Airlean Tales S2E27: Truthseeker (3)

When Karis woke, she was slumped in a gilded armchair, and Simon Kourios was sitting across a desk, staring her right in the face.

She jerked up and emitted a nervous chuckle. “Goodness, Lord Envoy. You certainly know how to give somebody a fright.”

He said nothing. The keen yellow of his eyes glinted in the dim candlelight, only adding to the eerie, stagnant atmosphere.

Growing more uneasy, Karis tried another little laugh. “Hello, Simon Kourios? Is anyone home?”

He didn’t open his mouth, but the sudden rumble of a masculine voice right by her ear startled her. “I know what you came to say, friend. But I’ve made up my mind.”

This time, Karis bodily jumped out of the chair. She turned sharply—and saw that right on that chair sat a man. But that couldn’t be possible, not unless she…unless her body…

Oh, right. She was still in a dreamscape. In the Mnemonic Pool. When odd magical tremors had rocked the dreamscape, the Keeper twins had returned to the waking world—and Karis, in a fit of impulsiveness, had instead chosen to plunge deeper within, searching for answers to the mysteries that bound together the foundations of Atlantis.

She had always been a bit too ambitious for her own good.

Karis took a moment to absorb her surroundings. The man on the chair was broad-shouldered and built like a soldier—not giant enough to swallow the seat he was in, but more than intimidating enough with a chiseled face and full beard. A sharp onyx crown, which she recognized as the one Xiph had worn to the banquet, braced his full mane of vermillion hair. He exuded a commanding presence that easily placed him as the previous head of the Warmongers.

Opposite his desk which was practically spilling over with charts and papers sat Simon Kourios. Now that Karis had a good look, she realized the envoy looked softer, smoother, younger. He wore not the dark and simple robes of an envoy, but the decorated sage-green garb of a sophist.

His jaw clenched at the Warmonger’s words in clear displeasure.

“You know Xiphia’s love for Atlantis. For you.” Karis was surprised at the vitriol in Simon’s tone. The envoy had, apparently, not always been so adept at concealing his emotions. “You would break her heart and send her to a foreign country, where she will live among enemies in solitude?”

“She is a child. She will heal, and she will grow to accept it.”

“A country drowning in corruption, ruled by the aristocracy’s gold? A spineless beau who she will hate? This arrangement will kill her!”

The red-headed man slammed a palm on his table in a sudden, explosive display. “It will do the opposite, Simon! Staying will kill her, and we both know it!”

Simon’s brow twitched, but he held his tongue. The Warmonger closed his eyes and inhaled. When he opened them, he seemed calm again.

“If you care so deeply for Xiphia, this is the one chance she has at a normal life,” he said stonily. “A happy life.”

“She does not want a normal life. She wants a life like yours. A life leading her people.”

“That is what she thinks she wants.” The Warmonger dripped crimson wax onto an envelope and pressed his signet ring deep in, letting it set. “She will change her mind when she is older.”

“Ilias!” Simon barked.

“Simon!” Ilias snapped back. His face was clouded in anger—but then melted away as he shook his head in resignation. “I didn’t think you would grow so naive. You are a learned sophist.”

“Before I am a learned sophist, I am her conservator—and technically your friend.” Simon crossed his arms. “Though you make that more difficult by the day, you bullheaded little brat.”

“And you are a cranky old meddler.”

“A meddler who you elected as her godfather.” Simon leaned forward on the desk, a hard glint in his eye. “This is not naïveté, Ilias. An inheriting senator has never been sent to another country. We don’t know how she will react—if it will corrupt her faster and further. It’s best to keep her here, where the symptoms can be slowed, where she can be kept safe and where the cure can be studied.”

Ilias did not move.

Simon gritted his teeth. “There it is. You’re not sending her away out of sacrificial love. You are scared. You’ve been scared of looking your own daughter in the eye ever since she was born, and that cowardice will follow you until the day you die.”

“I am not,” Ilias snarled.

“You are. And I know why.”

“Oh, because you would know everything about being a father, Single Simon.”

“You’re haunted by the guilt of bringing something into the world and saddling it with the Warmonger fate.” Simon’s eyes cut into Ilias with cold clarity. “You are burdened because you care for the child deeper than you ever could have thought possible, and now you regret pursuing an heir for the sake of the Warmonger Dominion. Because you have doomed her to a life of misery.”

Ilias was silent.

“You’re quite right, Ilias. I know nothing of being a father. But I know you. Always so eager to share what you think, but never what you feel. That tendency will land you in trouble one day.”

Karis flinched when Ilias suddenly flung something across his desk in Simon’s direction—a folder of papers that hit Simon square in the chest. Simon choked in surprise, flailing to catch them.

“Read it,” Ilias said.

“You can’t just ignore—”

“I said read it!”

After shooting a glare at Ilias, Simon obediently opened the file and thumbed through the pages. His anger melted away swiftly, replaced by slack-jawed wonder and curiosity.

“You had a study done?”

Ilias’s mouth twisted. “My great-great-great grandfather, technically. A duty passed on from generation to generation. The hypothesis was formed ages ago, but could only be proven this year.”

“You withheld the results from Universitales.” Simon’s eyes narrowed. “That can be dangerous, Ilias.”

“As you can see, the subject matter was…sensitive. All the sophists involved were privately enlisted, and bloodbound to secrecy on pain of death.” Ilias gestured to the report with a crooked brow. “And if you read the conclusion, you can see why. It is there in writing, my friend. The evidence and the results that you hold so dear.”

Simon’s gaze trailed to the bottom. His hands clamped on the paper until it bent under the pressure of his thumbs. “This can’t be,” he murmured.

Ilias’s eyes burned like embers. “But it is.”

The leader of the Warmongers rose to his full stature and turned. Candlelight sputtered his broad shadow on the wall like a warped, abyssal creature.

“The cause of miasma is closer than we ever could have imagined.”

A large runic platform lowered Sethis ten floors down into the belly of the Armpit. The entourage around him was grim: Lilian, just behind him, eyed the surrounding Warmonger soldiers with clear distrust; Simon, to his right, was uncharacteristically silent without any offer of small talk; and to his left, Xiph was staring into the distance.

She hadn’t looked at him ever since they had left the villa. He wondered if she hated him. Maybe she would, once it became irrefutably clear that he was the prince of Airlea. Then all of her hatred of the prince’s powerlessness and indolence would redirect to him.

The uneasy silence was bitter, nearly suffocating. Sethis opened his mouth, reaching for something, anything to say—but then Simon’s voice suddenly cut through the lull.

“Is your cousin on his way?” the Prime Consul said.

That seemed to jolt Xiph, who shot Simon a warning look. Sethis watched them closely. Cousin? No cousin had been mentioned, let alone introduced. Surely someone as important as the Warmonger’s cousin would have revealed themselves by now.

“He better not be,” Xiph replied tersely. “It’s past his bedtime.”

“He’s not a child anymore, Xiph.”

Xiph said nothing.

“You might need his support.” The switch to Atlantean was sudden—but basic enough for Sethis to understand. “Every spear will count if something goes wrong, dear one.”

“He’s never seen true battle before. He’ll lose his nerve.”

“You underestimate him.” Simon’s voice turned wry. “Well, he may find us anyway. His blood calls him to it.”

“Mind sharing what could be the topic of such vigorous discussion?” Lilian said wryly, almost startling Sethis.

For a moment, he wondered. Lilian had been raised like him; she understood some Atlantean, even if it was weaker than his own. Why would she pretend to be a disgruntled foreigner excluded from the conversation? Then he realized that was precisely what she wanted—to mask their grasp of the language, just in case it proved advantageous in the future.

“My apologies,” Simon offered with a faultless smile. “I was noting the stale air and thought there might be a minor issue with the ventilation.”

A bald-faced lie. Irritated, Sethis was just about to speak when Xiph’s voice rang out before his:

“Only the truth from this day forth, Simon. This knight of Airlea comes as an ally. We can no longer treat them as enemies.” She glanced in Sethis’s direction. “It was about my little cousin again. Whether he should be here. He’s gifted enough with a halberd, but young and impetuous.”

Sethis’s heart warmed slightly. Though it yet stood on shaky ground, Xiph’s offer of trust felt profound.

“I see,” he said. It didn’t feel right to offer nothing in return, so he continued. “We thought that might be the case. Truthfully, I was schooled in the Atlantean language from a young age. Though I remain far from fluent.”

In a sudden burst of motion, Xiph whipped around, gawking openly at Sethis as if he had sprouted another head. He stared back awkwardly.

“Er, yes?” he tried.

When she said nothing, Simon spoke instead. “How boorish we must have appeared in your eyes,” the envoy said diplomatically. But there was no regret on his face. Not that Sethis had expected any.

“Think nothing of it,” Sethis replied. “We do not expect to be privy to every secret of the nation.”

Xiph was still silent as the platform beneath their feet suddenly jostled and emitted a dull thud when it stopped. The runic veins in the stone, which had been shining a bright cerulean, faded back to grey. The Warmonger soldiers filed down a long hall in orderly rows, and Sethis followed.

He hadn’t known exactly what to expect, even though he’d recognized the prison-like structure of the Armpit. These lower floors, dim and cold like a crypt, were a stark difference from the polished and well-lit upper floors where Halcyon had been detained. The clammy air sunk into his skin with icy fingers.

At the end of the long hall, a massive web of opalite veins spidered over the stone walls, flickering intermittently as they fought to keep whatever lay beyond at bay. The large double doors were reinforced with two additional layers of metal grates. It was the most hostile structure that Sethis had seen in Atlantis—and reminded him of a cage for a beast.

“This is a Tartarus Cell,” Xiph said, her clear voice cutting through the murky air. Her mouth fell into a grimace. “A place that holds that which can’t be contained anywhere else.”

That’s quite ominous. Sethis’s trepidation only heightened as Xiph turned to face him, her nervousness apparent in how she clasped her hands behind her back.

What kind of revelation could frighten even the leader of the Warmongers? Just what had Sethis dragged Airlea into?

“We shouldn’t have kept this from you for this long,” Xiph said. “But instead of an apology, all I can bring you is another request.” She paused for a moment, somber. “Would you hear it and relay it to the prince?”

Sethis steeled himself. “What is your request?”

“To have mercy.”

That surprised him, but when he looked at her, she didn’t flinch. Those strange opalescent eyes bore into him, clear and vibrant.

“An odd request from a tribe known as the Warmongers, I know,” Xiph said. “But that’s what I ask. You are…about to witness something difficult to accept.” Her mouth trembled for a moment. “I ask that any wrath your prince may wish to bring, he brings to me and me alone. Because most of the subjects in my dominion know nothing of this.”

The humility of it softened Sethis immediately. It was moments like these that made it easy to trust her. She cared so much for her people—to a selfless degree that maybe she couldn’t see herself.

“I will see to it that your trust is not misplaced,” he said firmly.

Xiph did not seem relieved. She only nodded and turned away. As she strode up to the Tartarus Cell, Lilian leaned over and whispered under her breath.

“Seth,” she said. “You realize that means whatever lies behind those doors is likely terrible beyond compare.”

“I realize.”

“Could have fooled me.”

Xiph placed her hand on the double doors. In a firm, booming voice, she intoned a sentence of harsh syllables that put Sethis on edge. None of the smooth and quick tones of modern Atlantean; this was far more ancient, commanding.

“Weynor kailom!”

Blue liquid flowed like magma down the walls, settling into the grooves of a runic sigil embedded in the door. The door shuddered and slowly slid aside, rumbling like a tombstone.

The chamber within was immense, more of a cavern than a cell. A stone bridge filed across a steep moat that plunged down, down into darkness. It led to a platform in the center of the cavern which was surrounded by a shimmering dome that undulated with flickering veins of mana—some sort of containment barrier that Sethis had never seen before.

And within the dome was Senator Rathos Antheos Vathalos.

He was unrecognizable from when Sethis had last seen him at the feast. Only the distinct shape of his antler headpiece cutting through the dim gloom could identify him. Otherwise, his silhouette was engorged, disfigured beyond recognition—limbs contorted, lesions growing, bones protruding from skin. There was not enough light to perceive any details, but the shape alone made Sethis’s skin curdle in revulsion, then pity, then anguish. How could a human being be subjected to such suffering?

“This is miasma,” came Xiph’s quiet voice from next to him. “An epidemic of severe mana corruption within Atlantis. This stage is…very advanced. Most die before reaching it, unless they’re unlucky enough to be a senator.”

Sethis was shaken from his stupor. His eyes darted to Xiph, who was watching him carefully. Her expression showed nothing—no sympathy, no sorrow, no anger.

“You must know,” she said, her words void of feeling, “you have nothing to fear from miasma itself. It can never affect a landwalker. Only those of Atlantean ancestry are vulnerable.”

“And that is meant to be reassurance?”

His voice had not raised, yet she flinched, her eyes darting to the ground.

“You say that few of your subjects know of this.” He crossed his arms, tension locking his body tight. “And so it seems. A fellow senator is hidden and isolated in the frigid bowels of the earth, his body seized by debilitating, incurable mana corruption. That is an offense against Atlantis’s treasured democracy—one that should have the rest of the nation breaking down your door. Yet all is silent. Even the Harvesters do not demand the return of their lord.”

He stepped forward. She shuffled back a half-step.

“Which means that your own people do not know how widespread miasma has become. That their days are numbered, and that number shrinks with each passing hour.”

He lowered his voice. Each word landed like a stone.

“You have kept them ignorant of their very own death sentence.”

Before Xiph answered, she turned and looked at the retinue of Warmonger warriors who had followed her. They were more than just helmets and spears to her. She knew them. Dimos, who rose early to care for his aging mother and her back problems. Cora, who ran three extra miles daily to prove herself. Laurence, who snuck a packet of sweets to his cohort every weekend. They were her inner centarus, sure, but if it had been possible for human memory, Xiph would have liked to know even the most menial of trainees. Because the Warmongers were her people. The stories that made up her nation.

She fought the sudden, embarrassing surge of emotion and cleared her throat, returning to Sethis.

“Yes.” She lifted her chin, grasping for dignity. “This is a jealousy guarded secret, held in strict confidence of the Senate and their most trusted.”

“Because if the prevalence of miasma was made public, it would only incite panic and chaos.”

“Yes.”

Sethis was silent for a moment. Xiph had not known him for long, but even she could tell that he was unhappy. And he had every right to be. The only thing that was unclear to her was what he despised the most. Her subterfuge, probably. Or that she had endangered his people. Possibly her looks; she heard she was born with a naturally irritating and punchable face. Eh, why pick and choose, it was probably all three.

“My lord.” It was Simon who spoke, grave-faced. “We understand your displeasure. However—”

“Do you understand it?” Sethis’s voice was controlled. Masked. “You, Lord Envoy, who came to our nation under pretense of diplomacy, only to entrap us with a forgotten marriage agreement—a promise forged when the king was at his most vulnerable and desperate.”

He turned to Simon, who was silent and unmoving, but lowered his gaze in shame.

“Because of that public scandal, I have brought with me diplomats, artisans, heirs and heiresses of the nobility all but defenseless away from their homeland. To a land about to disintegrate? Rotting with a calamity that will destroy Atlantis? Even if we are immune to infection—which is not guaranteed—the fear alone could tear them apart.”

His tone grew strained, more anguished than angry, and somehow that hurt more.

“Yes,” Xiph said roughly. “And it was unfair to you, but we invoked the marriage agreement because we were desperate. We needed a Lunaren here.”

Sethis’s gaze whipped to her, and she could only describe his expression of twisted brows and mouth as tormented. “For what? For this?”

“If the prince knows anything about Excalibur—if the Lunaren bloodline holds even a smidge of King Arthus’s powers of cleansing—”

A sudden, raw laugh tore out of him. “You believe the Lunaren line can do anything about this? This is corrupted primordial mana. The same thing that wrought the Storm, the corrupted beasts, mana sickness. Decades of Observatorium research have yielded no cure. Our armies wrangle with it every year and thousands die in the fields fighting it off. We’re just as helpless to it as you are.”

“But the lands of Airlea were ridden with primordial corruption before Arthus cleansed it with Excalibur.”

“A mere legend, I’m afraid.” Sethis shook his head. “Forming light mana can do nothing more for miasma than Forming water to make a soothing hot spring does. A way to calm the mind, and little else.”

Xiph felt her jaw click as it set. “I don’t believe that. Records in the Library of Ancients hold eyewitness accounts on the inhabitability on the eastern shores of Cethmor.”

A pinprick of hope entered Sethis’s clouded gaze.

“Where your kingdom now stands was once infested with curses, sir knight. The leylines were powerful, but ridden with corruption, spreading decay through the land. Whether you credit it to Excalibur or not, something did restore the leylines and turn their power from decay into bounty. Ancient Atlantean cartographers say that for certain.”

Sethis looked back to where Rathos hovered in the chamber, wordless.

“Has the prince ever tried?” Xiph prompted again, gentling her tone. “Has he ever truly dedicated himself to removing corruption?”

He exhaled shakily. “I’m afraid not.”

“Then there’s hope. Maybe it can be fought.”

“But if I had been able to help all this time,” Sethis said, his breathing turning more labored, “if I had been able to stop the Storms—just by applying myself more, just by trying—”

“Hey, we don’t know—” She stopped, her brain finally clicking into place. “Wait, if you had been able to…?”

“You’re right. We must at least try.” Sethis pulled away again and breathed deeply. Once he had apparently mastered himself, he turned to Simon. “How do we begin?”

Simon clicked his tongue. “It was not intended that you interface with Senator Vathalos directly, Your Highness—that would be dangerous beyond question. We only intended to—”

“Spare the niceties, Lord Envoy. You would not have brought me here in the middle of the night with such urgency, had not the situation made a turn for the worse.”

Your Highness? Was Simon playing along? No, his face was serious as the grave. But he’d told Xiph that this man was not the prince. Or that the prince was pathetic.

Hadn’t he?

Simon chuckled softly. “Keenly put, Your Highness. Very well; times are dire, so we shall not mince words.” He straightened, and his tone adopted a clipped, clinical air. “Most people die when corrupted by miasma. But not senators. They eventually…twist into something else. A dangerous monster that can devastate the land in the blink of an eye.”

Sethis’s eye twitched. “Dire indeed.”

“Yes. When he arrived at our Dominion, Senator Vathalos’s initial examination was promising, and he was in stable condition within the Tartarus Cell. But…” Simon sighed, and Xiph could finally see the weariness and the weight digging into his face, wrinkles and pallid color. “Symptoms made a severe turn just today. And now it seems the senator may enter full furor much sooner than projected.”

“Tonight?”

“Perhaps.”

Sethis was trying to maintain his composure, but he was clearly stunned. His face was blank as he wearily rubbed a thumb over his temple. “That’s not much time.”

“I understand we are in no position to make demands of you, Your Highness. Not when we have summoned you in the dead of night with scarcely a moment to handle such momentous news.” Simon bowed his head. “Yet, I hope you sympathize with the urgency, and why we wish to exhaust every possible option.”

“I understand,” Sethis said, and Xiph could tell from his face that he did.

Leadership in Atlantis had been dwindling for centuries. After the cataclysmic civil war that sunk the country into the sea, the remaining senators had been dying off slowly, one by one, consumed by miasma, their dominions absorbed into other dominions without dignity or fanfare. Rathos would just be the latest addition. And with him would die the golden blood of the Harvester; he had neither spouse nor heir.

He had chosen it that way. Some senators thought the curse of the Ensigns too cruel to pass on to offspring. They instead chose to end the family line entirely.

After tonight, the legacy of the Vathalos senators would be extinct.

“I will approach Senator Vathalos in the chamber,” Sethis said after pondering. “I can see if his body has any reaction to light mana. Though if I may be frank—corruptions and mana sickness in Airlea never seemed to be affected.”

“Any result would be a blessing, Your Highness, not an expectation.”

Sethis nodded and stepped towards the doorway. But Lilian, who had been silent during the whole exchange, firmly stepped in front of him.

“Your Highness,” she said. Her calm, even expression belied a firm and rather aggressive-looking grip on her sword. “I must protest this decision.”

“Would it not benefit all involved if we discovered a cure to mana corruption?”

“Indeed it would. And were it any other life—”

“Then the cost would be just as high. A golden diadem does not make any life more precious than others.”

“But the ability and proper demeanor to lead the country does—oh, damn it all, Seth. You’ve already made up your mind.” But Lilian’s jaw only screwed tighter, and she stepped in front of him. “I cannot let you do this.”

He met her gaze evenly. “Step aside, Lilian.”

“Then let me enter with you.”

“That would only put you at risk of mana corruption with no benefit.”

“You have to be more careful. You are the crown prince, cousin.”

“As your crown prince, I command it. You must trust my judgment.”

Both of them were pulled taut as bowstrings, and for a split second, Xiph thought they would snap. Then suddenly, Lilian stepped aside, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like Why do I even bother.

Sethis strode past Xiph, past Lilian, and stood just before the barred entryway, staring resolutely into the dark chamber. The wall sconces soaked the bridge of his nose and the fine cut of his jaw with golden light, gilding his skin with a shimmer like torches in the rain.

He was the prince. Of course he was. He couldn’t have been anything but.

Gods, how had she been so blind?

She’d irritated him, harassed him, paraded like a fool before him, shown the cracks and the fears before him. She’d revealed herself as a flighty, anxious nitwit, more schoolgirl than sovereign. Because in her mind, it had been simply impossible that such a compassionate, bold, intelligent young man would be her betrothed. Fate would not be that kind to her. Fate would grant her somebody petty, and cowardly, and dull.

But Sethis was the prince.

Sethis’s heel tapped as he stepped through the threshold into the chamber. A bolt of panic struck Xiph, snapping her out of her thoughts.

“If you need someone to go,” she said quickly, “then I—”

“No.” Simon never dissented with her publicly. It challenged her authority, made her a little girl. Yet he did now, nothing but steel in his eyes. “The immediate presence of another senator would only exacerbate the corruption.”

She could read between the lines. Her lips pressed. “A senator is also the best weapon we have.”

“For fighting fire with fire, yes.” Simon’s gaze flicked in Sethis’s direction. “But not for protecting another.”

She heard him loud and clear. If she entered that chamber, she would not be protecting Sethis. She would only be a liability.

Always—always—a liability, a problem, a risk. To be contained, solved, sent away.

Feeling a stab, Xiph looked away in silence. Sethis dignified her by not pursuing any questions, though he must have been curious. Lilian was locked up from the tips of her fingers to her toes, glowering like she wanted to punch a hole in the wall. It had to gall her pride and everything she stood for—the prince’s captain of the royal guard, made to stand in the back like a doll or a decoration, watching helplessly as her liege risked her life.

Because she was truly the royal guard, and Sethis was truly the prince.

How? Xiph’s mind screamed. It picked at that one word, circling it over and over like a vulture. How? How? How had a selfish, dismal, inflexible coward like Asher Melfor Lunaren brought up a son who was entirely his opposite, diligent and generous and compassionate? How had the dwindling line of Airlea’s monarchy, rotten with mold and refuse, made a pearl?

She didn’t understand it. Couldn’t understand it. Senators so often ended up like their ancestors. The Harvesters, moody yet nurturing, too restrictive in their love. The Lovers, full of unequivocally beautiful artisans—and poisonous manipulators. The Aegides, upright, stiff, and determined traditionalists.

And her, a Warmonger. Stubborn, bitter, and angry.

Just like her father.

Sethis proceeded into the chamber, the dark fog closing around his figure as he crossed the bridge over the abyss. A little flicker of a candle being snuffed out.

Blood was swirling in Xiph’s ears. Pounding like war drums, frenetic and syncopated. Dribbles of red were slicking her vision. It was hard to see, hard to breathe.

“Dear one.”

Simon’s clear, easy voice banished the feeling for a blissful moment of reprieve. Xiph blinked, disoriented.

Simon was watching her with eyes of pity. “Are you feeling well?” he asked. “Perhaps you should retire for the night.”

She knew what he really meant. Best for you to leave if you cannot keep control.

“No,” she replied. “No, I have to watch this.”

“That’s the least you could do,” Lilian muttered under her breath, probably thinking she was being subtle.

“That’s right.” Lilian twitched at that, but Xiph focused on Simon, holding his golden gaze. “And you don’t know. You might need me.”

Because if the worst happens, and Rath enters furor, I’m still the best weapon we’ve got.

Even if it means fire will consume fire.

There’s no need to fear the dark, my sunlight, whispered Esther Forsythe Lunaren’s voice in Sethis’s memory. For you can always shine.

That was how she had first taught him to Form light. They had been in the palace archives. Outside, lightning hissed as rain and shrieking wind battered the glass—but not even the storm’s light bled inside through the drawn curtains. It was pitch black, the kind of inky darkness that permeated everywhere like a fog, inescapable.

Sethis should have been terrified—but he wasn’t. Not with his mother’s arms resting around him, her warmth surrounding him like a blanket.

Try again. There was no fear in her voice, only unshakable determination. Imagine that you’re taking a little handful of the darkness, Seth. Hold it close to you, like a hug. Imagine that it’s feeling cold and you can warm it up.

And Sethis tried.

Scientifically, manacraft was nothing as relational and personable as hugging and warming. Queen Esther was teaching him, in a simple and digestible way, how to take strands of outside mana and, with a little burning of his manawell, convert them into light mana—an element that was compatible with his manacraft.

Every Former did this. Halcyon Yuden converted to water mana for his waves. Karis Caelute converted to a blend of flower-and-ice mana for her sugar-thread. It was the only way they could efficiently craft large Forms in a short amount of time.

But little Sethis knew none of this. Spinning mana felt close enough to hugging and warming. So it worked for him. Warmth blossomed in his chest as his manawell buzzed, filling with converted light mana—a feeling that would soon become familiar.

Mother, it’s warm, he said.

Good, dearest. Now, what you just warmed should feel like a long spool of thread. Try to pull that thread together.

Like Aster Millie!

Yes, like the little weaver who turned straw into gold.

Sethis focused and pulled that warmth, knitting it together carefully. He saw a yellow spark jump in his palm, warm and inviting.

His mother gave a delighted gasp. Oh! Wonderful! You’ve done it! Can you try holding it longer?

Little Sethis squinted. He puffed his cheeks out and made a noise like a dying fish.

The light sputtered again. This time, it flickered like a little firefly, fluttering in the darkness, but insistently gold.

Isn’t that incredible? Esther breathed, smiling joyfully. You always have that in you. You can shine for others, even in their darkest moments. You just have to choose it.

Being probably six years old at the time, he hadn’t the faintest idea what she had been talking about. But maybe she’d known, even back then, that her time with him would be short. Maybe she’d known that his memory would be strong, and he would hoard the kernels of wisdom she left him through the long winter of her absence.

Choose to shine. No matter the darkest night. It was the legacy she left him to bear.

In the musty darkness of the Atlantean cell, Sethis summoned a wispy globe of light in his palm—barely the size of a marble, yet bright as a torch. Gold rays speared through a faint, ominous fog that was billowing on the floors of the cell. The clamminess of it puckered his skin into gooseflesh, sizzling with an undercurrent of mana.

Senator Rathos hovered before him, suspended in chains. Up close, he looked even more pitiable and horrific. Luminescent veins spidered all across his pale flesh; his limbs were contorted and infested with lesions that seemed to bubble; ivory bone matter punctured his skin and contorted around him like a cage. Without the containment barrier to protect him, Sethis felt the overpowering aura of corrupted mana wash over his skin in waves, making his vision swim and bile rise to his throat.

Immediately it was evident to him: This was not enough. The Tartarus Cell was powerful, fueled by magic far more ancient than anything Sethis had experienced in Airlea—and even its barrier felt brittle to Sethis, a dam on the verge of shattering with a single drop more of water. Whatever dwelled in Rathos was about to combust, and take everyone with him.

Impossible, Sethis thought, dismayed. This is an impossible battle.

But whispers of Xiph’s voice, piercing as an arrow, filled his mind. Has the prince ever tried? Has he ever truly dedicated himself to removing corruption?

No. He had not.

Mana corruption is incurable, the Observatorium had told him. Anyone touched by it is turned inside-out. Their very manawell is diseased, and once their greatest asset, becomes their greatest enemy.

He had believed them. And they had spoken true—according to Airlean knowledge. Hundreds of sages had attempted to research cures to mana corruption, to no avail. What would he, a prince sheltered within the iron bubble of the palace, son of the failing king, have known about the sciences?

So Sethis hadn’t bothered searching. Hadn’t scoured the texts of Aster Arthus’s legends, searching for the kernel of truth that lay behind every myth. Had shackled himself with the childish belief that only Excalibur, a sword of legend and yore, could cure corruption—and then hadn’t bothered looking for the sword, out of fear that he would be driven to the same madness as the insurgent Lightbringer.

In his attempt to do good, he had been paralyzed, every bit as complacent and guilty as his forebears.

Sethis turned to Rathos and braced his stance. Well, no longer. Perhaps he would fail. Everyone seemed to expect it from him as the latest Lunaren. But at the very least, he owed it to himself—and his mother—to try.

Choose to shine. Even if it would not puncture the dark.

Sethis began to take in the surrounding mana and spin it into light mana. He felt some resistance, which he had expected. There was no sun here, no moon, no ocean bioluminescence for even a faint glow to assist him. All light would have to be made by him alone.

His manawell burned as he Formed the light mana into rays. Searing light strobed the cell, lashing across Rathos’s body.

No response.

Sethis tried not to waver. Light mana was one of the most flighty elements to work with, but when mastered, full of boundless potential. It could be bound into a sturdy weave for impervious shields with a texture like fabric; it could be sharpened into disappearing blades; it could infuse a weapon with burning radiance. And those were merely the methods with which Sethis was intimately familiar.

There were plenty of historic Lunarens who bent light in other ways: Owain Lunaren had Formed an entourage of radiant doves as battle familiars; Halle Lunaren had mended severe wounds with her healing glow; Talfryn Lunaren had warded decay as he traversed the fetid impassable marshes of the distant south. Light and darkness were two highly potent, mysterious sources of mana, their primordial chaos only surpassed by time and space mana—which had only ever been manipulated by Aster Merlin in the history of all mankind.

So perhaps, Sethis mused, it was not his mana, but simply his method that was incorrect. He was too restricted in how he thought about light mana. He needed to find a new Form for it.

What purified?

Water by boiling, gold by melting…

Fire.

Sethis took his rays of light and unraveled them, attempting to fan the mana into a plume. He envisioned each thread coming apart, then wafting like smoke. It was like working a muscle he had never used before; there was a twinge, and he felt a painful throbbing in his chest, like his heart was straining against its cavity. He gritted his teeth and ignored it.

More fuel. More fire. More.

His manawell shivered as it flared. The magic surged out of him and poured into the embers. The light burst like a roaring beacon. Golden flames plumed skyward, licking angrily at the walls of the containment barrier. The very air rippled around him, murky and turbulent. There was no heat, no scorch—only a consuming, blinding radiance.

Little one.

No sound reached Sethis’s ears, yet the unmistakable impression of a choral, unearthly voice resonated through the floor, shaking his bones.

Sethis jerked back, eyes flying open, concentration lost. The light spilled away, swallowed whole by the darkness.

His efforts, gone. Nothing to show for it but a desolate manawell.

Rathos was awake, and watching him with eerie, luminescent irises, framed by inky darkness, the pupils narrow and snakelike. His veins glowed under his clammy skin like a river of stars, a sight as grotesque as it was beautiful.

A tremor ran up Sethis’s hands. He fought to still them.

Careful, little one, chimed the ghostly chorus with a tinge of mockery. Surely you knew that a force of great power would not be so easily subjugated.

The voice dug into Sethis’s skull, pierced his temples with a vice grip. He flinched, breathing shallowly through the sharp pain, trying to ward off the sudden wave of terror that pounded through his veins.

All that effort, and his manacraft had done nothing. What had he expected? Mana corruption had never been reversed. Sethis was helpless in the face of such all-consuming power, barely an insect. Failure of a Lunaren. His mother had died, murdered by her own people, his father was an incompetent puppet, his brother a recluse, and soon Sethis, just like them, he would—

No. No, he could not believe this. His mind felt hazy, unfocused. More likely, his senses were being scrambled by the senator’s corrupted, supernatural aura that invoked fear and despair.

Choose to shine, no matter the darkest night.

Sethis set his jaw and shook his head, the physicality of the motion clearing his mind for a spell.

“You stand captive, strung up like helpless prey,” he said, “and you call yourself a force of great power? Then where is it, senator?”

A strange, discordant rumble billowed in waves through Sethis’s mind. It took him a moment to place the noise as laughter.

Senator. A bygone title for a weak old man. WE are beyond senate. WE are beyond flesh. Your attempts to goad US, boy, are cute.

Rathos sounded utterly inhuman. Acted utterly inhuman. This shell of a man, full of grandeur and delusion, was nothing like the calm senator Sethis had spoken with on the banquet night. Not one iota of reason was left in him.

Heart sinking, Sethis pressed a thumb under the crossguard of his sword. “What happened to you? What are you?”

Ascended. Rathos stretched to his full height, and Sethis felt a sharp wave of trepidation. Allow US to show you.

Sethis barely reacted in time. Was there an explosion? A disruption? It was utterly, eerily silent. Like something in the very fabric of the universe had snapped, and suddenly the air was shards of glass, the ground folding in two, needles stabbing into every inch of his skin. He threw up a warding veil with the scraps of mana left in him, but it folded like paper. Agony washed over him in a flood as he was bodily thrown backward, an indescribable surge of mana writhing through his veins and choking him—

A body darted in front of him, swift as a silverfish. Arms flung outward, shielding him from the sudden force of mana. Coral red hair billowed like a bloodstained flag.

“You have a quarrel, old snake,” snarled the voice of Xiphia Kairhea Vascea, her syllables sharp with bitter Atlantean, “you pick it with me.”

Sethis staggered to his feet, struggling to focus through the aches assaulting his limbs and the base of his skull. The containment barrier around the Tartarus Cell had melted; the semitranslucent dome that had once eclipsed the platform was gone. Xiph stood on the solitary bridge between him and Rathos. The shackles had shattered completely, leaving Rathos free.

And Xiph…

She was bleeding. To put it lightly.

A large gash coursed up the entire length of her arm, soaking her left side in blood. Her other hand gripped her crimson spear, within which shuddered with biting sparks as if it were housing lightning. But she stood tall and steady, as if she neither saw nor felt the grievous wounds shredding her flesh.

“Xiph,” Sethis croaked. His mouth was dry, his head still reeling. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t—”

“No. You did everything you could.” Her voice was soft, but firm. “Consul.”

“Yes, domina.”

Simon’s voice came from right behind. Sethis jerked around, startled. When had the Prime Consul entered? And right next to him was Lilian, her sword still sheathed, but her stance braced and ready. To run, Sethis realized belatedly. Specifically, to run with him in tow.

Xiph lifted her chin and exhaled a cloud of warm vapor into the freezing air. “See the prince of Airlea away from this place.”

Sethis felt a shock, and his eyes blazed like fire. “You’re critically wounded,” he said, fumbling for his sword. “If we leave, we leave together. You cannot perish here and abandon your people.”

“Consul, go.”

Simon’s ordinarily unflappable face twisted in pain. He nodded sharply to Lilian, who needed no further motivation. The both of them seized Sethis by the arms and bodily pulled him out of the chamber.

“No!” He pulled for his manawell, but found only a dying gasp. He’d used too much in too short a time. “Are you mad?! Save your senator!”

Simon said nothing, which only furthered Sethis’s fury. Sensing that Simon’s grip was the weaker one, Sethis twisted that arm hard, wrenched back, and simultaneously swept the consul’s feet from under him.

Simon toppled with a surprised grunt, releasing him. But before Sethis could draw his sword, Lilian tackled him hard. His head knocked against the stone ground and sent an earsplitting pain through his skull. She wrenched his arms behind him until he was locked down, helpless to do anything other than look up and watch.

Xiph was already engaged. Her small figure darted like an arrow as she struck at Rathos with her spear in a flurry of jabs. But nothing seemed to land; Rathos barely crooked his fingers, and abyssal mana—dark as night, deep as the sea, somewhat viscous and shimmering—congealed into vines and thorns and knobbed branches that deflected her easily. He appeared unbothered as he levitated peacefully, his robes wafting like seaweed in calm ocean depths.

What is this? Sethis had never seen a human wield this manner of chaotic, ravenous power. Not even the Dragon Whisperer of Airlea held such authority. This mana was clearly a primordial force that originated from the depths of the oceanic trenches.

No, Sethis knew it as he saw Rathos’s eyes gleam with an unearthly light. The prickle of untempered mana, the choking grasp of primordial chaos…

This was nothing like fighting a human.

It was just like fighting a Class Five corrupted beast.

Rathos’s laugh rattled from within Sethis’s skull. Oh, Krios. Silly child. He extended a ghostly hand towards Xiph. WE know you wish to be free.

Xiph screamed in rage and plunged towards the corrupted senator. An abyssal stalk burst from the ground and smashed right into the center of her spear, shattering it in two. She was bodily flung back with a cry of pain, and barely leapt away before thorns erupted from beneath her feet, nearly impaling her through the leg.

No—no, Asters help him, Sethis was going to see it again, he was going to watch helplessly as someone died in his stead—

He wrenched as hard as he could, jostling Lilian off of him. He lunged to his feet and surged forward when—

Suddenly cold fingers pressed on his forehead. He felt a jolt as mana coursed into him.

“Be still,” Simon said quietly.

The energy sapped away from Sethis’s bones. His body went limp, though his mind was perfectly alert. It was a wholly disorienting feeling when he tried to thrash and his body did not obey him—like a mind trapped in a rag doll.

Damn him. Sethis hadn’t bothered to ponder what Simon’s manacraft was. Or what could have motivated his high position as the Prime Consul of the Warmongers. The humble scholar had never tried to show off his particular magical inclination or aptitude—and that should have served as warning enough that whatever he studied, he was a master of it. Only those with nothing to prove felt no need to do so.

“You couldn’t have done that earlier?” Lilian grunted, stooping to bear most of Sethis’s weight.

“It leaves him helpless in a situation where we can use every manacrafter we can get.” Simon groaned and rubbed his back. “Quickly, now.”

Lilian hoisted her liege across the bridge and through the doorway, Simon following closely. Sethis could only watch as Xiph spun around Rathos, her cloak a teal smear amidst a swarm of thrashing abyssal vines. Her strength was already flagging from her injuries; he could see it in the extra weight behind her leaps, the hesitation in her movements, the desperation as she ducked and wove. She was focusing defensively to buy them more time, and it still wasn’t enough.

That shell of yours is pitiful, Rathos scoffed. He extended a bony hand like a finger of death.

There was no time to call out a warning.

A giant, jagged abyssal thorn, large as a lance, ran squarely into Xiph’s small frame. It impaled her through the chest, the sheer force flinging her into the air.

She hit the cavernous roof, a pinned butterfly. Limp. Brutalized.

Oh, gods.

Sethis’s vision blurred—shook—and a cold pressure clamped on his skull, as if his whole head was crumpling inward.

She’d died.

He’d just watched her die. Murdered right in front of him. And he had been unable to lift a finger.

But Sethis could barely absorb this fact before something inexplicable happened before his eyes.

The thorn dislodged from the roof. Xiph’s small, tattered figure plummeted like a stone—

—and then her limbs snapped inward. She turned sharply. She landed neatly on her feet, crouched forward like a beast.

She drew herself to her feet, and a set of draconic horns glittered from her skull.

She raised a hand. The ends of her fingers were charred black and sharpened into wicked claws. She gripped the thorn-lance, and with a wrench of the wrist, snapped it clean in half—then pulled it out of her with a sickening, fleshy noise.

There should have been a gaping hole in her chest. Her tunic was torn and soaked in blood front and back. But her skin was already knitting back together—healed flesh glittering with a silver sheen.

She lifted her head. Her eyes were void, seared black like ink, the pupils a vibrant, snakelike red.

There was no humanity in those eyes. No feeling.

Nothing at all.

A chill racked Sethis’s spine. His eyes were transfixed on the sight, even as the cell door began to rumble closed.

The last thing he saw before the stones ground to a shut was abyssal mana gathering, then congealing into a barbed tail that lashed out behind her. That was all. No floating, no weaponry, no nest of thorns. She cut a small figure looking up at the grand silhouette that was the Harvester.

Yes. He heard Rathos’s laughter rattle to a frenzy. And then two words that Sethis wished he could not hear:

Awaken, sister.

“I cannot believe this.”

Karis watched as young Simon lowered the report, his face twisted in agitation. He was staring desperately at Ilias, as if the Warmonger senator could give him answers.

“Well, that’s on you.” Ilias shrugged, an irreverent and notably Xiph-like motion. “You’re a learned scholar. Open-minded to the impossible, are you not?”

“This will incite utter panic!” Simon snapped. “The Kardeia—the only thing that has kept our city from being consumed by the ocean depths—is also the source of our doom!”

“Incorrect. The Kardeia itself is causing no harm.” Ilias lifted a finger. “The report is quite clear. What we know as miasma is specifically leviathic corruption—the mana degradation that occurs when Leviathans are in close proximity.”

“And according to your study, that chaotic resonance appears to be originating from an interaction between the Kardeia…and the senators.” Simon began to fling the report down—but pulled back at the last second, unwilling to commit to damaging such revolutionary data. “I know what you imply, Ilias. But the senators are very clearly human, not Leviathans.”

“Is that so? How else could the supernatural powers of the Ensigns, so beyond any manacrafter in the world, be explained?”

“Traces of the golden blood of the gods. Boons absorbed by the first Ensigns, who slew the first Leviathans. Plenty of answers lie in our founding legends—”

“Lies! Grand delusions!” Ilias laughed derisively. “Dear, wretched Simon, it’s not the blood of the gods being passed from generation to generation…but the blood of the Leviathans.”

Simon opened his mouth. Then closed it.

“Now all makes sense. The last writings of the Father Warmonger, our first Ensign.”

He raised his voice to a resonant boom that sent chills raking down Karis’s spine. The firelight flickered, twisting the shadows on the wall.

“And so we conquered them. And the spoils we savored; upon the hearts we feasted. And the taste of their subjugation was sweet as honey, ambrosia on our tongues.”

“Mere symbolism,” Simon whispered, shaking his head. “It speaks of conquering the Leviathans, of savoring the hard-won victory over dire foes of Atlantis—”

“It was literal!” Ilias’s hand struck his desk. “Of all our glorified ancestors, only the Warmonger had the guts to admit what atrocity they had committed! They ate the raw, beating hearts of the Leviathans, absorbing their magical capacities into their own bodies, allowing bestial blood to corrupt them. A capacity that humankind cannot bear.”

Karis stepped back, her mouth dry, her mind numb.

“And so, with every child we sire, we spread the mutation. Every senator’s blood rots with this demented filth, this original sin, until the miasma overtakes them.” He laughed hollowly; the firelight played over his sunken eyes. “And so it shall continue until every last senator is wiped from existence.”

Simon was stricken silent, pale-faced, his hands curled into white fists. His lips trembled as he struggled to find words.

“I understand the urgency, but we cannot sink to mindless murder. Or we would be no greater than the beasts we slayed.”

“But do you not see it, Simon?”

The smile on Ilias’s face was ghostly and haunting, a pinprick on the boundary between madness and enlightenment.

“With this, Atlantis has never been a country of humans,” he said. “From the very beginning, we were always a country of monsters.”

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