Archive of Our Own

The fog of the early morning made the shining glow of the creature’s claws seem almost unreal. In hindsight it had been utterly and completely foolish of the Bureau of the Architect to ever stash this concept away where the public could reach it, seeing as it more belonged into Anyder’s academic research menageries than anywhere else, but there was absolutely no denying the creature was breathtaking in its own regard. Bioluminescence was such a pointless flourishing touch that it almost wrapped around to making this creation seem all the more whole for it. And thankfully that eerie glow gave his quarry away, made tracking it easier and made him acutely aware of where its claws and teeth were.

How strange that the eyes did not glow in that unearthly crystalline blue light.

But here he was, eyes narrowed as he watched the creation prowl, cloaked by fog and the almost gentle touch to the intense surrounding water aether to mask his own existence. Much longer and his muscles would atrophy—but he was acting under Pashtarot and Fandaniel’s explicit orders. This creation was to be brought back to Amaurot post-haste, in one piece or returned to matrix form. Many others would have had no issues with destroying it with nary a trace, but a delicate hunt for a predator created to be breathtaking and deadly to the unfocused called for a special skill set that few had and fewer controlled to this degree. Centuries, millennia of training and he still paled in comparison to the people who had caught his talent for this sort of sorcery—and all of them still stood in the Emissary’s shade. For what was a politician but a hunter on the prowl, except they hunted with words rather than weapons and their targets were the minds of others?

He closed his eyes. His entire body had gone numb in the cold by now, and he could swear he heard the nagging voices of several people. Verdandi, for endangering himself as per usual. Aigle, for leaving her alone for days on end as he tracked it. Esteemed Nabriales, because that was what they did and they were unfortunately one of the few people who had no qualms about sparring matches with someone who had been given the duty to take care of things that endangered Amaurot in the literal sense.

Inhale.

The creation moved, still not aware of his presence as the fog grew ever so slightly lighter and the water-drenched aether of their surroundings turned ever so slightly to their normal balance.

Exhale.

If he did not move soon his legs would cramp up, but if he moved now he might startle the creation away and all this hard work would have been for naught.

Inhale.

Perhaps he ought to see what the Bureau of Ecology thought of this particular escapade—and Aigle did enjoy walking through the greenhouses whenever business took him there….

Exhale.

Goodness, if this creation did not tear him apart then his adoptive daughter most certainly would, and he knew he deserved it.

Inhale.

The creation turned its back on him, just as it became too painful for him to stay still for a moment longer. While he did not cloak himself with the Underworld as many sorcerers of his skill level would, he willed the wall of water-aspected aether to move with him. Under his gentle touch it churned like a storm at sea, completely erasing all traces of his soul and therefore his existence even in the eyes of a creation. It had no idea he was coming—he needed to end this fast, or his energy reserves would run dry and he would be left at the mercy of this enticingly glowing teeth and claws. Goodness, up close it was even more gorgeous than under the layer of fog, though it lost the unearthly presence. It was a creation, a being without a soul, an existence without a meaning other than what it was created for. It had too many teeth, its maw was all askew, the claws were chipped and one it had lost as it scrambled out of its containment near the edges of Amaurot a week away from here.

It stood no chance as he used the last of his energy to blast the aether that cloaked him at it. The combined elements of surprise and water took swift care of it, and he landed next to it, staggering slightly as he tried to keep his bearings. All he needed was to breathe in. Breathe out. In. Out.

As he caught his breath so did the creation, and he barely dodged a snap of glowing teeth and furious, beady eyes. But now that he was close enough, now that his aching muscles had livened up again, now that his focus was on the delicate net that wove this creation, he could dig his hands into what made this creature. He pulled at the strings even as it tore through his sleeve, clenched his teeth and ripped part of the net apart as he backed away.

A creation matrix fell to the ground, pristine and brimming with aether as if it had just been created in the Bureau of the Architect.

He himself dropped to his knees and desperately tried to catch his breath.

Were he on the other continent, he would have been paid rather well for this excursion—not that Amaurot cared about things such as payment, any sort of legal tender. What would have been used as coins, money, beyond the sea went unused for the most part, unless the metal proved to be useful for creation matrices.

He raised an eyebrow as he entered the room and saw the sunset reflecting off countless floating pieces of metal; steel entwined delicately with gold, silver spun around copper, little pieces of tin clinking against one another as he ducked b elow them looking for the only person in this apartment who could be doing this .

“You’re late,” a high-pitched and quivering voice said from somewhere, and he knew that she was sulking around a corner, behind the door that led into the kitchen. “You are very, very late, father.”

The metal pieces that had been carefully suspended in the air now started shimmying around, the soft tinkling of some of them gently bumping into one another filling the silence as he did not answer her. She already knew everything that he could or would say. She had also long since outgrown any excuses or tall tales about his duties whenever the Convocation required a seasoned tracker rather than the average sorcerer.

He watched a piece of silver gleaming in the sunset float past his face, the dangerous sharp edge barely away from his nose. Aigle was mad. Aigle was beyond mad, and he did not need to turn to his ability to see her soul to know that it would have gone darker than usual in her quiet fury.

“I am, indeed. If it is of any consolation to you, ‘twas not Nabriales keeping me this time around at the very least.”

A vaguely displeased sound made the metal in the room move a little faster. He ducked once again, suddenly aware of the fact that he had not only left her alone for too long without a warning, he was also currently breaking the only rule in the apartment that she had asked for. Slowly he reached for his mask, removed it ever so carefully—the metal swirling about slower told him that he was at least somewhat quelling her anger.

He did break his promise to not look at her with the Sight in that very moment; Aigle’s soul shone as it always did. Few people were born with solid colour souls, and fewer still with souls that lacked a distinct colour. Light as it was it blinded people with keener sight, but he thoroughly enjoyed the spark of light that was Aigle’s soul as the anger simmered gently when she finally came out of her half-hearted hiding space.

“Was it at least something important this time around?”

The metal floating about the apartment quivered slightly and then unravelled like a living being, twisted and churned while reflecting the sunset light that fell in through the window. He watched as she undid her creation, the matrix she wound up holding in the end surprisingly small and most definitely not meant for a child not even forty summers old.

“It was imposing, to say the very least. Tracking a creature based on its glowing claws and fangs in heavy fog is not a deployment I would like to soon repeat.”

Her blue eyes could be so piercing, as if they reflected the light of her soul to stare right through him. For a moment she was quiet and when she finally closed her eyes with a sigh to shake her head, he knew that she was not as mad as she had been when he entered the apartment. He chose to gamble a bit with his adoptive daughter’s ever so fickle mood and walked over to her, got on his knees and looked at her calmly.

“But that does not excuse my abrupt departure without a warning.”

“It really does not, father.”

“No, it does not—and I would instead thank you for your patience. It is most reassuring to know that you are waiting for me here.”

A huff, and she brushed some of her blonde hair out of her face. Her angry facade was cracking. “I-It’s not as if I didn’t know you’d be returning. So wait is all I can do a-and… I hate it. I hate knowing your duties are that dangerous. What if you do not return one day? What if a stranger walks through this door?”

Ah.

He had been on the cusp of a century, about to be seen as an adult when his parents had died at sea. He had waited in vain and not been surprised when a stranger was at the door he opened to tell him that he was an orphan now and for the time being under the care of a distant relative. Aigle had had no such people, the freak accident that had thrown the Bureau of the Administrator into turmoil for the better part of half a decade claiming her parents and her being not even fifteen at the time.

Children were rare, freak accidents that killed people were even rarer, and the fact that a child lost both her parents might as well have been unprecedented. He had been one of the people taking care of the mess as Nabriales went into a mad state of trying to tie down whatever had happened, and in the process had lost his heart to this child who reminded him of himself at that age. She had taken his offer and the city had been happy to have the child accounted for and in a stable home—but Aigle retained the latent fear of a stranger telling her that the person who had taken care of her for more than half her life by this point would vanish just as her birth parents had had.

He shrugged gently, opening his arms a little—an invitation she took immediately as she threw herself into his arms and her soul blazed with relief that got rid of the last bit of anger.

“You have nothing to fear. There will never be a stranger walking through these doors, Aigle.”

The first and most important skill for a sorcerer was control. Children lacked it—sorcerers were blessed and cursed with a connection to the Underworld that others did not have and never would have. He had been a case where that connection had been found early. His path had been set long before he reached adulthood, his parents both terrified of what it would mean for his future when he was set to become a sorcerer. Especially when he was found to be a mediocre one whose skills lay in complete and utter control to the point that he could deliberately still the sways of his own soul.

The new arrival, brought in by Mnemosyne and about the same age as Aigle, lacked that sort of control. He had been found late, very late, on the other end of the continent beside the sea. It showed in the way he struggled with control by this point, and the boy’s proud nature made him not an easy person to work with. They all agreed however that this child had been blessed with a connection to the Underworld that might as well crown him its living prince.

The boy’s path was set; control was something that could be learned. He would never not be an option of utter destruction in a city that abhorred it—it was not a fate that he envied, but then again those who controlled their powers so well that they could cloak themselves were also frowned upon.

This delightfully dark soul that burned with violet was something to behold the first time Hades controlled his powers properly. Every person in the vicinity stopped to marvel at it and he found himself humming a note of approval as well. That boy would be well on his way.

He would have preferred returning home—Aigle was with her best friend until later, and he did enjoy watching the city from the window a lot more than he let on. But his plans for a cup of tea were ruined when a hand grabbed him by the back of his cloak and pulled him backwards. He made an embarrassing startled noise—he already knew which person was going to harass him for his time and he rolled his eyes once he turned around.

“Must you, Icarus?”

“Unfortunately for you, Osiris, I must,” the other man said with a sly grin on his face. “The cranky old badger would not stop harassing me until I went to get you.”

‘Cranky old badger’ might as well have been their official title given their eternally foul mood; but no one quite dared saying that into Nabriales’s face. The sole exception to that was Icarus—his pride would be his downfall, Osiris repeated time and time again, and Nabriales was going to eat his face before long. Still, having a marine biologist who frequented the Bureau of the Administrator play messenger was unlike Nabriales. Whenever business was concerned they sent their right-hand woman.

“Harassing you,” he deadpanned when he realised that Nabriales sending Icarus meant they were merely looking for a fifth opinion on something irrelevant to Amaurot.

“I was merely dropping off word from Mitron, and next I know the bastard’s up in my business.”

“Your business being your messy break-up from the other week?”

“Ugh.” Icarus waved a hand through the air and Osiris knew he had hit a sore spot. A sore spot he was willing to drive a rusty knife into should he occasion arrive—while most people would call them friends, Osiris and Icarus were far from getting along. Too much pride on both sides, Aigle said with wisdom beyond her years. “Look, do me a favour and hop on over to the Bureau of the Administrator before Nabriales decides to come for my head.”

“It would explain your atrocious haircut at the very least.”

“Hey!”

Osiris shrugged—when the Convocation called, a good citizen of Amaurot answered. “Do think about your face the next time—you look ridiculous with long hair. I will be on my way, then.”

People with keener sight would see nothing but a brilliant mess of colour, shining iridescent and blinding. Aigle’s best friend was an Amaurotine her age called Persephone, and their soul was outstandingly hard to perceive even for his mediocre sight. All he knew was there was a solid blue base to it and the iridescent merely happened to be the secondary, perhaps even tertiary colour. Just as Aigle very likely had a secondary or tertiary colour to hers that was impossible to see through the light base. Persephone was a sharp young adult, good with words and outstandingly diligent with what they put their mind upon. Aigle by comparison was a lot calmer and focused on tasks that no one liked—something that she had unfortunately gotten from him, he realised with a grim grin as he plucked a matrix from the ground in a sweeping motion.

Whoever had suggested this creation deserved to be locked up for the rest of eternity. It had no use for good, it was a bloody flesh-eating insectoid that spewed poison. Considering that it had nearly escaped from the Akademia meant that he would have to speak to Lahabrea—he and the Speaker did not get along.

He was negatively surprised when he entered the Speaker’s office and found a young face around Aigle’s age that he had never seen before. The passage of time was baffling at best to him and unimportant for Amaurotines in general. He stared at the blonde young man for a long time before he shifted awkwardly under Osiris’ piercing stare.

“Lahabrea is… unavailable, but perhaps I might be able to help you, Master Osiris.” Whoever this man was, he was softer-spoken than Lahabrea’s previous right hand—and Osiris was not sure he liked that. There was a danger hiding in the soft-spoken and calm ones; he himself was an outstanding example of that. “Though I do reckon that you are here for the same reason why Lahabrea just stormed out of office.”

Loki of Amaurot, as it turned out over the course of this uncomfortable conversation, had been correct. This creation had been the latest blunder of the Speaker’s former right hand, another in a long string of strange nonsense that had been going on for the longest time. It had started with a rejected concept escaping and nearly killing a young man called Hythlodaeus, then led into a mysterious plague that killed the fish under the current Mitron’s care so rapidly that the man nearly descended into a mad fit of rage right then and there, then gone on to plants under the care of Halmarult.

“In a sense, I believe that the creature you hunted quite a while back also ties into this nonsense,” the young man said and brushed some hair out of his face. “No one right in their mind would create for the sole purpose of destruction—but we cannot discount the fact that someone might be enjoying this little game. My, ah, predecessor all but took off when accused, and that is why Lahabrea is unavailable.” He drummed his fingers on the back of a book on the desk, then shook his head. Those calm grey eyes that seemed to sparkle golden from the right angle betrayed that he was dealing with a sorcerer of similar skill level despite the man being much younger than him. “Alas, considering that the public has been endangered—there is no denying that this has gone on long enough. Emet-Selch ensured that the one victim did not die from blood loss, yes, but what might happen the next time it goes unchecked?”

He kept his stance and expression neutral, though something about this man unsettled him ever so slightly. No one that age spoke like this, not even the ones that were held in the highest regards. This almost sounded… flippant.

“You are talking about a potential loss of life, boy,” Osiris said slowly, and Loki cracked a smirk.

“That I am, indeed. Of course, being of the Convocation or working closely with it, it is our duty to ensure not a single soul comes to harm. A duty we have failed, seeing as young Hythlodaeus was already trampled down upon.”

Osiris kept himself from narrowing his eyes at that statement. ‘Young Hythlodaeus’?

Loki was about the same age as the latest addition to the Bureau of the Architect.

Something was afoot here, and he carefully decided to look at it from another angle. The angle of a sorcerer, in fact—and was immediately rewarded with nothing.

He would know if there were others in this city capable of cloaking their souls to this extent. He did not know the names of each and every sorcerer save for a select few, but those that had the ability to cloak their souls were all known to him because of the fact that it were five. Merely five, and only one towered over him in sheer skill at this point. Someone he had never had the pleasure of meeting, someone who Nabriales and Icarus oft complained about him being eerily similar to.

Osiris blinked once, twice, and watched the young man in the room stand there with his almost serenely deranged smile. It looked wrong, too crooked and too false to belong onto that young face. Most of the students and lecturers at Akademia Anyder were calmer than others, yes, but they were genuine with what they did generally. If this was truly Loki then he would have… seemed younger. But if this was truly the very right hand of the Speaker then something was truly amiss about him. There were plenty of ways to veil one’s appearance—mere shapeshifting was child’s play most of the time but he had utilised it before while hunting down wayward creations. There was one thing that shapeshifting did not affect: the soul.

Loki was not someone who learned the arts of cloaking his own soul. He was dealing with a shape-shifted person capable of hiding their own soul at a level that he had not quite yet reached.

He nodded, slowly and carefully. “I am quite certain that you have already shared this with the people involved—hence why Lahabrea and his new right hand Loki took off together to chase the previous right hand. Am I correct, Emissary?”

A chuckle, surprisingly devoid of any emotion rang through the room while the appearance of the other man in the room shifted. Violently so, in fact, seeing as Loki was surprisingly small for his age and the Emissary Elidibus an intimidatingly tall and old man.

“I see you are as perceptive as they say.” Compared to the young man from before, the Emissary was an almost hauntingly strange sight—the colours of the Emissary always were on the streets of Amaurot, as pristinely white as the masks they all wore and with the red mask of a member of the Convocation being oft compared to blood. Truly, the Emissary was the oldest holder of a seat on the Convocation, yet even from a distance he knew that he was dealing with perhaps the strongest of them all. “Indeed, Lahabrea and young Loki will hopefully either return with the scoundrel bound or with a general direction into which we can follow him. Thank you for taking care of this miscreation in the meanwhile.”

Osiris shook his head slightly. “As citizen of Amaurot it is the least I can do to help keep her safe.”

Elidibus tilted his head slightly, his expression as unreadable as his soul was. Goodness, that level of control was astounding. He stood there feeling like he was being judged, and whatever the Emissary found was very likely to his liking. “Nabriales speaks of you in the highest of tones, and I think I see where they come from.”

As if that cranky old badger managed a tone that was not spitting venom. But he nodded ever so slightly, hoping that his expression remained painfully neutral. “I assure you, any praise is unnecessary, but appreciated regardless.” The last thing he wanted to do was complain about Nabriales, especially with so dire a situation on hand.

For a long moment it was quiet in the room—and then a low laugh escaped the Emissary. “Yes, yes—you are indeed just as excellent at this as they say you are. Anyone else would take this offering to complain about the Administrator’s foul moods, but you keep your presence level and neutral.”

If there was a word for the emotion he was feeling right now he knew that it was not enough. He was a word away from turning bright red out of embarrassment, was utterly and completely baffled by the sudden change in Elidibus’ mood, and felt a twinge of anger searing in his veins at the sudden drop of the topic from something severe that could affect the city at large to something so… pointlessly whimsical. Thus he remained as calm and collected as always while his head was in utter turmoil over this nonsense.

Elidibus meanwhile seemed as if he was having the best day of his life, going as far as leaning against Lahabrea’s prized bookshelf. He said nothing to the Emissary—the Emissary meanwhile was clearly staring at him and waiting for him to snap. A few minutes passed like that in uncomfortable silence from his part and amused silence from Elidibus’ part until finally, finally the torture ended before it began properly.

“You remain rather calm for someone likely very aggravated by my sudden change of topic at the expense of your nerves. Worry not; if it is not Lahabrea who apprehends his former assistant it will be young Loki. That boy is rather ferocious and likes driving himself mad until he fixes an issue if reports are to be believed. My sincerest apologies for not approaching you with a warning, Osiris.”

He had seen it coming—that encounter had been too odd. All of a sudden it seemed as if everything was under control and more than once he found himself kept by Nabriales when he ran into them. Icarus once again came with a message, though this time it called him into Mitron’s study where he watched the fish in the large tank float by lazily.

Aigle went from unhappy about this arrangement to suddenly rather calm and supportive, her games with metal long since having passed into using her skills to helping where she could.

He was offered the seat of the Emissary, his unparalleled skill with concealing his soul and ability to stay calm in absurd situations when danger was afoot being cited as the main reasons over other candidates. At first he had considered declining, saying that he could not just leave his post unattended—and before he could even say as much, his worries were shattered by having one of the more promising young sorcerers take over his duties.

And thus, he traded his white mask for the red of the Convocation, and the dark robes for the light ones of the Emissary. Amusingly, it seemed as if all of Amaurot had forgotten his existence in the meanwhile and the new Elidibus was a stranger of unknown age and unknown relations. Some rumours said his bloodline went back all the way to the first Elidibus—hogwash, as he called it with a wave of his hand when Aigle and Persephone asked him about that at dinner. The public would soon be done running its mouth; change always begot strange rumours and the fun of gossip would either fade or they would move on to another topic.

Indeed, he felt impervious behind that new mask.

Only one person managed to see right through him, brows likely furrowed behind his mask and his red eyes narrowed as a question burned on Hythlodaeus’ tongue for the better part of an hour before he managed to ask it at long last. It was the first occasion where he truly thought of himself as Elidibus rather than Osiris—that generation that had brought forth people like Aigle and Hythlodaeus would see the winds of change that were starting to blow through to a satisfactory conclusion. And until that change came around he would serve as Emissary.

The other continent was a fascinating place to be, but he still caught himself marvelling at the city before him. Amaurot gleamed at night, a myriad stars both on the ground and in the heavens above shining in unison. The further away from the city one went, the darker the nights became because there were fewer people and less sources of light overall on top of a rather troubling mistake with the energy lines that became apparent bit by bit and that the Bureau of the Architect would very likely tackle under its new Emet-Selch and Chief along with the Bureau of the Administrator, even if Nabriales was less than happy to work with a young and furiously energetic person like the new Emet-Selch.

This city was absolutely nothing like Amaurot.

It was built in the middle of this impressive ancient forest; its houses h igh up in the trees and connected by bridges. In the centre of the city an entire platform was suspended between enormous trees with quite a few buildings on it and a marvellous hanging garden made of some plants he recognised and some that were native to this continent at the very centre of that platform. It was very much unlike Amaurot but its beauty was dazzling in its own way once the sun set and he realised that these people had used their creation to raise plants and creatures that brought light to these boughs without being asked or forced to.

“It is not very often that Esteemed Elidibus is a man as young and untravelled as you,” the head of the city said, a fond smile on her face as she watched a swarm of little glowing birds fly past. “But many times has the Emissary proven to be quite useless in a fight.”

His home claimed to have full control over everything—which was quite frankly a blatant lie but the facade that it had chosen. This continent claimed nothing of the sort and instead said that nature was with them. He understood now, and this woman’s statements told him that perhaps that, too, was a lie. But that had ever been politics—a united front looked better to potential partners or threatening to potential enemies.

“The young and untravelled part is easily remedied; and even combat skills can be harnessed—not that we have any desire to reawaken the old wars. My most sincere apologies for… gawking at your city. It is very unlike Amaurot.”

Another laugh; he had read the reports most diligently and knew that this woman had spearheaded the leadership of this city for so long that she had seen several changes of the Emissary’s title by now. The people of this city kept re-electing her as their leader, and as he spent time in this place he understood. She was surprisingly gentle with whatever she put her hands upon; wilted flowers and the heads of excited children who wanted to come speak to her or the new Emissary from Amaurot. Yet at the same time she was an overbearingly terrifying presence that spoke of the sheer amount of power she still had despite her advanced age, and though they all shared a lifespan rivalling eternity, quite a few people of Amaurot in high positions at this age withdrew. Even as snow started to fall even here on this part of the other continent, small specks of white against the surprisingly verdant trees that did not protect them from the cold winds of winter she remained as calm and gentle as before.

“You were quite right, Emissary,” she eventually said when spring came again and he managed to hold back his astonishment over how suddenly the city changed from green and naught else to a veritable mess of colour as every tree and every plant suddenly sprouted flowers and the blooming season was in full movement just at around the time that he was to return to Amaurot. “Young and untravelled yet skilled in combat does not mean a threat or a bad choice. Any apprehensions that I might have harboured about your appointment have been dispelled—and we look forward to continuing our good relations with Amaurot.”

He bowed his head to her, the red mask and the white cloak by now part of his existence rather than an honour and alien on his skin. He understood why Emissaries were sent to the other continent and why this city in particular had been chosen for him.

“It was an honour to stay in your city, Grand Witch. Amaurot would be delighted to keep relations good and thriving between our cities as it has been for millennia.”

His return to Amaurot was without much fanfare and he was not to stay for long—he was to report whether the City of Trees agreed to keeping the treaties intact even under a new Emissary and then would be sent to the City of Shells.

Aigle nearly crushed him when he entered the apartment, her blonde hair long this time around and a frankly ridiculous amount of metal accessories adorning her. Poor Persephone had clearly not been expecting the Emissary to return on this very day—they had always kept their mask on around him even when Aigle protested and claimed that while stern at times her father was far from getting mad at them for baring their face in this apartment. With their hands slammed into their face they greeted him, a similar amount of nonsensical accessories on them.

It almost hurt to depart from Amaurot so soon after his return, but even so he found himself rather interested by what the City of Shells would be like.

True to its name, the few buildings at the shore there were adorned with countless colourful shells—he had asked Emet-Selch and Chief Hythlodaeus what life at the shore had been like. Emet-Selch had shrugged unenthusiastically and said that he barely remembered it because it had been rather boring; Chief Hythlodaeus had tried to answer everything in earnest but he had stopped after a few minutes to poke fun at Emet-Selch’s refusal to remember when just the other day O Esteemed Emet-Selch had been talking about how sometimes he did miss the refreshing sea breeze.

Indeed, the air in the City of Shells was amazing—but he very soon traded the shoreline part of the city for what made this one of the many marvels from outside Amaurot.

The rest of the city was built under the sea with naught but a delicately spun web of magic keeping water from drowning them all. It looked as if he walked on thin air when under his feet it more felt like a fragile glass vase; and to his eyes he knew that only the strongest blows would do harm to this delicately woven a net of creation magic. Whatever kept the City of Shells under the water, he was more than astonished merely walking through it. Even under the sea the stark white buildings were adorned with shells and countless schools of unknown fish swam around what the people here merely called Amphora.

He was greeted by the Council of Countless, a single Emissary Elidibus face to face with at least a hundred people in a grand ballroom—a ballroom where the walls were made of magical mirrors, which gave the council the appearance of being uncountable what with the reflections on every side and the pristinely polished floor tiles and silver ceiling. Over the course of a decade under the sea that passed in the blink of an eye he found himself rather taken by how lively the city was despite its muted colours down here. The people were welcoming yet distant; it reminded him of Amaurot. The City of Shells too did wish to continue working with Amaurot, their scientists and creationists had made quite a few progresses with normal sea travel that might make the seas a safer place—something that he was not permitted to pledge his dedication to, seeing as he was supposed to be a neutral instance with no personal involvements. But very quietly in the back of his head he did decide that he would dedicate something to this cause.

That no children after him would lose their parents to the sea and would instead get to think of the sea as a friend just as the City of Shells did.

Once more his return to Amaurot was short-lived, seeing as he was to deliver part of their end of a contract to the City of Sand.

He did manage to find Aigle once more at home, alone this time. This time he had made certain that he brought her something, and though she was long since a woman grown for a moment he felt like he was seeing the excited child awaiting his return to talk about her day again. Perhaps a bracelet made of shells was a silly little trinket but Aigle had always loved trinkets like these and shells were hard to come by in Amaurot.

“Just make sure you always come home again, alright, father?”

“But of course.”

Aigle would never have to remember him by a trinket like that. Not as long as he was master of his own senses.

Even if he admittedly put Amaurot first now.

Time all but flew. Very soon he found himself face to face with Persephone, the sole candidate for the title Mnemosyne. Nabriales had in their usual grumpiness said that perhaps Chief Hythlodaeus might make a good choice—he had noticed the flinch from the exhausted-looking man relinquishing the title and noticed the soar of anger in Emet-Selch’s soul. He had cleared his throat to direct any sort of attention to him; he was supposed to keep the flaring tempers in check and this was easily fixed.

“As much as your counsel on this is appreciated, Nabriales, it would be rather foolhardy to demand the Chief of the Bureau of the Architect become the next Auditor—there are too many crucial projects coming up to change two seats rather than one. As excellent a choice as Hythlodaeus would be, his talents are better left with the Bureau of the Architect.”

The changing of two seats was hotly discussed for almost a decade; Persephone and Loki both popular choices with interesting enough personal lives to be the centre of attention and gossip for quite a while.

As time continued flying, the seats slowly but steadily vacated and filled immediately and soon Elidibus had gone from the newest and youngest addition to being the one holding his title the longest. Only when Nabriales vacated their seat in favour of Icarus of all people did Elidibus realise how wildly different they all were compared to their predecessors. The new Nabriales was another gossip topic for quite a while, seeing as he had been anything but an unknown figure. The new Mitron was quite an odd fish, the new Lohgrif studious and stiff to a fault.

The new Altima was an unorthodox choice of a woman who had taught him in sorcery—he nearly slipped and called her Mistress Verdandi at several points before he got used to calling her Altima. Deudalaphon was the youngest by far, a songstress of unnerving cunning who seemed perfectly content with her role. Lahabrea was the only one to voice concerns about the last seat to be filled with a new person; the new Igeyorhm all but immediately proved to be a fantastic choice to oversee the Bureau of Immigration, seeing as she was technically not from Amaurot as well.

Aigle found herself working with Igeyorhm and Mnemosyne on several accounts and he could not help but feel pride that almost rivalled the pride that Nabriales displayed on a daily basis when Igeyorhm and Mnemosyne both said that Aigle had been invaluable as a companion for the latest supply line redesign.

How strange it was to be considered the senior member of the Convocation alongside Lahabrea, Emet-Selch and Mnemosyne now—it seemed as if Amaurot had long since forgotten the previous holders of these titles despite the fact that most of them still lived within the city. Hells, he had dealt with the previous Nabriales just the other day, seeing as they had started an almost heated debate about a long-forgotten creation that had called the then-new Emet-Selch into action over his normally more than sufficient Chief.

The city was in perfect hands and he was determined to see it flourish for as long as he held the title. He dealt swiftly with the City of Steel and reinforced the peace treaty between them, the heads of that city claiming that he might as well have been a newly forged blade with how sharp he was. Together with Emmerololth and the Bureau of Commerce he forged a new alliance with the City of Stars, a most peculiar city that was built on top of the bleak mountain range that split the other continent in half. Even in the Hall of Rhetoric he soon managed to mediate between the most heated debates, most famously one between positively furious Pashtarot and an entire group of people calling them an idiot by any other name.

He was content, he realised one evening as he sat beside Aigle and listened to her listing what would be necessary to see the supply lines restored to perfection that would see no lingering inequalities and mentioned that the power lines would have Emet-Selch and Igeyorhm’s attention before long seeing as the both hailed from outside Amaurot.

Aigle too paused after a while and elected to merely lean against him—the season for him travelling to the other continent to meet with the leaders once again was due this millennium, seeing as Amaurot had welcomed the other continent’s various emissaries during the last.

It began with an odd silence from the City of Stones. Built into a mountainous region, it was famous for half its city being built into the massive caverns that naturally occurred in that mountain range. From one year to the other, its regular correspondence suddenly came to an abrupt halt, and Elidibus found himself at the centre of conflicting reports. Rather than wait for an answer he made ready to depart and got as far as the City of Stars when suddenly he found a fellow emissary from the City of Stones in the streets there. From her sobbed reports it was rather easy to deduce that the entire city had been eradicated by some unknown force, and Emissary Elidibus and the Stargazer of the C elestial Wheel very quietly but mutually agreed that the rest of the continent and his home would need to be notified. Any refugees were more than welcome to stay in the City of Stars, though Elidibus also offered to take them to Amaurot should they so desire. The people of the City of Stones stayed in the City of Stars—but not without thanking him for the offer. He returned to Amaurot and immediately demanded the attentions of several bureaus and researchers, but much to agony of Lahabrea, Mitron and Halmarult who had been rather busy with a new concept. It was calm and quiet for a few years while his department and the people of the City of Stars and the survivors of the City of Stones worked together to find the reason for whatever had befallen the city on the other continent.

Then, just as he felt like they were close to an answer for the question, correspondence ceased entirely for the better part of three years before he received a missive in familiar handwriting.

Whatever had befallen the City of Stones had swallowed the City of Stars and turned their quiet mountaintop city into a place of death and ichor, had turned the very stars they so revered against them. The Stargazer of the Celestial Wheel had passed as had most of his successors—the missive was signed by the Stargazer of the Celestial Archer, a child of barely fifty years. But he she had been chosen by the stars themselves and therefore she was the only one to lead what remained of her home. He received an answer to a question he had worked with most of his waking hours in the past years in that letter.

It begins with a sound, like the earth we walk upon crying out in despair.

He clutched the parchment with a wildly beating heart, something very much unbecoming of an Emissary. An Emissary was supposed to be calm and collected, an unmelting ice floe in the midst of revolting lava.

The City of Flame was the next to go, its volcanoes silenced once and for all and its few survivors described that it had felt as if the earth they walked upon had split in half in agony before cracking wide open and leaving nothing to hold back primordial water swallowing them all. Before he could even blink he found himself once more in the City of Shells alongside a researcher from Lahabrea’s department and the senior administrator sent along by Nabriales. They were to investigate what was left of the City of Flame alongside an assortment of others from the other continent; scholars all in their own rights united under a common banner to stop the coming calamity—or at least gain a better understanding of it.

It had been hundreds upon hundreds of years since last he prowled through the wilderness in search of something, but he very soon found himself in that old almost-forgotten rhythm of movement, something that the other two clearly struggled with. Amaurot was oft called the City of Scholars by the people here, an affectionate nickname and Elidibus knew that no other city on this continent was named after a group of people. He understood what the nickname meant now; Amaurot was a gathering of scholars of any social standing but when it came to dealing with the world around them in a matter outside of offices they were not all that good.

The City of Flames had been completely levelled. Where survivors had spoken of water swallowing up everything and silencing the volcanoes nothing remained but churned and charred earth and broken stone. The entire place had been stripped of its aether he realised with a jolt o horror was he raised a sleeve of his robes to cover his mouth. The air, for a lack of better term, was stale and dead and unbreathable, and their excursion was cut short by the fact that it was simply impossible to deal with this at any length.

Therefore it began with a sound and ended with a land devoid of any life that was left with no sustainability. The very planet seemed to be dying and he noticed that the corruption was spreading slowly.

Back in Amaurot, the Convocation began to feverishly seek an answer to a problem that was not theirs yet—some voices were raised in opposition to that, claiming that helping those cities when the natural disaster was not liable to reach them before its march would be halted was a waste of valuable resources. Most of the Convocation rose their voices to dismiss these claims, saying that there was human life at stake on top of the star they inhabited. Not helping their fellow humans was going to make them no better than base beasts.

Elidibus was not involved with the research. He kept in contact with the other cities as they faded one by one. He knew what horrors had befallen the City of Shells before the report reached him. Swallowed up by the waves and flushed beneath the cracks in the earth crust, never to rise again. Each and every soul inside the Amphora was gone and there was no way to get them back. The few survivors had been in the shoreside part of the city and all of them were horrified by what had happened.

As research became more furious, he held the last missive from the last city. The City of Trees, penned by the Grand Witch herself. She sounded strangely wistful in that letter, melancholic almost. Even her gift of eyes unclouded had not helped her see this coming disaster—she had made certain that any survivors from the assorted cities were sent across the sea. She and a handful researchers were going to stay in what they called the Deadlands to see if the dead soil held any answers for them. It ended with her thanking him and his predecessors for being such good partners.

Mnemosyne was dispatched to gather the survivors immediately and to seek for answers.

The Convocation’s search for a solution became panicked when the coast fell to the same marching doom that had claimed all of the other continent. Altima’s stack of unorthodox remedies were were suddenly strewn about her office as she desperately tried to find something, anything, that could help them. Emet-Selch’s normally grand creations flickered and died, unravelled themselves as he sat there with his head in his hands and utter despair on his mind. Deudalaphon’s crystal-clear voice became a hoarse mess as she sobbed in private, Pashtarot clenched their fists so hard they cracked every other meeting, and Elidibus himself found nothing but a vast empty void in his heart where he had once found his strength from.

The previous Elidibus had described him as tenacious and determined to find a solution no matter the cost. And it was indeed Lahabrea who, perhaps on accident, found a possible solution to their issue. It had been something that he had unearthed during his near endless sessions of scouring every book that Akademia Anyder had to offer, something that he had tested in silence rather than bringing it up here first. Administrator Nabriales was nearly in hysterics demanding an answer for the latest bout of mishaps at Anyder, claiming that there was absolutely no way the Bureau was going to be able to explain several deaths at the Akademia when there was certain doom breathing down their neck and demanding most of his attention at the time being. Lahabrea looked haunted, haggard, for someone still technically as young as he was. Age had made him wiser and less ferocious in his methods, but he spoke with a feverish quiver in his voice as he suggested that perhaps this very concept on a grander scale was a solution.

Mnemosyne called him utterly deranged. Nabriales screamed more. Altima looked appalled. Elidibus himself thought it a madman’s last desperate attempt to stay afloat. Mitron also shook his head with a furious glare, joined by Lohgrif after a moment of consideration. Hells, even Emet-Selch merely closed his eyes with a weary sigh.

Yet at the same time Emmerololth seemed to be thinking about what Lahabrea had said. Pashtarot also bit their lower lip, a clear sign that they thought this theory had merit. Deudalaphon tilted her head from side to side with a low hum of agreement before she nodded at Lahabrea. Fandaniel and Halmarult stuck their heads together and began urgently discussing something before nodding at each other and then holding their level gazes against the rest of the Convocation. Igeyorhm merely quietly put a hand on Lahabrea’s lower arm as they sat there side by side around a table that normally invited civil discussion and that was now cloaked in a very heavy tense atmosphere.

Sacrificing human lives to save the rest of Amaurot sounded insane but as the time went by and he walked through the streets that were awash in anxiety, he slowly but steadily came to the horrifying realisation that they might not have another choice in that matter.

He found Chief Hythlodaeus standing in the utterly empty Bureau of the Architect with an unusually melancholic expression on his face as he watched a swarm of little birds chase each other through the main hall. He did not even turn around to greet him, but nevertheless Elidibus knew that he had been spotted long before he had pushed the doors open.

“If you are here to reprimand me for my latest absence or the fact that none but me are here, worry not. The absence was a one-time spur of the moment decision, and the absence of my colleagues is in accordance with what Emet-Selch agrees with.”

“Not… not quite, but thank you for the explanation regardless.”

He watched the birds fly about alongside the younger man for a long time—he had merely heard the reports from the previous Lahabrea about how that creation had been handled when even the talented Chief of the Bureau of the Architect had found himself incapable of undoing the union between wayward soul and the creation spearheaded by then-Lahabrea’s right hand man. It seemed like several lifetimes of eternity ago by this point, but he remembered that creation concept suddenly and starkly as he watched Chief Hythlodaeus dismiss the birds one by one. Every single one burned up where it was, soulless creatures meeting a swift and graceful end as the sudden flames guttered out in the blink of an eye.

Lahabrea was not flawless when it came to concepts. He spoke with the fires of a hundred nations behind his words and with Amaurot at heart but with his passion for debate and solving issues came the problem where he overthought concepts to the point of stagnation. A stagnation he loathed but one that he could not prevent. His personal assistant was a person excelling at spontaneous adjustments to any sort of concept he drew up and whenever that person was unavailable Igeyorhm did the work.

He had half a mind to ask the soft-spoken Hythlodaeus if he were willing to sacrifice lives if it meant that the greater majority would live. He bit the question back and bade the man farewell—he barely even realised that his feet were carrying him home until suddenly he realised that Aigle would very likely have heard about this already. He opened the door to their apartment and found it empty, his daughter nowhere to be seen.

He dragged a hand down his face after he removed the mask that had been an honour and his pride, suddenly aware of what weights the Emissary had to carry. He would need to open the grounds for a civil debate about what a possible solution would be. A neutral instance even if his conscience revolted against sacrificing his fellow humans to save the rest. But as he sat there while the sun set fully and Aigle did not return home, he knew that Lahabrea would not bring up something that he did not think worthy of being discussed. They were all aware of the consequences of their actions should technically avoidable death be their answer to something that was not dangerous. But they were facing termination, the utter cessation of life as the aether of the star drained and was devoured, corrupted beyond recognition as their creations tore them apart.

He opened the discussion grounds with those words—and earned perhaps the most disgusted, exasperated look from Mnemosyne he had ever seen. They called him out for it, said that no matter the danger they were facing there was no way that they should sacrifice lives to save their own hides. There were prices that were too steep to pay.

Nabriales agreed with them, though his reasoning was much simpler. It would be a catastrophic amount of paperwork for the Administrator, not to mention the moral ambiguity of death in the name of saving the very star they were on.

Altima faltered after hours, admitting that as a last resort Lahabrea’s research could prove to be a sufficient solution to the coming doom and that perhaps they should permit him to conduct that research. Just in case. Just in case, she said quietly and sounded much more like his old teacher and friend Verdandi than Altima.

He did bring up that on this scale it had never been attempted. Mitron, of all people Mitron, was the one to almost timidly ask if they had any other choice by this point when Mnemosyne furiously slammed their hands on the table and called it folly inviting death and destruction.

“We still have time, damn you all! We cannot—“

“Whatever time we have is borrowed, Mnemosyne, and it moves to strike midnight faster than we can come up with a solution!”

“So you would have us stack our people on a bonfire to feed a creation we do not know can do what it needs to do, Igeyorhm!?”

They let Lahabrea do his research. Even Nabriales quietly admitted that they were running out of time and that he was more than prepared to do his part—while logically he agreed with Mnemosyne still there was a point to be had in the fact that they were running out of options and time both.

He repeated those words shakily as they all but dragged Lahabrea back into the offices, with Mnemosyne clearly stewing in barely contained rage. Deudalaphon had gone ghastly pale and Elidibus himself felt his stomach churn in the worst way when he saw that Lahabrea was bleeding. Igeyorhm shook the man by the shoulders, called his name, begged him to respond—while on the other side of the room Mnemosyne was raving about people dying for this before they even attempted it was folly and inviting a definite fall to hubris.

A life for a creation with a mind. The researcher had offered himself up after Lahabrea had managed to finally make his research into a proper matrix, had turned into a creature of unheard strength that rained thunder down upon the Speaker and his department as they attempted to restrain and stop it. Several people had died stopping this thing that had once been their fellow researcher, and Lahabrea’s light blonde hair was matted with blood. He looked distant, as if his soul had left his body while Igeyorhm shook him with an increasingly hysteric flare in her soul and crescendo in her voice while Mnemosyne correctly claimed that this concept was ridiculous and there had to be another way.

Elidibus watched as life flared back into Lahabrea after he quietly said something that made Igeyorhm stop shaking him.

“It could work. It will work. Any other suggestion lacked the power to stop the coming doom but this… this works.”

“And if it does not, you leave us all to certain death while knees deep in the blood of our brethren! You have no way of knowing it works!”

“It has to,” Lahabrea said with his voice surprisingly flat. “Otherwise we but idly watch as all of us and those that survived from the other continent die a pointless death.”

“Listen to yourself, Lahabrea! You speak of our people, whether they hail from this continent or the other—we are all united in Amaurot, and I will not stand idly by as you decide who lives and who dies!”

Emet-Selch tried to pacify the furious Mnemosyne, but they shook his hand off their shoulder. In return, something about Emet-Selch’s gaze hardened.

Elidibus interrupted the heated argument that had Mnemosyne in hysterics and the clearly shell-shocked Lahabrea on the verge of a nervous breakdown as they tried to counter one another’s arguments with a ferocity that did not belong into a debate.

They all knew they were out of time. Though his conscience would not permit him to do so beforehand, knowing that a creation on that scale fuelled by the fervent desires to save Amaurot would work just as one researcher’s sacrifice to gain the strength to fight had worked. It would not be in vain—Lahabrea was correct. It could work. It would have to work.

He was rather surprised to have the vote winding up being thirteen to one. There was an unspeakable betrayal and horror in Mnemosyne’s previously furious voice as they looked at the rest of the Convocation.

“I see. I see… You would sell our people, you would sell us to dangerous half-truths of ridiculous concepts rather than seek a solution of lesser bloodshed. We stand at the precipice of destruction, and you would see lives we could conceivably save sacrificed to ensure the chosen ones get to live.” There was a tone to Mnemosyne’s voice that he had never heard before, not in all the countless centuries that he had known them for. “Who the hell are you people. You’re not the Convocation. You’re bloody executioners, each and every single one of you. And I can tell you—don’t bother looking for a replacement. Anyone right in their mind would disagree with this.”

They all watched in silence as Mnemosyne tore their mask off and glared at them with a defiance in their eyes that was staggering. Those blue eyes that shone just as brightly as Aigle’s did, that multifaceted soul of many colours with blue at their base going from flaring in anger to suddenly subdued in horror.

“I’m leaving.”

It began with a sound. They had to bring theory to reality, with so many people behind them that were willing to die to give this a try even as fires rose and consumed their city and the people within.

Elidibus heard the harrowing screams of creatures that defied all reason, their worst fears given form in ways that made him suddenly understand what had happened on the other continent. Amaurot’s expectations of their doom were coloured by the tales of the survivors. Stars that fell and levelled everything they had ever known. Solid stone that they had relied upon for aeons crumbling. Water quenching flames that were not supposed to gutter out. The sudden, rapid decay of life itself, and the intricate spells that kept them afloat breaking and letting the water rush in to carry them into the depths.

They had to keep the fear out of their hearts, but even as they began their incantation he could not help but worry for a moment. What if Persephone had been right?

Aigle had furiously tried to make him see reason, her voice suddenly fuelled by an anger that did not seem to fit her. She was not skilled at fighting but she was extraordinarily good with her words—and she bore that weapon like a bludgeon against his skull even when the Convocation’s path was set. Every soul here beside them was a volunteer, a crowd fuelled by the earnest and fervent desire to see their city and perhaps the planet saved.

Lahabrea’s theory turned reality with the rest of the Convocation of Thirteen as its base summoners, with all these volunteers giving their lives to see the Zodiark concept to reality.

He calmly stood amongst his brethren as the spell took hold, channelled all his energy into a silent plea for help.

Lahabrea laughed when the fires guttered out and calm returned to a broken Amaurot. Altima looked strangely relieved when she put her hands against horrid wounds down in the streets. Even Deudalaphon almost felt like singing again, judging from the spring in her step as she hopped from one foot to the other. The survivors all stood in the ruins of their fallen homes, bewildered and staring at the skies above that had stopped raining rock and fire down upon them. Dark smothered out corruption as a wretched sob of relief tore itself out of Emet-Selch’s throat when they found Chief Hythlodaeus yet alive in a literal pile of charred corpses. They had triumphed.

With too heavy a price, a voice in the back of his head hissed before falling silent as the relieving dark veil of night fell above the ruins of Amaurot.

“You can’t! Father, for goodness’ sake, you cannot!”

Her soul was bright and light and hurt in all the wrong places as it seared into a pillar of blinding radiance. It pierced the comfortable veil of darkness all around him in a nauseating way that he had no words for. He narrowed his eyes at Aigle a little—and her anger deflated, collapsed in on itself and gave way to horror.

“You can’t sacrifice more people to this… this… thing that already devoured too many people.”

“And if we do not,” he said, tone calm and controlled and flat, “we will all die to hunger and thirst, to lack of resources and exposure to corrupted aether that still lingers in the air around us.”

“Father, be reasonable!”

“I am as reasonable as I can be, Aigle.”

“We have already lost so many people, we cannot wilfully sacrifice more to your, your… miscreation!”

The Emissary remained calm and level-headed, even when a surge of hatred not entirely his own jolted through every lousy cell in his body. Not a single living soul in what remained of Amaurot had more control over themselves than him—his predecessor had offered himself as one of the half of their survivors that would see this world restored to its former state.

“It is thanks to said miscreation that we yet draw breath, and I would not soon see the voluntary sacrifice of our people back during the Final Days and now squandered because of—“

“If you say ‘flimsy morals’, I am going to be sick.”

“Squandered because of your misapprehensions about Him!”

Perhaps he should have been more concerned about the way her soul burned in his eyes now. How he was clearly furious about this nonsense when even at her worst Aigle had always been his beloved daughter. No matter how many times they disagreed they had always found a common ground and he had never held fury in his heart for her. Never.

He merely watched with cold indifference as she stared at him, horror plain on her face as she reached for her mask and all but slammed it into her face. She considered for a moment, then took it off once more and tossed it away.

“Whoever you are, servant of Zodiark, you are not my father. I see now that my father died in the doom that befell us all. You… you are but a fiend commanding his lifeless corpse around. Fare you well, Elidibus.”

In the wake of tragedy, an Emissary had to remain calm even if his very soul felt about ready to disperse into into base components. Someone here needed to keep their mind on something productive even when everywhere he looked he but found another reason to give in to utter despair.

He watched as Lahabrea stalked off, lent the almost hysteric Emet-Selch an ear and nursed his own broken heart with the knowledge that an eternity of pain awaited him unless he did something about it. Lahabrea returned eventually and he watched in silence as the mortals… lived. Lived and killed and died and were reborn elsewhere to start that cycle anew. After three mortal generations, Emet-Selch excused himself and said that he was going to be sick somewhere in peace and quiet. Lahabrea watched with a burning desire to do something or anything; Elidibus watched both him and the mortals with a deep scowl.

They had Aigle and Persephone and countless others to thank for this mess. They had broken everything that the others had given their lives to see restored, and for what? For mortals to rise with pieces of old souls, all of them unaware of who they had once been and all of them ready to kill one another because they wanted to protect their own petty little existences more than they wanted to listen to their fellow humans.

Zodiark had been born of prayer and living aether borne from willing sacrifice—Hydaelyn had been born of prayer and half a bloody continent eradicated as Her summoners wished to stop Him.

Oh, how Her summoners would have wept at this bloodshed. He almost wanted to laugh when a familiar soul approached him with a disturbed expression to forward word from Lahabrea. Wanted to laugh so hard his insides turned out until that laugh died in his throat when he finally found the Speaker in a room that might as well have been a crime scene. Lahabrea looked more sick than disturbed, and the perverse and invasive smell of death and blood made Elidibus hold back a gag while Lahabrea flatly said that perhaps he might have miscalculated this mess.

At the very least he was able to direct Lahabrea towards something else with a reason behind it for the time being. There were plenty of people who had sided with the Convocation in the mess that had been the moments before Hydaelyn had risen. Once Lahabrea was gone he looked at the dead mortal by his feet with equal parts repulsion and pity.

Hythlodaeus had never made a choice in the end, and now here he was. Sundered like everyone else, with neither the dark nor the light to keep him safe. It would be best if nothing of this mishap reached Emet-Selch’s ears; the Architect could be a vengeful creature and the last thing they needed now was them acting like mortals. No.

They needed to prove better in this equation. There was a balance to be had, a balance that had tipped dangerously in favour of light. He clenched his borrowed flesh’s fists and vanished just in time for people to come calling for that mortal that had once been Hythlodaeus. Balance was needed—and he was going to balance it, come whatever hells Hydaelyn threw at him. If She played the benevolent goddess then he would gladly embrace the mantle of heinous villain; history would see their roles corrected once everything was back the way it should be.

The light at the very least seemed content with thinking that it had won, they remained disorganised and chaotic by nature as they lived their mortal lives. Thus the Emissary, now seeking to bring balance to this equation as they corrected Hydaelyn and Her summoner’s horrifying parody of a world, made certain they were organised to the smallest detail. He handed out titles to the others he and Lahabrea awoke, spent mortal instants trying to coax Emet-Selch out of his hiding space where he watched mortals with growing disgust to no avail. Sought out familiar souls that had just the smallest dark tendril woven into them, reminded them of their duties.

Only when once more he attempted to find Emet-Selch to get him to move rather than give in to lamenting what they had lost he realised that the man was gone. By the time he found him again, he was greeted by Nabriales of all people—a mortal barely old enough to be considered an adult and a rather horrified smile on his lips as he bowed. Behind him were Lahabrea and Emet-Selch, clearly putting whatever discussion they had had on hold to also raise their hands in greeting.

The explanation was delivered flatly, but he saw a new fire had been rekindled in Emet-Selch’s vacant eyes. If they had managed to get Nabriales back then surely the missing nine members of the Convocation were but a matter of searching and awakening them to their true duty again. It was clear that Nabriales was a shadow of his former self, an old soul in a young body that lacked the innate powers to keep him contained.

Still, the three that were spared the sundering all dove into different places.

Elidibus found himself standing on the shores that had once been home to the landside part of the City of Shells—but in their sundered state, the colour had all been bleached from the shells. The sand was white and the sea shone pristine blue, yet each and every colour here was dimmed and he knew for a fact that there would be no city hidden beneath the waves. He did not bother making his presence known to the mortals around him and instead he spent the better part of a mortal day standing by the sea and staring out at it. Perhaps if he dove down to the bottom of the sea he would be able to find the remnants of the City of Shells just as they had woken in the ruins of Amaurot. But there would be no city waiting beneath the waves, there would be no point in it other than to hollow out his already hollow heart even more.

He turned around—and froze when he stared into vibrant green eyes.

No mortal should have been able to see him in this state, but this old woman was staring directly at him; hells, her eyes even followed him as he ducked back and away and considered leaving.

He found two things that day by the shore. First and foremost, Altima, her soul shining in countless shades of green even in its sad, sundered state. When she remembered her name and her duty she spent a long moment looking at herself in the mirror in the shack by the sea that she lived her mortal life in and started laughing—a heart-wrenchingly sad laugh that left him unaffected.

Second, there were people with a gift, not unlike the way that Chief Hythlodaeus had oft cursed his own sight. Though not eyes unclouded it gave mortals a shocking amount of clarity, enough clarity to see even that which should not be seen. Echoes of the past rose unbidden to these people’s eyes, even whisked them away from where they were temporarily to relive the experience themselves.

This could present a problem, he thought as he watched the city square down below him. Perhaps perching in a tree was not the best thing to do but it was just about the only place where no mortal with that gift would be able to see him. His attention was focused on the bustle down below, sundered souls meant to die unaware of their formless watcher.

There was absolutely nothing of interest or worth going on below. These mortals were blissfully unaware of the history that the ruins in the forest held, attributed it to gods of some sort that had no relation to the small settlement roughly halfway between Amaurot and the shore. How precisely a full mortal city had cropped up here was beyond him, seeing as there was nothing of worth to be had even for pointless existences like theirs.

His eyes caught two things at about the same time.

One, a flicker of colours that had once belonged to a peculiar breed of songbirds that had made their homes in Amaurot cradled in familiar darkness. Two, blinding light not far from that.

Even diluted like that it stung to look at whatever Aigle had become, and besides he felt naught but a short swell of rage for this mortal bearing part of her soul—within a heartbeat it was gone and replaced by the eerie calm needed for his duty. He was more interested in the mortal child in whose body Deudalaphon’s soul burned like Lahabrea’s failed firebird concept.

If he closed his eyes, perhaps he could mute that infernal, gut-wrenching and wretched sobbing. If he closed his eyes he could phase out the arguments that arose, one more panicked than the other, all of them met with a scathing voice that ill-befitted the Speaker, of all people, as he shielded the sobbing Igeyorhm from them.

Their minds had been poisoned by their existence as mortals, and slowly but steadily it had worn away at his nerves. Lahabrea all but whisked Igeyorhm away, Mitron and Lohgrif shook their heads, Deudalaphon and Halmarult left together, Fandaniel said they wanted a word with Igeyorhm—Emet-Selch said he had something to do when it was only him and Elidibus left. Wordlessly he watched and then disengaged from his position to comb this world on the brink of extinction with nothing awaiting it but utter, complete darkness. Balance was needed, yes, but it seemed there were rules to this mess that they had overlooked. His steps echoed through the murky darkness, the ground below him rippling as if it were water despite being solid enough to walk on. The flood, the surviving mortals called it, hungry for aether and lapping at what remained of civilisation. An inevitable end that would come for them all, either through being torn apart by the creatures born in that pitch dark or by becoming one of them. Demons, Fallen, Devourers—the people had countless words for what they should merely call their end.

The veil of darkness had saved Amaurot, but it was driving this pointless shard to an end from which there was no recovery yet. Yet not even light managed to stem the flood of darkness—nothing remained where the maw of darkness took root. He had barely paid attention to where he was going when he realised that there was ground beneath his feet slowly but steadily being devoured by the darkness behind his back. A shrill cacophony of screams both human and inhuman assaulted his ears as he watched the people flee for their lives with the malformed creatures that once were Spoken and animals alike at their heels. He had half turned around to return to his companions when he heard a soft noise, something that pulled at a heart-string he had thought left snapped in Amaurot.

He had no idea what it looked like to this mortal child, light woven into its soul as it stared at him with wide, terrified eyes. From the boy’s point of view he had merely shooed the bothersome imps that had been trying to tear him apart away. But in the split moment of relief it was clear that this child had been given that bothersome gift that had driven Altima from her duties on another shard—relief gave way to fear, and then once again relief when he offered be boy a hand.

Perhaps part of Osiris remained within the Emissary Elidibus—and he had never once kept help from children in need.

How wretched of Hydaelyn to make Her warrior a child in this place. But perhaps this boy had never been one, and his sudden ascension to weapon of light had been thanks to Igeyorhm’s violent press-forward. Whatever the answer to that was, he was not going to force it out of the child. Instead he helped the boy stand in silence for a moment, then withdrew his hand.

“I will bring you to where the rest of your people have gathered for a… final stand, if you would like.”

Mortals always sought their fellows despite how quickly they turned to murder. Just another nonsensical thing woven into the very fabric of reality for them at this point, something that he failed to understand but also something that he had to consider for the sake of balance. For a long moment the boy was quiet, kept nervously glancing from his saviour who his instincts told him was bad to the bone to the darkness beyond that had once been the lands he might have known.

Elidibus had to admit he was shocked into silence when that child of light had the gall to reach for his hand once again. Only a mortal could be so foolish to reach for what they should consider their worst enemy when they had been given the chance to run.

“There is no last stand to be had,” the boy said with a shockingly calm voice for someone who had narrowly escaped death in a world doomed to die a slow death. “I would rather you end this futile nonsense swiftly, bringer of darkness.”

For a long time they stood there like that, Emissary Elidibus and a Warrior of Light; his clawed and cold hand limp in the child’s surprisingly warm hands with nothing but utter darkness which left no down or above, only a void in which they might have been standing or falling and they would be none the wiser. His expression was as rigid as ever, and distantly he knew that he was going against what He would demand of him—but balance was needed. Balance that was dangerously in favour of light on the source, balance that would never be restored in this world where dark devoured all because of the light being too weak. But a weak light could be stoked into a blazing glare that might cast these shadows out one day.

Thus Elidibus dropped to one knee to see eye to eye with that boy—he saw the fear and surprise reflected in the child’s grey eyes when he put both his hands on the boy’s shoulders.

“Perhaps ending it would be a mercy—but it would be foolish more than it would be a mercy for you. Warrior of Light, is it not your given duty to protect this star and the Mother from all things dark? Would you smother what little light remains in this world soon to be covered by the curtain of darkness when you can yet become the blade that pierces the veil and carves this world’s fate anew?”

He asked the other Warriors of Light on this star the same question. Many refused, and he granted them the mercy they asked for.

But the boy in that very moment, tears welling up in his eyes, looked at the Bringer of Darkness that he should be fighting instead and nodded, let out a sob as wretched as Igeyorhm’s were when Elidibus once more got back to his feet and offered him a hand. A sob as wretched as Aigle’s had been, longer than he cared to remember ago.

But he took the hand. Peace, for the time being at least. A mutual ceasefire between a servant of Hydaelyn and a paragon of Zodiark.

He watched, pointed out where weaknesses had been found and when Hydaelyn was shoring up Her defences on shards. He idly took note of mortal history, watched how Lahabrea failed once to speak of what they were trying to do and then watched the Warriors of Light more than the passage of history on the Source. Not many would strike down a person only here to speak—for a while he pondered over that with cold horror g nawing on his borrowed body’s bones. Not even during the darkest ages before the first Fourteen rose to build the foundation of Amaurot together, the time where both continents were at war for more than they were at peace, had they ever shot a messenger. Mortals did so with very little care and reaped the rewards for their efforts—Lahabrea threw all reason to the wind and sowed volatile chaos in Emet-Selch’s carefully built web of lies and deceit. He could sense the flabbergasted fury the Architect emanated from his vantage point, and at some point Fandaniel stopped beside him to watch the carnage in action. They merely shook their head, lips pressed together as they departed with a flat report of what was going on on the shard they, Altima and Mitron were working on in tandem.

T he longer he spent without hearing from the other, the more liable to what anyone else would call brooding he became. The Warriors of Light from the Thirteenth were hardly good company even as he gave them the truth of their shattered existences and freed them from likely contaminated with uncontrollable darkness husks. They were ascended yet they were not, a paradoxical existence that bled light even on this prison of dormant Zodiark over which he stood silent vigil. The Source’s moon was inhabited by beings that existed yet at the same time did not—he dismissed Lahabrea’s underlings, once researchers from Akademia Anyder now turned creatures that prowled in the shadows to draw the attentions of any Warriors of Light away as the actual Paragons worked on the Ardor. He commanded former office employees under Nabriales to sow discord in a city, made Igeyorhm’s former Bureau of Immigration the very reason why entire nations closed their borders in xenophobic fits. Mortals were pliant pieces for the game, their liability to fall to hostility and violence and hatred easily exploited by simple means to an end. Few believed in the good of mankind and those who did oft found themselves either victims when they were proven wrong or had their minds shattered when they realised the truth.

He had long grown weary of mortals and how quickly their morals decayed when he witnessed Emet-Selch fail once again to find worth in mortals. He had been interested in the outcome of that particular nonsensical mortal instant as well—every time a shard of Hythlodaeus caught Emet-Selch’s attention he had once tried to stop the Architect from causing himself unnecessary hurt and was always met with almost hostile rebuke. This time it had seemed as if Emet-Selch had truly found mortals that were worthy of more than cold contempt.

That opera singer had been interesting, even when his soul revealed he was but another piece of Hythlodaeus playing at something that he had never been. The strokes of a man befitting the title Emet-Selch remained, each and every single shard of his had a tendency to create something. And every time it fell apart under his hands. This one had cared little about what fell apart, was fuelled by his fervent and burning belief in mankind and that it could do so much better. Elidibus found himself almost believing that shard when he dropped by Emet-Selch to remind him of what he was there to do in the first place and introduced himself to that singer—which the singer took as an invitation to talk about the person Emet-Selch played.

It had been endearing. Passionate.

Hilariously naive, as he said himself with venom that ill befit a singer praised for his angelic voice as he bled out in Emet-Selch’s arms. There was no good in mankind, they repaid kindness in cruelty and he had been too blind to see so before. Everything he had done they repaid him by slaughtering him and everyone else, and Elidibus almost felt something as he watched Emet-Selch shake that empty mortal husk bereft of hope, soul and life itself.

Almost.

He drew a hand across his face with an exhausted sigh. Were it not their people they were fighting for, he would have told Emet-Selch to quit. But as one of the unsundered there was no rest for, as the Warriors of Light called them, wicked.

Elidibus dropped his hand when timid steps approached him from behind.

“Warrior of Light.”

“Unukalhai,” came the soft reply. “Please.”

He did not have the energy to argue with a mortal after witnessing yet another of their pointless slaughters. An entire glorious for mortal standards city torched and every living soul within put to the flame or torn apart by iron and steel—again. “Unukalhai, then.” How peculiar the names from the Thirteenth were. Then again, so were the names on the Source and each reflection compared to what had been before. “I had assumed you busy with your studies.”

Perhaps in a fit of madness that He would very much not appreciate seeing as the centre of it was Her servant, Elidibus had given the boy access to information normally reserved for fellow Paragons that refused to answer their true memories’ call. Scrolls and entire books, all put together by him over the mortal centuries as he watched. Records of times long past, all in such disarray that it made Nabriales scowl—but the Administrator said naught, pride too intense by now than to admit the Emissary’s non-existent order of his books haunted and vexed him.

“I… uhm… In… in a sense I am, but, ah…” The stuttering of a timid child—and for a moment he wished he could rend Hydaelyn into pieces with her bare hands. A child soldier. She had attempted to turn his boy into Her child soldier. “I do have a question concerning the… City of Stars mentioned in this. I-If you… wouldn’t mind, of course.”

Perhaps he should have checked in on Emet-Selch first. But he turned his back to the Source and its reflections for a moment and instead found himself talking about the stars and what the Stargazer of the Celestial Wheel had talked about in the past. Before long he was talking about how even in this sundered world the stars were almost the same as they had been in the skies above Amaurot, with the seasons all wrong and their light paler in comparison… but he talked. And Unukalhai listened.

Deudalaphon wrenched herself out of his grasp to turn around and throw up. Most of them did when awoken to their true memories, though the agony usually subsided sooner rather than later.

This time something was different, however. She had been slain by a Warrior of Light on the Source just immediately after they had ushered in the Fall of Allag, perhaps in a fruitless attempt to blame someone other than the madman on the throne for the earthquake that rent their glorious empire apart. She had been investigating the Crystal Tower’s sudden disappearance during the Calamity more out of personal curiosity than anything else, something no one would have reprimanded her for. Many of them acted out of self-interest at times, Elidibus himself very guilty of it as he collected various books from the ruins of Allag to leave for Unukalhai to read while he busied himself with finding Deudalaphon once again.

It took him a moment to realise that she was telling him to get lost.

It took him longer to slowly but steadily realise that the corruption of mortal hubris had seeped through their ranks like poison by this point. It began with Deudalaphon refusing to even speak to him for the longest time, went over to Igeyorhm suddenly falling silent and avoiding everyone. He saw it in how pride and passion became a madman’s mantra with Nabriales as he justified unjust and cruel judgement. Saw it in how Lahabrea let himself go and plunged from one maltreated vessel to the next in a desperate attempt to find something that he would never find, saw it in how haunted Emet-Selch looked as he slunk through the shadows they called the resting place of Zodiark. Heard it in the argument between Mitron and Lohgrif that had been started by what would have amounted to nothing between them in the past. S aw it when Altima disengaged from her vessel rather than seek a cure for what spread across Nym like wildfire.

Felt it when Fandaniel and Emmerololth suddenly and violently fought and only stopped when Pashtarot stepped between them and unleashed a tirade of curses at the both of them.

“I hate them, I hate them so much it makes me physically ill. I truly am not better than them for it, I am a failure of a Paragon,” whispered Halmarult and departed for another shard, leaving him standing there and watching them die at the hands of Warriors of Light not seven generations later.

They were all falling apart at the seams, and his inability to keep the order, the balance, drove him near mad in turn.

He joined Lahabrea in sowing discord, tried to remind the Speaker of his love for trying the impossible rather than letting him celebrate wading through blood to see the abyss in his soul filled with something, anything, after failing to secure another shard of Igeyorhm. He stayed beside Emet-Selch for a while, watched the Architect weave up an empire on a shard only for it to collapse—all he saw was that over the myriad years and empires he had lost his love for trying to make them somewhat different from the other. It was Allag under a different name with a different coat of colour, but it fell all the same and sent ripples across the balance skewered towards the light. He followed Pashtarot like a shadow, nodded mutely when they came across a mortal with a soul that was silver and rose with gold sparks in it and reminded Halmarult of what was their duty.

He taught Unukalhai mortal magic, so painfully feeble as he spent some time learning it beforehand.

Elidibus was not one for stargazing as he stood on the Source in a borrowed mortal body to stare up at the artificial satellite holding a furious Eikon and the moon that held the unresponsive splintered piece of Zodiark that would one day reawaken once they did their duty. But for a moment he almost thought he stood in the City of Stars listening to the future Stargazer of the Celestial Archer, barely more than a child of twenty summers at the time, pointing out which stars made up the Archer they were named after. Hells, for a moment he thought he was on a roof in Amaurot, pointing that very same constellation out to Aigle who sat beside him with a content smile on her face—and then she said that perhaps they too should start naming this constellation that.

He returned to his vantage point with the urge to scream.

Perhaps this was his own fit of madness, but he departed. Again, and again. He sought those that opposed them, approached them under the call of being an Emissary—as he was supposed to be.

Most of them shot the messenger as soon as they were able, with light tearing through his being and he returned to the Source to lick his wounds. Every time he got up again, calm and unnerving smile on his face as he approached the next set of would-be-heroes with offers of the truth behind their gifts. Pashtarot dragged him from one such mess with a hiss and paid dearly for it. Another Ardor came and went and he still sought those mortals out. Perhaps one of them would accept his offered hand as Unukalhai had done—it was Unukalhai who usually sat beside him as he licked his wounds before jumping into action once again without saying anything. Under the mask however it was clear that this Warrior of Light was worried. How delightfully mortal-yet-Amaurotine, and for a moment he felt genuine fondness for the boy.

Which meant he needed to go. Perhaps a fellow mortal would make a better messenger, but Elidibus was not liable to let someone else do his dirty work. After all, he had always done the dirtiest by himself long before he had been given this title.

He was hesitant to agree that the world suffused with darkness was the next one primed for the Ardor despite the clear hard work that Altima and Fandaniel had put into making certain to not repeat Igeyorhm’s blunder would be the best choice. As much as the all held the dark dear to them, there was something about the mess with the Void that still haunted all of them. Their collective failure, just as the dark skies above Amaurot after the end of the world had been their biggest success.

The next question was how to incite the Calamity, and he wordlessly gestured at the false satellite in orbit.

“An Eikon dwells within. You but need to find the right soul to temper by its essence—strong enough to withstand Warriors of Light but weak enough to submit to utter madness.”

They agreed that perhaps Emet-Selch’s latest project would be the best to find a suitable mortal for that for. He even granted Emet-Selch leave after this, seeing as the Architect was finally reaching a breaking point that none of them should reach.

He attempted to find the Warriors of Light ahead of time when the White Raven rose and found nothing until they slew the madwoman and failed to stop the coming Calamity. Then they vanished, like stars blinking out rapidly—and he watched with a perplexed expression as they failed to reappear. Whatever had happened there, he was not quite certain what mockery Hydaelyn had made of them and Her warriors both—but they were gone.

Which meant there would be a new player on the field, left to collect either allies or crystals, and Lahabrea waved off any concerns he voiced. Nabriales, Emmerololth and Igeyorhm were also working on the Source, Mitron and Lohgrif were wreaking utter havoc on the First, Deudalaphon and Pashtarot were investigating if anything had changed within the Void. The rest were out there seeking replacements for the last batch of lost comrades.

They were all busy.

Without even waiting for another argument, Lahabrea departed and was soon replaced with a familiar painful existence that shone bright on a moon meant for the dark.

Unukalhai, unsettling as most mortal children were, s tood there in silence for a few moments before shaking his head.

“Unsupervised, this will lead only to disaster.”

He sighed. “Lahabrea, I presume?”

Elidibus had never meant to do anything more than educate the boy on what was needed for balance. A balance that was slowly but steadily fraying all their minds, but one that Unukalhai watched with utmost care. Sometimes it felt as if that child saw more than it should, even though he was by now older than even the oldest Viera on the Source. Immortal by most means, a being without a body, naught more than aether that stubbornly clung to form and reason. A soul that refused the Underworld—or whatever it was that mortals called it now.

The boy shook his head. “The Abyssal Celebrant would sooner invite his own doom than see reason. For all intents and purposes, a lost cause, a lost mind. Perhaps the Martyr, the Holy Queen and the Majestic can keep him in check. But the First concerns me as well. Bringers of Darkness that act without the utmost care did bring ruin to the Thirteenth with the darkness they command—if the Chastiser and the Transcendent are not careful, who is to say that… my fellow Warriors of Light on the First will not invite the same destruction via light in their crusade against the dark?”

“A fair point, but you needn’t worry, Unukalhai. Far and few between work better together than the Chastiser and the Transcendent; not even the most eager of Her servants can overpower them completely.”

Famous last words, as a voice that sounded quite a lot like Mnemosyne said in the back of his mind. Unsurprisingly, considering… that soul….

Elidibus soon found himself on a shard about to be swallowed by an element that devoured all in its path, the choked sobbing of those who had caused this mess ringing in his ears. Were he wiser he would have fled; the people beside him were Ascian-killers for all intents and purposes. But much as he had back with Unukalhai and the very woman these Warriors of Light had refused to slay, he offered them a hand instead.

“There is a way to yet salvage this,” he began, voice flat and smile eerie and calm on his face. Discordant, some would say, and he saw that discordance fall flat on the horror those five were experiencing. Perhaps if they managed to quell the light on the Source to the highest degree even this world about to be flooded by it would be swept away as it should have been in the first place. He promised them that they would find a way, either through restoring their shard to its right state so the dance could begin anew a few generations later, or to have it join the Source as swiftly as possible without a horrendous body count. They believed the subtle lie he told them—their souls would rejoin their rightful other parts, but they did not need to know that detail.

Those Warriors of Light agreed—not something that Mnemosyne would have done, he realised with no joy as he told these Warriors of Light how to join them now that they had the knowledge. That group’s leader had a soul of infernal light woven together with a blue base and too many colours that made him hard to look at. Mnemosyne would be rolling in their grave if they knew what their Hydaelyn had done to the world and what their own fractured shard agreed to.

It brought him almost sadistic and perverse amounts of joy, knowing that in a sense their concerns and complaints had all been proven wrong by now. Hydaelyn had never been the correct answer, and now they were paying with their own shard at his mercy.

Oh, he would have lowered himself to mortal standards and done the deed himself with utter glee. But there was something enjoyable about watching them struggle to come to terms with it and then Mnemosyne’s little shard agreeing to do the dirty work.

What on earth was wrong with him, he wondered as he watched that man bury the best friends he had slain not moments before and then raised his axe against himself. For a dreadful moment time came to a standstill and he thought he was in the office again, with the vote winding up thirteen to one. For a moment it was Mnemosyne staring at him with their blue eyes rather than a Warrior of Light with his teary blue ones. For a moment he heard the ever-popular yet somehow elusive Fourteenth resign and call them all monsters in their own polite words.

Then the man moved, cleanly slit his own throat, and the spell was broken.

The beach was drenched in blood, the broken bodies of the other four had been buried somewhere where no people ever went. This last Warrior of Light’s body would either be carried away by the tide or would be recovered by someone from the city that had once been the Achora Heights. Who knew what would happen to it after that—the Warriors of Light were both heroes and villains on this shard, and if it survived long enough then they would become the villains who had brought ruin to their world.

He raised a hand to his mask and shooed the thoughts of Mnemosyne away as he waited for their shard to reappear before him as an entity lacking a body and the will to leave with business unfinished.

The waiting game, as it happened, soon proved Unukalhai correct on several accounts.

Lahabrea sooner invited what might have been his own destruction had he not disengaged at the last possible moment. A single Warrior of Light—Hydaelyn was ever growing weaker.

Elidibus nearly wanted to laugh when he turned his gaze to the Source properly. A Warrior of Light was a veritable beacon of light, especially if they were on their own. Mnemosyne was reborn time and time again as one, fought until there was nothing left to fight. Bled until they had no more blood to shed, despite the fact that they had not been the person to invoke Hydaelyn at the crucial moment. But this pillar of light seemed unreal, as if there was something that did not belong.

Just as he was about to depart to investigate what was going on there he realised that he was looking at two souls that blazed with infernal light—but one was light to begin with.

The Scions of the Seventh Dawn were what Lahabrea called a thorn in their side that needed to be plucked from their flesh. He had even gone as far as pointing a finger at Elidibus to invoke him as the Emissary, and he had considered merely appearing before the Antedecent to mess with her.

Her soul was light holding more light. Perhaps there was a secondary colour to all that light, but it was impossible to see and it burned, seared, hurt him to the very core as he stared directly at it.

The Warrior of Light and the Antedecent—Mnemosyne and Aigle.

Oh, how desperately he wanted to tell her just what she had done. How desperately he wanted to chastise this child that had smashed everything and ruined the world as it was supposed to be. But seeing that not even she had escaped her creation’s powers was so hilarious he almost wanted to throw up from both laughter and sobs. He stood there shaking as he watched those two pillars of light, enough to clearly concern Unukalhai who had just returned from speaking with Altima. He departed before the boy could ask him anything—from one child to the other, it seemed.

This mortal proved to be foolish and unaware, just as every sundered being was. He calmly spoke, waved the colours of an emissary in her face. Perhaps she was a little bit wiser than her mortal brethren, or perhaps she merely lacked the power to fight. But she did not attempt to attack him at first, listened to what he said.

He merely shoved her back with a power that should have been familiar to her but that merely made her collapse with a cry. Judging by the sudden movement in the nearly empty headquarters of the Scions of the Seventh Dawn this was enough to rouse the suspicions of the others; and he saw that glare of iridescent light move towards this place.

He had always withdrawn whenever the Warriors of Light turned violent. But he had to admit that something made him linger even as the Source’s Warrior of Light, the Source’s Mnemosyne, rushed out of the front door to the headquarters and looked around this insignificant mortal settlement they were in. Hells, that fool even looked like the First’s idiot—brown hair that they normally chose to change wildly whenever the mood struck back in Amaurot, and crystal-clear blue eyes that seemed to pierce whatever they looked at for long enough. Hydaelyn’s blessing burned brightly within that fool, and Elidibus himself fought back a chuckle as he told them that he would be waiting to see if they could make it to him alive or not.

Indeed, they fought like a well-trained machine. According to Lahabrea they had started with a different weapon, but they used the axe with a finesse that ill fit the youth of their mortal body. No one that young should have been able to fight like this—yet another infuriating thing about mortals and their endless thirst for warfare.

Much as Lahabrea was too furious to admit and much as Emet-Selch constantly refused to acknowledge, Elidibus suddenly was painfully aware that he, too, was giving into mortal urges. It made him furious as much as it disgusted him, and with a jolt as he bade Mnemosyne of the Source farewell he realised that there was naught but a yearning abyss where his motivation had once been.

He had made his idle threats.

Elidibus was going to watch how these events would unfold.

He should have felt something, anything. Indignation, perhaps, that one of that status could be so easily undone by draconic eyes. Anger at losing a comrade, grief. He should have marched to the Source by himself to throttle the Archbishop and Mnemosyne both, should have roused his fellows to tell them this was what they were fighting, should have asked them to find a shard of Igeyorhm to make her face this unprecedented loss with the passion that drove her and make her feel the same hatred that had driven Lahabrea in the end.

He felt nothing but a small spark of both relief and jealousy.

The Abyssal Celebrant had hardly been the man he had gotten to know as the Speaker’s right hand. At some point his grief had driven him to insanity, but even so he had worked towards their goal. He had been unsundered, and no matter how many fields of torched corpses he walked across, Lahabrea had ever awakened those he came across. That madness, the utter fury and seething hatred had been a flame just as his soul had been.

All had guttered out now, and it did not even leave a trail of smoke.

Lahabrea was gone. There would be nothing to salvage. He would not rise again like the rest of the Paragons, his seat at the Convocation was technically empty and there would be no replacement until the rightful order under Zodiark had been restored. Dead, and not even swept away to the Underworld.

The balance was in dangerous peril at this point. He called for the Warriors of Light from the First, granted them a new title as he sent them forth to the Source with an idle flick of the wrist. He stopped when Unukalhai started trailing him as the boy was liable to do, and Elidibus dimly recalled other means in Azys Lla that would see the Warrior of Light from the Source grow ever stronger. Yet those also endangered the Source in general—those Eikons had drained what remained of Lahabrea’s essence that had not gone to fuel Thordan and his Knights Twelve and the shade of Nidhogg that rose in the same anger and hatred that had driven Lahabrea.

He waved his hand about with a suddenly exhausted slump to his shoulders as he laid it out for Unukalhai.

“If aught threatens the balance ‘twixt light and dark, it falls to us to remove it,” he said flatly and told the boy to travel to the Source to see if he could recruit the Warrior of Light to his cause of keeping the balance by slaying the Warring Triad.

Elidibus was jealous of Lahabrea getting the easy way out of this mess and earning oblivion like that. He was left to deal with the aftermath, and he soon beckoned the one Scion of the Seventh Dawn that would understand. A man who hungered for knowledge, a fool of a mortal who kept secrets from his allies and enemies both. Perhaps a wildcard, yes, but Elidibus still laid all bare before him, went and scavenged for books that would assuage any doubts the man had as he kept track of the so-called Warriors of Darkness and their progress.

He felt nothing as he departed for the First to wake Emet-Selch.

Admittedly, he was unsettled by how eerily close to what he still remembered this copy of Amaurot was, but every hollow step in this mess of an abode that Emet-Selch had made of what remained of Amaurot here was just that: hollow. It meant nothing. There was no point.

By the gods, there was no point.

There had to be one. There had to be a point to this, or else Lahabrea would have gone insane for nothing. They would have all suffered for nothing. If only Zodiark answered his almost desperate plea for something, anything, as Fandaniel was struck down not even by the Warrior of Light but by a mere mortal who used their exhaustion to his advantage. He watched with abject horror as everything that the world threw against them failed as more and more people gathered around Mnemosyne. Aigle had been called by her self-made Mother to serve as mouthpiece, and he so very desperately hoped that the same would happen to one of them. Aigle threw herself between the Warriors of Darkness and the Warrior of Light, served as the means to stay the Flood of Light. Emet-Selch vomited poison at all the mortals ever did and went to sow discord on the First that had seen Mitron and Lohgrif slain and no replacements surfacing once more. He played the catastrophic cacophony that would see his own empire unravel as the Warrior of Light managed to see the Eikon that he had sacrificed the smallest bit that remained of Lahabrea for bound and slain sooner or later.

It was like a ticking pendulum, slowly and steadily beating in his head rather than a beating heart.

Those who remained all started avoiding him as he paced, the balance he so desperately needed all askew and once more drenched in light, light, light.

He looked calm as he paced. Disconcertingly so.

The Warrior of Light triumphed even over what Emet-Selch called the most wretched and disgustingly efficient accidental by-product of his machinations yet. Of all things, hubris—that one as strong as Zenos yae Galvus would choose an Eikon’s power when face-to-face with an Eikon-slayer….

In the empty solar of the Rising Stones, he met with Unukalhai. Even from below the mask he sensed that something about the boy had changed in the comparatively short time he had spent with the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. He put his hand on the boy’s head, as much of an affectionate pat as he managed. It only made that foolish little soul so entwined with its light that grew stronger every passing day flare up a little—it burned, and he quietly withdrew his hand.

“It will not be long before that… Warrior of Light will be called elsewhere to see their duty done. The First yet requires aid, and I do sincerely doubt that Hydaelyn has the strength to send another to do Her bidding there.”

Unukalhai paused at that and crossed his arms. Hells, the boy tilted his head. He had not acted this alive back where he waited, and E lidibus realised with dim disappointment that no matter how much t he boy behaved like a proper Amaurotine he was a mortal first and foremost.

“She would not see business unfinished, and even the vaunted Word of the Mother cannot stay a Flood of Light indefinitely. One way or another, the Source’s Warrior of Light will follow where She demands they go, or they meet their end at the hands of Emet-Selch and I’s Ardor.”

“… You went and roused Emet-Selch…? I would have thought that he would refuse you outright.”

“Circumstances have changed, again and again, too many a time. Even Emet-Selch had to agree to that. The balance is in more danger than it should ever have been, and I have been idle too long.”

There was a long, heavy silence from Unukalhai before he made some vague noise that might have been an agreement. Whatever the boy was thinking of was a mystery to him, and he made no move to voice whatever it was that he was thinking either. Elidibus was not going to press.

“If you say so,” he eventually said. “What are you going to do now, to see an Ardor through?”

He was not going to tell a child that had clearly grown attached to the Warrior of Light. He did not voice it but it was clearly visible even to Elidibus’ less than stellar sight that Unukalhai was troubled deeply by the revelation that if the Warrior of Light was not called elsewhere to fight for the Mother they would perish, likely in agony.

“That, dearest child, you leave to me.” He pat him on the head once again. “You will know when the time comes. Or when it passes.”

He bade Unukalhai farewell.

Hopefully for the last time.

He was through with this nonsense, even as he forced himself into a foolish drunk Ala Mhigan’s body to go digging up the grave of one Zenos yae Galvus. Perhaps he could yet salvage the foolish mortal’s nonsense and could use this by-product of Emet-Selch’s machinations to his advantage.

Emet-Selch was not happy about this.

Neither was his grandson and technically speaking Elidibus’ mortal father as things stood.

The overall mood was foul and he himself gave in to most base mortal nonsense. He engaged in talks of hunts and sent a rabid dog in a sheep’s pelt right into the Warrior of Light’s domain expecting a failure. He watched as his mortal father toiled and laboured under a sudden surge of a conscience. How laughable.

Suddenly he understood why Emet-Selch had been through with mortals a long time ago. He understood the fury that had set every single step Lahabrea took ablaze.

He recognised the sudden surge of apathy as he brought the war to escalation once again as something that would have seen him removed from his office. Emissary Elidibus was dead just as Aigle had claimed her father too many mortal instants ago.

He had no idea what remained as he gave in to mortal violence and clashed blades with the Warrior of Light at long last.

“An Emissary is not supposed to raise their weapons,” this splintered existence that had once been Mnemosyne hissed as they parried his blows despite losing ground somehow.

He almost wanted to laugh, he wanted to scream, cry, do anything.

He instead kept the mask that he had learned to embrace as his true face by now, kept it neutral and level and collected.

“Think of me not as the Emissary, then, O Warrior of Light,” he spat out at their strength that defied all logic and reason and the possible at this point. “Think of me as the consequences of your and the Antedecent’s actions.”

“What on earth is that supposed to even mean?”

“Think on that in the seven hells you mortals so like invoking!”

Bold words, words that they nearly made him eat. This unreal strength saw him driven back after the tide of battle turned.

And then it turned again when the Warrior of Light dropped in front of him, groaning and moaning in agony as something pulled at them. Inevitably, as predicted—something was calling them from the First. He raised the sword, triumph suddenly searing the apathy away; he could end this charade. He could end it then and there and could plunge the Source into chaos without equal. Chaos without equal that would tilt the Source to the darkness of despair, that would see the Source seeking out light to keep the balance. A Rejoining would be at hand as long as he struck true. Every fibre of his being demanded he struck true.

He faltered for the slightest of moments remembering the child that grinned up at him from under their mask beside the girl he had raised. Faltered for long enough that his blow as not severe, that he would have to strike again—enough time wasted that another mortal jumped in beside the fools that had tried to stop him and drove him off.

The last thing he ever heard of Emet-Selch were shockingly simple, scathing words.

“A self-righteous, self-sacrificial brat whose light is so infernally bright even when sundered, as bright as it has ever been beside Persephone and infuriatingly light now that she has truly become the Oracle of Light rather than the Word of the Mother. Unerringly kind despite the hardship she faced for a mortal lifetime, brave beyond her limits and wise beyond her years. A fine, fine brat you raised, O Emissary. Thank you ever so kindly for that mess she created.”

He had collapsed in on himself, had his face buried in his hands and still somehow managed to breathe in and out calmly. Lahabrea and Emet-Selch, both gone and consumed by the very mortal rage that they had either embraced too deeply or denied for too long. He alone was left with the burden of those souls they had sacrificed to see their world saved, a world that his own daughter saw destroyed and shattered and thrown to the winds for the sake of mortals that sprung up in the wake of those souls’ sacrifice to see the world saved and restored.

Only he remained. Only him, against unspeakable odds as balance did not only shift in favour of light, it near crushed his side of the scales. He had tried to play the villain for so long he had forgotten what he had done before. Was it the City of Trees that he had visited first, or had it been the City of Steel? Had his parents drowned at sea—or had it been Aigle’s? What was he doing, what was he supposed to do?

He stood up once more.

Bringers of Darkness? Those Scions of the Seventh Dawn?

He cracked a smile that meant nothing, was as hollow as he felt standing on this unresponsive and silent piece of rock that saw Zodiark silenced and bound. There were plenty of people left to play Warriors of Light. Perhaps it was long overdue that a Paragon took the mantle themselves.

What else did he have to lose at this point?