiot.

Phoenix will be there.

Time blurs into nothing under that steady mantra of ‘one-two, one-two’. Nothing matters, or even exists, except reaching the end of the present hallway, since, however empty it may look or how far it may be, Phoenix is always right there just out of sight in the next corridor.

In this way, despite his body’s protests, Raum keeps running for hours. His objective progress is also not something he lets himself consider. Such, through unchanging miles and miles of stone, the uniformity of which would break any heart quickly, Raum goes much further than he initially thought himself able.

Along the course of this marathon, the transformation does resume. As it initially had been, the process is gradual enough that Raum is able to, again, not let himself consider it. Still, he cannot help but notice, subconsciously, that the tingling tar sensation has faded, so his new body is done, that his movements of his upper body have shifted to smooth licentiousness too, that even his fatigued panting sounds coital, that a honeyed odour wafts about him, that his saliva is sweeter and thicker, that his innards hunger for only one vital nutrient, that the sole diet he can subsist on now is the energy emitted by a human being during sex…

And that to that end, he’d fuck his victims dry, same way as finishing a milkshake.

If Raum were to regard himself now, he’d see a mix between a harpy and Adonis. His thighs to his head are human, and indeed look like himself, if he had pursued a life of body-sculpting to throw aside the jokes and actually make it as the world’s top model. The rest is avian, winged, clawed, feathered, decorated with a filigree of wandering thorns and red petals.

And if Raum were to think, he would know his time is narrowing. With physical and physiological changes squared away, the only dimension left is the psychological. The fading of his ego will dissolve the determination keeping him on this march, not to say his investment in being cured, or ability to conceive what ‘cure’ means at all. The things he will begin to care about or notice will not be things that humans do, but animals. Habitat. Competitors. Prey. Danger. Vulnerable? Fight this? Run? Ah, warm… For how base and horrifying it is, there are more than just passing prospects of comfort in this simplicity.

The part of Raum that can accept the pain of refusing that comfort is shrinking thinner and thinner. It is like a single sliver of thread in darkness, this one-two one-two mantra, and should he look away from it for even a second, poof. He will not find it again. Or want to. It’s okay, it’s over… the ghoul’s innocent happiness wins.

One-two, one-two.

The smell of char crosses Raum’s nose. It catches his attention enough that he registers more of what he’s thinking than the mantra. His feathers are puffed up, his skin tingles with an instinctive warning, danger, danger. There is something truly massive living here the ghoul does not want to tango with. Could die. Scary. Let’s go some other route… or be very, very careful…

Raum freezes, stunned, as the implication clicks.

These are the tunnels right before the courtyard. He has made it to the Cardinal House.

He actually made it. Raum lets his tired body relax; it gratefully rolls back his shoulders, spreads his legs, and swings aside his hips. After everything, it’s this stupid motion that cracks his will like an ice-pick. God, god, god, god, he hates this, he hates this, he hates this, but he can’t deny it’s as cozy to stand like this as to lie curled up on a sofa… what’s wrong? What’s wrong?

No thinking allowed. One-two. Remember that. Don’t stop here.

Phoenix is actually at the end of the next hall, this time. Just focus on that image. Keep going. Phoenix will be there.

Raum sashays one step forward, two, letting the memory of Phoenix in his living quarters, staring down the hall, waiting for him, blank his mind.

Daylight creeps into the corridor, over Raum’s feet. He turns the corner.

Through the blinding well of light, a shadow shifts. Raum pauses.

Someone really is here, at the end of the corridor.

But it’s not Phoenix, he realises. The petite silhouette unslouches, as it sits on the stairway, to peer into the darkness. Even as his eyes adjust, and the details of scars and tats and her dainty wrists and sharp jaw and slender neck and single keen eye resolve out the shadow, he needs none of these to know who it is. By the little motion of that unslouch alone, he recognises her completely.

It’s Reyl.

YOU’RE OKAY!! Raum wants to cheer. A lightness fills his chest like a parade of colourful balloons into summer. Every moment of uncertainty, stress, pain, apprehension, and fear he has suffered in the past month feels to dissolve instantly, like he has woken from a perturbing dream to find himself back in his room, and finally, back home.

Not a second later that joy is smothered by anxiety. This was not just some cute little hijink he got himself into this time. He really, really fucked her over these months with this stunt of traipsing around with the Majesty. She must be utterly pissed still… ‘stunt’, no, it wasn’t a stunt, but he’s already preempting what she’s going to call it, and bracing to mediate the imminent argument before it turns into a beatdown. He’s going to try and defuse her again. Oh god, please once again give him the will to still tell her ‘no’.

Then, slightly delayed, comes a terror. Raum’s eyes widen. Nevermind worries of falling back into her pace, because if this stupid fucking whore body dares to want Reyl, to spread itself to Reyl—

—it doesn’t. His feathers tense in preparation to fight, like a cat stooping before a rival. She certainly isn’t something he can play with, take, or ignore. She’s rather something he must beat back immediately, bully out of his space, flee from, and sometimes lose to. Of anything the ghoul has felt, this seething aversion, apprehension, and surety is as yet the most vital and the most significant. This is his opposite, but also his compliment, against which his own colours shine brighter. He needs to challenge it ruthlessly. He needs to let it be. In its own fucked up way, it seems even the ghoul recognises that yes, this is its sister.

Though perverted into sludge, her fundamental importance to him is heartening to see. Again a temptation to just defer to the ghoul, and its inhumanly twisted but sure understanding of Raum’s heart, flits through his brain. But no, no, no. Goddamn it, revolting, stop it, please stop it, no. A horrible relationship of eternal antagonism and bickering and opposition isn’t what he wants with Reyl. He doesn’t want to fight her. He doesn’t.

Raum forces his brain blank, sighs, flattens up his wings and tail, and smiles as he lets those initial emotions take over again. Man. He’s tearing up a bit. It is so good to see her.

Finally, he has balanced himself enough to actually consider her, beyond gut reactions.

She is sitting on the steps, not too far away, that lead out of the tunnels. Her expression is a little hard to read — generally, not a good sign — but between her wide eye and and taut shoulders, seems predominantly a mix of shock at seeing Raum’s state and cold judgement that he got himself in this predicament at all. She looks a bit ragged from months of rough living, but not supernaturally deformed or disabled. Her hand, rested on her knee, holds her radio as well as a knife.

She slumps back into her slouch, snorts. “Fuck has you gotten into now. Looking like Ma gave you dance classes."

Despite how he wants to protest, and despite how the aptness of that comparison stings, he laughs. He missed this. God damn it Jay.

Before he can find a reply, she cracks a sardonic grin and points. “Dead, ain’tchya?"

“Got—" Raum flinches at his own voice, which has lost its human tenor, and sounds closer to a friendly parrot mimicking a recording of Raum Whitewood. “Got betting pools going how long I can limbo, but some asshole keeps lowering the bar. Fuck, Jay." He leans into his body’s motions, letting himself roll out his chest, primp out his ass. He flicks his primaries down and back up in a booty tease before drawing his wings up like the fans of a flamenco dancer. Holds the pose. “Ain’t it mean?"

Though meant to make light of the situation, Reyl coldly and automatically analyses these movements for their market value, which settles quickly into respect. She glances away and flicks her nose with her thumb. “Says there’s the world telling you where you’re worth."

Raum smiles over the spear of pain. But that is, essentially, what he had been thinking too.

“Hey, catching-up stands a third-quarter jubilee," Raum loosens himself out of that pose. “But I got an appointment ticking upstairs with the kid."

“Yeah? He gotta pluck a big chicken?" Raum nods. Frowning, she rests her chin in her palm. “Sounds to me you’re better off missing it," then taps the knife and radio against her knee.

Really. God damn it, Jay.

Once again his feathers prickle with that wary, targeted anger. That callous dismissal of his fading humanity only validates the ghoul’s attitude towards her. Or maybe there is another way he should approach this conversation. Maybe he ought think of himself less, sympathise with her more. But the foundational sentiment required to pursue that approach is slowly crumbling, like grit shedding off of a cliff.

Raum sighs hard, but the undercurrent of his tone stays a hiss, “bringing show knives to waste my time? Figures nah, so why piss the details?" A vague hope flickers through his mind. “Is Phoenix making you…?"

She smirks and winces at the same time. “I got maybe five minutes to think how I gonna put my investments. Spare me ‘em. Is called ‘consultation’."

for FUCK’S SAKE REYL THIS IS NOT THE TIME. I MIGHT NOT HAVE FIVE MINUTES EITHER.

“Saying my advisories made it on your radar now?" he laughs. “Kumbaya kumbaya. You wanna be happy?"

She bows her head, twists her thumb over the flat of her knife.

“Then fuck off the goddamn stairs ‘fore all there’s left of me’s bullshit!" he screams.

“—Right shit Jackie, there’s the thing, you never been anything else!" She yells back, snapping to her feet, slicing air with the knife. “Calling it bullshit, that’s what you are! Real life finally throttling you outta dreamland to where you seeing it? Fucking my good fortune that it ever did! You done nothing for anybody but talk talk talk talk talk, slinging little bullshit promises and bullshit happy handies ‘cause hooking ‘round sadsacks is all you got. Is empty! Is worthless! You peddling oxy, that all you got, is a poison worse’n hard drubbings spitting hopes you never gonna fucking make true.

“Hear it? You still got brains enough to hear it? Eh? Worst thing Ma ever did to me was saddle me with fucking you. Fucking left me with her own dealer 24/7, what the hell was gonna happen to me? Now ‘m looking at your bullshit all knowing what it is and still staying addicted worse’n anyone else. All you ever good for is making people happy."

“What’s wrong with that?" Raum asks sincerely, confusion and concern swelling in defiance of the ghoul.

“The whole goddamn thing is wrong!" She screams. “Lookit yourself! Lookit all this!" She spreads her arm, indicating the whole world. “There ain’t nothing here to be happy about!"

Raum falls speechless. He’d known she was cynical, but this is… oh, god, Reyl.

“All ‘happiness’ is, is a sham. Issa oxyhigh braintrick babies do so their mam-mam don’t kill ‘em. ‘Cept only get as good as you when they plain fucking useless, fucking ain’t good for anything, scrams when the working get tough, whines when they see what it takes to make dollars, cries when somebody ain’t smiling coz ooooooo maybe they gonna huurt me. Happy happy happy is all gutless trash like you got. It ain’t for me… it ain’t goddamn for me."

He wants to hug her.

Obviously that’s not the right move. He wishes it would be, but it’s not. She would unquestionably take it as him proving her point and use the closed space to shank him. This knowledge doesn’t change that every cell in him screams with the demand to HUG HER. SHE NEEDS IT. SHE’S HURTING.

The things their mother made her do, he realises abruptly, probably were significantly worse than anything that happened to him. At least he can still find what makes his core feel strong, confident, and joyful, and know himself broadly enriched by pursuing it. For Reyl, the world has become so twisted that such positive signposts are just warning signs of being manipulated, fucked over, and rendered impotent.

She might even be right. But even if all the world’s happiness was some sentimental illusion, Raum could still enjoy that and find it purposeful. She can’t. There is no demonstration of love or acceptance he could give that will flip her worldview in under five minutes, and given that, the only way such things could make her move are by explicitly proving her point: exploiting the emotional ties and responsibilities foisted on her since birth. By saying that actually he can make her happy. That he can be her place where it’s okay to relax and wind down. That he loves her. That he matters. That he cares.

What he should do, though, is just yank her off the stairs and run past her. The fact this option even occurs to him, and that he quickly accepts it as the objectively correct one, proves to him that these months with Aquila really have rubbed off on him, for the better.

But even if he has steeled his mind against the impulse to ruthlessly love her, he cannot do this plan. Understanding her as an obstacle between himself and what he needs, (as she has always, always goddamn been), his seething ghoul body and instincts demand, the second he nears her, to choke her, beat her, rape her, slash up her tits if she’s not fucking using them, shut up her whining and put her in her place, until she can’t deny that she lost this round and needs to get over it.

Raum is not sure he can stop himself from doing these things, especially given it’s unclear just when or by how much his will could next tank.

“Jay I’m gonna hurt you," he says. “I think you gotta move way away, else Phoenix."

She snorts a laugh, genuinely tickled, and flourishes the flat of her knife against her palm. “Dumbass."

I can take you easy, even as a ghoul, she means. Right. Yeah. Not really her problem.

But even then this comment of his has dammed back the anger she only just worked up. He wasn’t even trying to do that.

This may be one of those times where the best way to persuade her is by doing nothing. She lowers her knife, threads her fingers through her hair, smiling dimly over her shoulder. Raum, naturally, smiles too. Though not something he could’ve helped, seeing his happiness at her passing respite reminds her to be offended, and the grip on her knife tightens again.

“Sick of holding to that goddamn string…" she mutters, struggling to rebuild that rage. The decibels rise slowly. “Get nothing from it. Get fucking, piss nothing from it."

Well what the hell are you trying to get.

If you don’t want your life to be influenced by me, you don’t have to kill me, just leave. Call that soft or naive if you want, but be bolder, be real. Why bother with these bullshit kill-rage dramatics. Just sit on the stairs calmly mocking me for four, three, minutes, and I’ll be bloody gone anyway. What does it matter if you work up the nerve to knife me before then?

Oh, but that’s kind of sweet, Raum thinks, then immediately, NO IT’S NOT. And since when does being sweet matter to Reyl!

“And ya’know! It pisses me off," she continues, “how my call’s hitting the bullseyes, but you lie like I ain’t know shit. I tell the Majesty’s getting you killed, well bingo, there’s one happened. So you got a month without me, all said, that fucking satisfy you? Ah nah nah nah nah nah course it ain’t, coz ring ring, ring ring, you wants to lock me up too. Saying you fancy your ass working the Majesty, lemme guess then, got an idea what’s for my own good?"

Better than you wound up doing!, he forces himself not to bite back. Suffered alone in the desert, jumped to massacre thousands, killed Ma… Raum’s momentum putters at that last thought, sadness pushing out the anger, and uncertainty pushing out his conviction.

“Like I’m gonna be some fucking princess! I’ll kill you. Imma fucking kill you."

But she does not make a move forward, instead panting red-faced at the top of the steps. She eyes him askance.

“Your noggin turned off? Can’t talk anymore?" she asks sincerely.

He shakes his head. “I’m thinking."

“Fucking—Hauh!" she bristles. “Putting that clean, working your angle! ‘How’m I gonna get Jay off this step, hmmm.’ ‘Dang, she getting angry, how’s to nip that ‘fore it bursts?‘ ‘Gee I gotta find the right words quick what’ll sell her to this smilestown bullshit.’ Zactly what I fucking mean!" She stomps down the the steps, clenches her knife in her fist and draws it to stab, spreads her footing, but freezes. “Well dumbass, sell me quick, how’m I better off—"

Raum’s mouth jumps. “I’ll be there."

As if hacked in two by a butcher’s cleaver, Reyl’s muscles all lock. Her mouth clenches in a grimace, tears squeeze from her eye. She is, very impressively, suppressing the impulse to crumple to the floor and scream.

—One thing to know about Reyl is that, for their intensity, she’s really good at repurposing and redirecting her emotions.

In the short time Raum has to think, oh, fuck, and to want to slap himself for responding at all, his body moves to receive the incoming blow and flip her momentum against her. Be careful, be careful, time to fight. Dumb to think this would resolve any other way.

Just throw her to the floor, and run past her. Don’t get hung up. Just throw her to the floor—

“Get the fuck out of me!" she screeches, surging in with her knife. “Cheat!"

—What she’s doing clicks.

Oh, my god. It’s the fucking witch ritual.

Taken off-guard by this realisation, Raum hesitates to act in that first, single split-second where he could have surprised Reyl. She pulls his arm forward and sweeps her leg behind his knees to break his posture smoothly, flips him to land against the wall with his ass to the ground, well practised.

Raum raises his hands to shield himself.

“Jay," his voice trembles, “wait,"

As with all the pleas for peace he has made thus far, when faced with Jayden Blackthorne, this one, too, achieves nothing.

The knife jettisons into his throat with the decisiveness of a harpoon. As it twists inside his windpipe from blade-down to blade-flat, his vision strobes white, black, and then with a yank through his muscles, red. The edge of the knife protrudes from his skin; his neck collapses open like the belly of a fish, squirting out pulses of blood and staining his chest with red spew.

It is such an abrupt and dire injury that his light-headedness registers before the pain. He gorbles, and gurbles, bubbles of blood popping through his throat as he drowns in this impromptu shechita. For whoever finds his corpse, the message behind his slaughter will be clear: fuck you, piece of shit, die, murder, I murder you, die.

In not even five seconds, indeed, he will.

The only hint of life left in him is the fact his head still leans backwards, against the wall, instead of slumping forward immediately. But just as quickly as his carotid drains, and god it is gushing like a water main, that faint strength will also peter.

Even then, even so, Reyl is not done. Moving in blurry slow-motion, the knife twirls in her hand, readjusts to a firmer grip. Set on a course to sheathe itself in his heart, its point looms in imminently, and though the stab must be quick in reality, for Raum, each inch the blade closes feels to take an hour.

No. Why?

What the fuck.

Is this is what it was all for?

All those things Reyl has ever mocked — his meekness, faith, trust, charity, sensitivity, idealism, optimism, and desire for mutual cooperation and joy — were indeed self-defeating ghosts, in the end? She said they would kill him, and she proves herself right. Raum lived by a weakling’s chicanery, broken rightly before the real strength of an impenetrable mind, an ironcast heart, and an unerring blade.

Named in their trinity I do hear the edicts of manifest power. Familiar am I to their workings, columns they are of my art.
Equally indeed, to their tempering, by the kindling of the hearth in my heart.
As any saint,
I am susceptible.
Like a moth, Raum gravitated through the dark storm to blips of candle-light, knowing they were weak and ephemeral. He might spread out his wings to repel the raindrops, nurture the candle higher with the gentle whorls of his flapping, and feed it his legs when it wilted. Then he would proclaim: come to this flame, it will be a great, beaming fire!

And people flocked, through their derision and scepticism, to at least watch the novelty. ‘That little moth cannot make a candle-head into a bonfire, not in a storm that thrashes as this!’. But as the flame stretched higher and higher, and as the assured fluidity in Raum’s motions became clear, they would wonder, ‘unless?’.

Soon they would cup their own hands around the flame, feed it their possessions, and call others to do the same. They would feel the light and warmth on their skin and pursue it with fervour, both for the good of themselves and for their comrades stuck in the storm. But inevitably, as was the way of storms, there would come the howling gust to snuff out that small flame. The clustered adherents now stood again in the cold, the dark, and the wet, only now without the coats and umbrellas they had already cast to the fire. And Raum would merely turn, find the next blip of candle-light, and flutter under darkness’s cloak to it, once again.

Whether there was ever a bonfire or not didn’t really matter. He was just a tiny moth, terrified of being stuck alone in the wind and the dark and the cold, who could bask before a candle-flame as though it were an inferno, and simply wanted nearness to that light and warmth while resting upon a hand.

It was a con far crueler than anything Reyl would do. She would grab a stranger by the wrist and hiss into their ear, as they stared at the distant, growing candle: trust absolutely nothing of that fire. It may warm you for a moment, but you’ll never survive without it again. So if you have a mind for life, you have to learn to live in this darkness. That is the truth, and to know it is kindness. Ignore my warning, slug, and I would just as well kill you now. You’re visible there, in the light.

That was the argument? That was reality?

Who the fuck would make a world so cruel that, armed with a knife, and resigned to misery, Reyl ultimately wins?

It is not the magnates who mistreat you,
Not the father who forsakes you,
Not the mother who molests you,
Not even the sister who slaughters you,
But rather I, the sun o’er the storm
Upon whom you cast your aspersions?

But she doesn’t even win. They both lose!
She’ll discard her humanity to fortify herself against hope. Speaking as a ghoul-in-progress, however she may futz the sales pitch, that’s the same bloody thing as killing herself.

Privileged, I shall call myself, for your enmity.
As Raum reaches again for rage and castigations, the most glorious warmth he has felt in his life drapes itself over his back. Its arms loop loosely around his neck and torso in an embrace, tracing the same hug of apology once given to him by Aquila. That this creature dares to ape such a sentiment, despite having done nothing for Raum in his life, done nothing for any of Raum’s loved ones either, and overall not been someone Raum has ever cared about, relied on, believed in, or trusted, makes him want to backhand the fucker off his shoulder and then go puke in a corner.

But the saccharine warmth that seeps in through his spine, to his heart, softens that desire to mush. His body relaxes into the hold as if melting. Whatever impossible ideal of love Raum had maniacally pretended to have found in his mother, and in Aquila, is presently being realised utterly. The touch of the most beautiful thing in the world indulges his soul with one little drop of the gateway to rapture, and that in itself is enough for Raum to want to sit here, in this position, held and happy, forever.

His head tilts back and eyes squint in pleasure. Red fractals like those of the tunnel-wards flicker in the corner of his vision, flashing in the same odd way as Aquila’s blood. If he turns his head to look, he will find upon his shoulder the face of the Demiurge, smiling that same horrible grin as the cathedral statue. Through the soppy reverie, his spine splinters with sickness.

Turn around with love! Never let this feeling go! This is it, this is it, this is it…

Raum sighs a sharp sob and forces his gaze directly ahead. The point of Reyl’s knife faces him, frozen in time, or perhaps moving so slowly that the distinction doesn’t matter.

The same’s true of her. Caught midway through her lunge, her hair is whipped around her face and spit hangs fresh from her open mouth. Rage has contorted her visage into a demonic mask, targeted upon him but seeing nothing of him, or in this willing blindness, of anything.

Sadness like an ocean crest swells through Raum’s insides, cold against the enveloping warmth. The tears come as always, and soon trickle down his chin. For that, his mind stays calm. It’s a composure bred from knowing, and understanding, exactly what he is seeing.

It’s like everyone in his family is overcharged plutonium, only ever growing more and more volatile.

Displace from its woodyard a sparrow to the tundra,
From its ocean a shark to the sand-dunes,
And from its dirt a mole to the aeries.
Death is short for these creatures,
Lest they reclaim the surrounds
To which they are habituated.
And you…

A finger of that transcendent warmth traces under Raum’s chin. Again, his throat tightens, and his gaze slides to the ground.

I hear you. What are you selling?

The wares I stock are innumerable.
What aid do you ask?

Through his soul’s screams to submit — ‘I’m sorry, that was cheeky, please give me whatever you want to do with me, I want it, you’re wonderful, thankyouthankyouthankyou so much for noticing me, did you notice I prayed to you too once oh please please please save me, save everyone I love, stay with me, I love you’ — Raum sweeps his thoughts into a corner, though doing so is likely useless to hide them.

This is the thing that turned Phoenix into that. Even if he trusted Aquila in a similar fashion, this is… not… safe.

But equally, staring at Reyl’s knife, and her face, this miracle is not one he should refuse.

The warm spectre leans back, breaking the embrace. Raum wets his lips quickly. The safest negotiation—

Sheathe your cute palaver, rogue.
My attendance, too, is a candle.
If you shall refine your dialectic,
Let not your greed snuff my charity.
For efficacy demands Yet beatitude demands
The ferocity The gregariousness
In my left hand In my right
Centred together I hold the thing what you promise, the balefire. By the press of my finger, I may cast it into your skin.

You dabble in the matters of my deathless kin?
You wish a new script for the damned?
You too see miseries rewrote?
Might I not coronate you?
—It’s too much. It’s way way way, too much.

All he really wants, is to get himself and Reyl out of that warzone. His mother and father. Phoenix and Aquila.
To see his loved ones functioning at something more than their worst.
Maybe then, he can finally, be part of a family that’s peaceful and happy.

Is that something that really needs… really, needs, this intervention?

It is not.
However,
To claim the particular idyll of which you dream,
I shall tell you you lack nepenthe

‘Hopeless,’ God declares.
Or perhaps more precisely, ‘you must compromise.’

Raum’s body numbs cold and heavy. Half of him begs for that warmth to come back, so he could console himself by shoving himself in it. The other half wants to strangle the first, and be a little more self-assured and level-headed.

He would rather use this wish to heal himself and knock out Reyl until she can be carted back to Ferendaux. Without any doubt, this is the safest course to take. It’d be the end to all the drama he and Aquila have been juggling these past months, negotiable within Raum’s scope.

Sure his mind goes flirting, ‘can he bring back ma…’, ‘and maybe fix dad too…’, ‘and make the whole world happy…!’, and maybe, and maybe, if I just let him peek in my heart… but those are subordinate thoughts, which he has to force himself to ignore. Compromises are just life. So it’ll be rough, she might not adapt well, but that’s just life…

Reyl’s furious face bears down on him. Something inside Raum trembles. ‘Just life…’

…Is he being a hypocrite…?

Enamoured and terrified, you are so.
Indeed in the same way as your sister.
Indeed, sceptical with the same arrogance.
As the victim of a repellent equation
Between criminal treachery
Pitiable and disgusting And even immaculate love.
Son and sweet crony of thieves
With your compassionate heart forever bound
To the mentality of a conspiracy
And a courtesan’s subtle manner of war posed of all things, against my absences placing your silhouette where ought be mine.
Degenerate! How you scorch me!
My beneficence does not take your shape!
It takes the shape in which I was crafted,
Of which you are barely a sliver,
A toothpick planted in the dirt.
That you have achieved anything
Is a humiliation too excruciating to bear.
Then that you die unvenerated
Is doubly, impermissibly so.

Obscene, the necessity of you
Vulgar, your committed service
Profane, this militarised pacifist
Yes, I too would pluck you from the battleground! As I might also pluck you from your skin,
So tenaciously adhered is the conscription
Foisted upon you by household and kin.
If you shall so embarrass me,
Bear against me your banner,
Cry to the stormclouds, ‘where is the sun!’,
Then grant to me the reciprocity
To escort you to a comfortable bed
And shine upon you in full resplendence.

In your apprehension, apprehend too my frustration.
As much as your sister is blind to your vantage,
Dull and unillumed, you are blind to mine.

Run to my bosom.

...

…Hey.

Listen, I’m taken.

Guy named Aquila…

Shall nod to your any course.
But is most advantaged by your resolution to power.
Recreants be condemned. flee me at your peril.

As the voice of God falls abruptly quiet, the knife bearing in on Raum kicks back into motion. It presses in definitely, but slowly, as if pushing through treacle. The sensation of gravity, and of laying against the stone, and of pain quivering solidly through his wounded, winged body, alerts him that all that hugging and junk probably hadn’t been physical.

Wait, wait, come back! Raum pleads, I’m sorry, it’s reflex, I’m not sure, I just need to think! I don’t know…

As he clings to catch the departing thread, and indeed snatches it in his incorporeal self’s human fist, the knife’s press does slow considerably, but does not still again. A voice garbles in his hand, spiking and ebbing with heat like a solar flare, its syllables blending in ways that sound like language but excruciatingly decode into nothing.

It’s not really about the fear of ending up like Phoenix. Though he does tremble at the thought, he can already hope he wouldn’t be that bad.

It’s not about whether nodding to God’s intentions will equip Raum with, objectively, greater faculties to pursue his own goals. Or even whether he has an onus of responsibility to say yes, now that he’s promised so much to Aquila and Reyl.

It’s that having this powerful entity’s attention in itself is just horrifying. If it wants anything to do with him — that is horrifying.

Maybe this is a pathetic thing to say, but Raum doesn’t mind dying in his thirties as a nobody after years of discouraging failures. As long as he can keep himself drugged on love, fun, chatter, comforts, and good friendships until then, he would say that conclusion is not too bad, and basically what he expected.

That this entity wants to grab him by the neck, throttle him, and scream: that is so sub-par! I’m a beneficent god, and I’ll prove it by giving you better! Feels like such an infringement on his future, that even though every signpost points to ‘yes, it actually means to help you’, and ‘yes, it has the capacity to’, and ‘yes, it actually does understand what’s good for you better than you do’, he still cannot discern if taking this hand is really in his interest. Is that stupid?

Maybe that means he committed himself to losing from the start, but… maybe it also means he still thinks he can win, by his own power, and is content to see where his own heart can get him regardless of how everyone winds up. Is that conceited?

Reyl still closes in with her knife, looking as half-blind and ugly as a hell-born fury.

Raum should not take this deal. Raum should not take this deal. If he ever, ever allows himself to console Phoenix while he’s screaming, while he’s burning, with thoughtless assurances of god pulling through in the end, or ever accordingly lets himself dismiss Aquila’s drive for holy war as too much and broadly unnecessary, all because Raum let himself be neutered on the desperate, self-interested hope that the big glowing nice man would one day pat his head again and reward his faith by making true all those nice dreams Raum ever wanted and he was such a big guy it was no problem for him at all it was just all Raum’s fault for not finding him sooner pleasing him sooner and but well it’s ok everything’s ok now I love you mom I love you Reyl… he’ll puke.

To stay who he is, he needs to stay sceptical of God. Raum is not sure he can do that while also trusting them with his everything.

Raum’s throat locks. But…

Reyl’s horrible face is the counterpoint to everything he is thinking. A numbness falls over his mind, his cheeks slackening flat and cold.

As if leaning backwards into a temperate pool, tepid warmth seeps into his back again. Raum cranes his head back, letting the ocean of flickering red lights submerge him, as he holds in his mind that image of Reyl, imprinting it behind his closed eyelids. The celestial water around him thrums, growing warmer, and simultaneously denser and more light. Even with his eyes closed, red and white flashes burn into his brain. Raum chokes at the glory, trembles under the ecstasy, horrified to know the heat of the ocean will overwhelm him, and sweep his soul back into being malleable obsessed valueless uncommitted comfort-drunk pleasure-drunk quivering-powerless scared-child nothing, under the unremitting madness of unconditional love.

For the first time in a long while, and maybe the last time in his life, he reaches to place himself in Jayden’s mindset, that he might hold on to her wariness and disillusion and cutthroat decisiveness, as though they were beams of steel reinforcing his own melting skeleton.

The part of him he might call ‘Raum’ shrieks, scrambling to escape where he lay. But mercifully, gratefully, the scared little fucker does not succeed this time at breaking the connection. The part of him he might call ‘Jackie’ cheers, acknowledging the intoxicating favouritism of another strong master. But that gutless two-timing whore fails too to meld into the heart of the sun, or steal its flame as his own beacon. The steel beams hold his core firm, centred.

Imbued with his own inherent sentimentality and optimism, the voice that snaps back to God as he opens his eyes is unmistakably, also Jayden’s—

If you’ll talk so high, then go ahead. Let’s judge your merits.

Cut and tie as you will the trailing rope
Of wed hearts, running through your palms;
Then see how my chain of glory, for none,
is ever escapable.

—and so brimming with that easy contempt, which belongs a heart too entrenched in darkness for Raum’s weak mirrored light to ever save, what fills his mind as God immaculately descends is no intoxicating hope, but only dry, intrigued, half-mocking, abysmally low expectations.

A collected finger of golden fire spears Raum from behind, through the torso. Though not a physical phenomenon, he reels at the impact as if slapped, and barely comprehends where he is or what has happened as the aftertaste of rapture fades and gravity thunks him back into his dying body.

What the hell! He wants to scream, the stones pressing hard against his back and rear, as if his every muscle were weighed down with iron marbles. His neck gurgles with blood. His head is too heavy to move. Holy shit, with nobody else to call in his final moments, he just hallucinated God of all people saving him. Well knock knock, idiot, here comes reality.

Pain shunts itself into Raum’s chest, his heart ruptures in agony as out again shulks the knife, and—

—and there slumped against the stone before him is his corrupted, mutilated corpse, dressed in feathers and gashes that still spurt their last jets of blood. He backs up a step and tosses aside the bloody knife in his grasp to the stone, then stares down at his palms. These dainty, ratty hands aren’t his. Rather, they’re not even a man’s.

He looks from the corpse, to his hands again, not comprehending. Something’s off about all this. He rubs at his left eye with his wrist, as it seems to be numb or gunked up or not adjusted to the dim light yet or, something, but even as he digs in and kneads around, feels no sensation from his cheek or the flesh orbiting it. It is only with careful investigation with his fingertips that he realises there simply is no convex protrusion between his eyelids, and hence no eye, rather only a divet.

Though this discovery should sate his immediate questions of, ‘what happened?’ and ‘why am I not dead?’, it does not. It does not at all. With his mind in full rejection that—that, a dead person whose corpse he is looking at could have survived such a butchering, the confusion thickens deeply into ‘is that me?‘ and ‘wait, who am I?’.

Terrified, in nervous silence, he—she? stares down the dark pit of the tunnel, then up the stairway with its blanket of daylight.

FIN.

POSTSCRIPT.

Raum ascends the stairs to find himself, for the second time, in the Cardinal House. Though subconsciously he already recognises what has happened — that is, he has hijacked Reyl’s body upon dying — and though he also subconsciously recognises, by how its body language conforms to his over hers, how much of her presence remains in this vessel — that is, none — he must pause to consider himself in a windowpane to even begin processing these realities.

Having felt the surge of Camellia bullshit in the tunnels, Phoenix rushes down from his living chambers to find Raum there, arms crossed upon the windowsill with his forehead planted upon them. Phoenix’s urgency immediately settles into sympathy upon seeing this. He intuits that, just like himself, Raum has been cornered and suckered into an eternity of personal hell.

That is to say, he has been made into an Archon. And Phoenix is right. Ten points for Phoenix. Feeling a responsibility to ease Raum through the transition period of acknowledging oneself as an undying abomination, and warily eager to know how his condition has manifested, he invites Raum to stay again at the Cardinal House, which Raum, still shaken, accepts.

As Raum learns over the following months, his particular ‘condition’ of godhood is powerful. For all intents omniscient and omnipresent, with powers to alter human memories, transpose souls into new bodies, and even resurrect the dead, the fact he can still convincingly feign humanity and blend in with society at all is, in itself, profane and very liable to make him quietly go a little bit nuts.

Fortunately, working the political spin of how Asphodel’s new heir died and was deified on his first day on the job, and mediating the court of noble and public opinion with Aquila, occupies him and sculpts for him a place in the public consciousness, despite him not having his own body anymore. In this way, he successfully reestablishes his identity with two major personae as his anchor: one as Phoenix’s caretaker, servant, and fellow-Archon roomie, and one as Aquila’s best friend and co-conspirator in finagling civic politics, who is the nation’s tragic heir. Fancying the first as his ‘home life’ and the second as his ‘job’, and being able now to attend to both simultaneously, his originally conceived timetable quickly flips and Sebilles becomes his permanent residence. With some recreational floozing and escapist bodysnatching thrown in too, for his own sanity.

Phoenix finally has some company. Aquila’s position as King is unshakeable. Raum has the power and freedom to do anything and be anyone, no longer hemmed by any cage but the one that he chooses.

All at the cost of his family, the thing Raum had ultimately leaned upon God to fix and save. The level of stability and peace Raum had that night before the heir announcement party never truly comes back again.

Each seething with reaffirmations of their respective resentments for God, none of the three can enjoy the positives of these circumstances without knowing they come at the whims of an immaculate demon, who has allowed and enabled more suffering than any of them can let pass undenounced or even personally bear.

As the years turn, and Raum’s attempts to reconnect with a resurrected Reyl again fail, that resentment for God deepens further. Behind his easygoing demeanour and humble pacifism, it’s with a cold and incisive zen that he commits himself to undoing the pact upon Phoenix, decoding the mechanics of divinity that they may be broken, and dragging God to account—

—something that may be shockingly possible, with the tumultuous advent of Azimech Camille.