Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

A story left untold.

Seeds sown into a field of stars, left to grow, that they might be harvested. Call it farming, if you like, or gathering, or grazing.

Or… call it a massacre.

This is the way of the creatures known only as the Dragons. Mighty reptiles from beyond the stars, more numerous than anyone bothers to count.

They are, it is claimed, the apex predators of the cosmos.

But there are others, too, who fight for what they believe in, even against the longest odds. The people of the world of Eden who will never give up their ideals. Some search for glory, or power, or riches, but all share the title of Hunter, so long as they chase those dreams.

They gather in Kazan, a small town governed by Doris Agouto, a veteran Hunter himself. People from all walks of life gather on those streets, in the hopes of finding like-minded individuals to work with. They gather in large numbers, and separate into smaller groups, and do what they can for themselves and the people around them.

On this day, as with any other, new Hunters are coming to Kazan, unaware of the future that awaits them. Even if someone had told them, they never would have believed the tale that they are about to partake in. And there is no one who will tell them, even those precious few who do know believing it best, for the moment, not to say anything.

After all, no one wants to believe that the peaceful life they enjoy… is about to come to an end.

“A presidential horse…” Kana stared at the engraved plate on the statue as if looking at it for long enough would change what was written there. It did not.

“An interesting story, isn’t it?” Their ears perked up, and they swiveled around. The speaker had hazel eyes, and frizzy dark hair, and a very nice cape that was big enough for them to theoretically use as a blanket, but that bit might have just been them being short. “I suppose that, in Kazan, mounts are heroes just as much as their riders. …I like that.”

“Are you not from Kazan, either?” New people came into the town every day, and from their room at the inn, Kana could watch one of the entrances, but that was only a portion of the people who were coming and going.

He shook his head. “I grew up in Pleroma- I actually came here to study things I’d never learn about otherwise, like spatial distortions. There are rumors that they have been occurring on this part of the continent, and so far no one else has seen fit to study them.” And that was enough to gain their interest.

“How do you plan on doing that? Could I help? I know I look small, but my people are really strong!” Was that coming on too strong? Maybe. They’d never actually asked anyone what the proper etiquette for teaming up with someone was. “And- and I was thinking about signing up as a Hunter, anyway. I just didn’t have anyone to work with yet.”

“...I know the Lucier are considered powerful,” He admitted. “And you seem nice, taking an interest in my research. My name is Hanoi. I… was considering forming a guild of my own, but approaching people about it hasn’t gone well.”

“I’m Kana. It’s good to meet you, Hanoi!” One down. However many more to go. Hopefully it wouldn’t reach the point where they needed to put up posters, like the girl lingering in front of the Guild Office was trying to.

Kana had considered taking her up on her offer, since it wasn’t like they actually knew anyone in town. But the girl hadn’t had any real goals, even long-term ones, and they hadn’t been able to think of anything they could offer to someone they had just met.

Just frm that, being with Hanoi was better.

“If that’s what we’re doing, we should register at the Guild Office,” He suggested. “I can’t do research without supplies, and requests are a good way of earning money. We could even meet people there who are like us!” Behind his glasses, his eyes shone almost gold in his excitement. Kana wondered if their eyes looked like that- they hadn’t seen a mirror recently. “The more the merrier, isn’t that right?”

“We can look…” They wondered what kind of people they would meet…

“Look, guy… are you smug, or are you just stupid?” Mark wondered why it was he always got the belligerent drunks. It wasn’t like he could detox them if they knocked him out.

Working in a clinic above a tavern really was more trouble than it was worth… “I’m sorry, sir, but I’m not sure what you mean by that.”

“You wanna know what I think? I wanna see if you’re any good. Come on, show me what you’ve got! Unless you’re scared?” Even in the dark lighting of the inn’s basement, Mark could make out five or six different things that would make fighting in the area a terrible idea, starting with the glass mug in the drunkard’s hand.

“Sir, that would be incredibly unsafe-”

“You should at least have the spine to fight me!” That was it, he was leaving and becoming a Hunter. Or asking for a raise. He wasn’t sure which yet.

“Cut that out.” Mark blinked, and then realized that, at some point, the president himself had entered the bar, followed by a girl with a complicated purple hairstyle. Okay, good. Surely, a hero such as himself would be able to handle the situation better than a mere healer could.

The drunk’s shocked reaction to their new company sent multiple wine bottles clattering to the ground. One of them shattered. Mark could only hope that he wouldn’t be expected to help pay for it. “Hey, what’re you doing!? Stay out of this!”

The president placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault that Kamuro’s dead. Stop blaming yourself.”

The man jerked away from the touch, “Cut it… who? What do you mean?” Despite his words, Mark could see tears forming in his eyes.

“Quit being stupid.” The president gestured at the broken glass and spilled wine on the floor. At a closer glance, it looked like very expensive wine. “You’re going to get hurt. Is that what he wanted?”

“You… I… I!” And then the man just started crying, which was at least better than when he was trying to fight people. Mark’s nose was safe from being broken for another day.

With the situation defused, the president turned back to the girl who’d followed him. “When you get worked up like that, you need to stay calm. Remember, life is short and you could die any day. Don’t leave regrets.”

“...I know.” The girl stepped to the side, allowing Karyu to start sweeping up the broken glass. “If not just for myself… because people are relying on me.”

The president nodded. “But you can’t just be somber, either. You should make friends, drink up, and try to enjoy life while you can.”

“I understand.” When the president left, the girl remained behind. She turned to Mark. “...Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” No one had discussed who would be paying for the broken wine bottles, and as long as he was not part of that discussion, he figured everything would be all right. “...I may, however, be searching for new employment. Possibly as a Hunter, if I can find work.”

And that couldn’t be too hard. People posted requests all the time, sometimes to figure out who stole a meal that they just couldn’t remember eating.

“If you did, I’d be willing to join you,” The girl stated. “It would be easier to work with others, and you probably know the local area right?”

“I did grow up here.” He was probably one of the few people who did, with all the Hunters coming and going.

“...Good. This is my first time away from home, so I don’t know where anything is yet, and this guy by the gate tried to shove a package into my hand that was supposed to go to Miross, except I couldn't take it because I don’t know where that is. …Oh, and my name’s Bailey.”

“Mark.” What a strange girl… though, when he thought about it, she wasn’t any weirder than the little Lucier who usually wasn’t a girl and had somehow gotten their hands on a sword despite clearly being twelve. Or half of Kazan’s registered Hunters.

Actually, the only group of Hunters he was sure were an exception were Kingsblade… and he’d barely met them, so he could be wrong about that. “And… Miross is just across the bridge to the west. There’s signs. But the monsters are…”

“I can handle them! Come on, let’s find some other people and sign up already!”

“Fine just.. let me turn in my resignation, first…”

The first step to becoming a proper Hunter was proper equipment. Kana had their sword, and they were very happy with it, but Hanoi had nothing of the sort- no weapon, nothing that could serve as any sort of armor.

And so, the two of them ended up sorting through the equipment shop’s stock while a man with a powerful aura had a discussion with the smith at the counter. “Why didn’t you bring anything with you?”

“I didn’t need to own weapons in Pleroma!” He hissed back, both of them trying not to draw attention to themselves, and probably failing.

There were many things that Kana could say about that, but they chose not to, instead perking their ears up to listen to the conversation on the other side of the shelf.

“Did you get the order?”

“Yes, of course. We heard about it from Mr. Menas.”

“Can you fulfill it?”

“It won’t be easy to find that much gear,” the smith admitted. “But we’ll do our best.”

“I appreciate it. By the way-” At this point, Kana realized that they needed to adjust their weight or else fall onto a pile of pointy objects They quickly reoriented themself into a less precarious position.

“Yes, I already know what you’re looking for. Lucier swordsmiths have a fine reputation.”

Kana heard the sheen of metal, and the customer humming appreciatively. “My, this is impressive. You weren’t kidding.”

Wanting to see what all of the fuss was about, Kana stepped into the store’s main aisle, but whatever it was had already been placed out of sight. “Is that all you wanted?”

“Well… you were able to get a good deal on it, right?”

“On this sword? It’s as expensive as you’d expect, coming from Nevanplace.”

The man laughed. “Okay, I get it. Can’t blame me for trying.” He handed over what was presumably money.

“Thank you very much.”

“Thanks. I’ll see you later.” It was at this point that Kana remembered that they hadn’t yet moved from their spot in the aisle. The man stopped in front of them, and looked them over. “Someday, if you find a weapon that suits you… You’ll go places, kid.”

“...Thanks?” They watched him leave, not any less confused than they were at the start of this whole thing.

As soon as he left, two more people entered. One of them was a girl in a very nice dress. “So he’s been here, too.”

“President Doris is a very busy man,” Her companion, who they recognized as being from the inn clinic, agreed. “I can never help but wonder how he finds time for all of it.” He noticed Kana, then, the light reflecting strangely off of his glasses. “Are you a new Hunter, as well?”

“That’s right. I haven’t signed up, yet, but it’ll be me and one other person so far.” They took a moment to closely inspect a bin of hats. They looked like very nice hats, but none of them had room for their ears.

“That’s the same as us.” The girl clasped her hands. “If none of us have signed on, maybe we could all work together? Safety in numbers, and all that?”

Safety in numbers… that was a good idea. “Have you come up with a name for your guild, yet? I have one in mind, so if you’ve already got one…”

“We haven’t gotten anywhere near that far. I quit my old job fifteen minutes ago.” The healer then turned away to start looking at hammers. Kana wondered if they needed to be concerned. “What name were you considering?”

“I was thinking… Murakumo.”

“Murakumo…” The girl repeated. “Murakumo… I like it.”

And thus, their new guild, this group of Hunters preparing to soar to new heights, would be known as Murakumo as soon as they could get the paperwork filed.

Mark was beginning to feel like a stalker. They’d spent long enough in the equipment shop to meet Hanoi, the fourth person that he would be working with, as well as acquiring necessary equipment. Time where his schedule could easily have lagged behind someone doing something similar.

And yet, standing at the Guild Office counter was none other than Doris Agouto. “Can’t we do any better?” He asked Erin, the clerk on duty. “Anyone with skill turned up?”

“Let’s see…” Erin placed one stack of papers to the side and started sorting through another. “The most solid guild is probably still Kingsblade. The rest all run together in my head- no one stands out at all.”

“I know those three are good.” The agreement came quickly, which might have meant that this was ending soon and Mark could register with his guild. “I was hoping…”

She shook her head. “Well, you never know when a guild will surprise you. More keep forming every day- it’s bound to happen.”

“Hah. I’m looking forward to hearing about a new guild making a name for itself.” He wasn’t looking at Erin as he said this.

He was looking at the four of them. “Those first days together, taking on the world… Those times build bonds that can never be broken.” And then he left without waiting for a reply.

Mark had nothing but the utmost respect for the president… but his opinion of his manners was sharply dwindling.

It did bring Erin’s attention to their presence, at least. “Oh, are the four of you Hunters?”

“We’re going to be,” Hanoi replied. “Where do we sign?”

“Oh, I put the papers over here…” This was going surprisingly easily. He should have quit his job a long time ago. “What is the name of your guild?”

Kana hopped up excitedly. “We’re calling it Murakumo.”

“Murakumo?” Erin repeated. “...That’s a nice name. I’ll get it filed straight away.”

For Murakumo to be recognized as a proper group, they needed to fulfill the requests of the people of Kazan, or do missions to handle severe threats. The current set of requests around Kazan wasn’t particularly inspiring, but, according to Mark, there would be a mission available.

“A bear from the other side of Mt. Todowa has taken up residence in the Nameless Cave across the river,” He explained, unfolding a map of the cave in question. “Yes, it is officially named the Nameless Cave. No, I don’t know what the cartographers were thinking. Any relevant questions?”

Hanoi raised a hand. “Isn’t the pass through Mt. Todowa on the other side of Miross? How did it get so close to Kazan?” He didn’t have complete knowledge of geography, but giant mountain ranges were sort of hard to miss.

“Does it matter?” Bailey folded and unfolded a whip in her hand. “What matters is that it’s here, and causing problems, and it’s our job as Hunters to stop it. I say we take the mission.”

Kana nodded. “It’s that or try to figure out if there really is a giant lizard in Rorakka Caverns, and I think Harris might just have been imagining things.”

Hanoi hadn’t been in Kazan long enough to know whether there were likely to be giant lizards in the nearby caves, but presumably if one showed up where it wasn’t meant to, it would become its own mission soon enough. “So, we’re doing this?”

They exchanged nods, and then walked into the Quest Office, located conveniently next door to the Guild Office, for all of a Hunter’s employment needs. On a normal day, there would be three people behind the counter- a secretary to process requests, a secretary to handle official missions, and Menas, the president’s apparent second-in-command. The two secretaries would be sorting through things with a guild or two, while Menas handled more important paperwork, or maybe just tried to look busy.

Today, however, Menas was assisting the mission secretary. They shared a section of the counter, upon which much paperwork was piling up. Hanoi could see some sort of injury report, and he wondered if Mark could decipher it, but the page was swept aside and out of view before he could even think to ask.

“You’re Hunters?” Menas was all business, while the mission secretary slowly sank under the counter and out of sight. “I haven’t seen you here before.”

“We’re Murakumo.” Despite their small size, Kana walked right up to the counter and looked him in the eye. “We’re here about the mission.”

There was a pause, as Menas took in the child who stood just a head above the counter, the healer whose entire previous combat experience was with belligerent drunks, and two people who had only just arrived in Kazan. “...If you’re sure you’re capable-”

“I know we can do it!” Hanoi wondered where Kana got their enthusiasm from.

Menas didn’t argue further. “Bugbears are normally native to the Aizo region, but one has somehow ended up in the cave across the eastern river. If left unchecked, it could cause great harm to the local ecosystem, and currently poses danger to Hunters from both Kazan and Miross. Your job is to slay the beast to ensure that does not happen.”

They’d gone over this before, but Hanoi supposed that the briefing was helpful, if only because he hadn’t known the name of the bear’s species before. And if this was anything like experiments he’d seen run back in Pleroma, Menas was probably obligated to give this same briefing just to be safe.

If they all lived long enough to see their next mission, he was sure that he’d figure it out eventually.

Kana had always wondered, deep down, what living a life of adventure was like. There had always been people they could have asked, but they never did, until now, when they would be experiencing it for themself.

At the moment, it was a lot of walking through damp caves where the only light came from torches and the occasional wisps of fire that were somehow vulnerable to stabbing. They weren't complaining about the wisps being vulnerable to stabbing, but it did confuse them.

“The strange thing is,” Mark spoke as they walked, footsteps echoing endlessly through the darkness, “I used to like reading about animals. And last I checked, bugbears don’t live in caves.”

“Isn’t it safer this way?” Bailey asked. Her whip was trailing on the ground behind her, after she’d used it to convince a tortoise to go on a rampage. Kana had never heard of people being able to do that before, but they supposed there was a first time for everything. “If it was out there, we’d never be able to track it down.”

“We could follow the trail of dead nutshells,” They suggested. “Do they eat nutshells? I haven’t seen that type of bear before…”

Mark shrugged. “All I’ve ever read about them described them as carnivores. We’d be more likely to find it by tracking dodo remains.”

“Are they strong enough to tear apart a tortoise’s shell?” Hanoi asked. “That would be the meatiest prey in the area.”

“There are tortoises in Aizhen, and I”ve heard nothing about bears hunting them. Though they might just find it not worth the effort normally.”

Kana wasn’t sure if they could add anything more to the conversation. Their knowledge of even the local wildlife started and ended at cutting open nutshells, as well as a bit of what was or wasn’t safe to eat of everything else. So they let it die down, and perked their ears, trying to figure out if they were imagining things or not.

“Can anyone else hear water?” They’d encountered a few still pools here and there but nothing that was active.

Mark unfolded the map. “There should be a healing spring nearby. That’s probably what you’re hearing.”

“A spring?” Despite having less expressive ears, Bailey still managed to perk up visibly. “That’ll make a good resting place! …Or a camp for the enemy. It could be hiding out there. We won’t know unless-”

As if on cue, a pair of badly beaten hunters came rushing by. “You four had better have some beginner’s luck!” One of them called out as he ran past them. “This thing… it’s no fight for small fry!”

As their footsteps petered away, a pair of eyes rimmed with purple fur peered out of the darkness. And Kana lost themself to the thrill of battle.

The role that Hanoi played in a fight was simple: Cast one ice spell many times. He was very proud of his ice magic, particularly how much more dangerous it could be in comparison to simple metal and force. It could be resisted, of course, all magic could, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything against a mass of snow three times the enemy’s size.

Not that that would be necessary. Bailey was cracking her whip and making snide comments about the bugbear’s inability to land a hit on her. Mark had injected something into the creature three minutes ago and since then had sat back and occasionally tossed healing magic to those unlucky enough to get hit by a claw. And Kana…

Kana whirled about, slashing far too quickly for someone of their small stature, giving only the slightest acknowledgement to any healing, even when knocked to the ground, and gotten clawed a few times too many for anyone’s liking but their own.

Hanoi was growing concerned. “Kana, are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’m better than this thing’s going to be?” Okay, so they’d actually responded. Probably a good sign.

Then the bear fell over, convulsing. “Five minutes exactly,” Mark noted, writing in a notebook that he hadn’t had out at the start of the battle. “Though this specimen doesn’t have as much vitality as some other creatures… perhaps if there were an additional component…”

Oh. A fellow scholar. Albeit one with a… questionable field of study.

“I thought you were a healer!” Bailey backed away from him slowly, rolling up her whip into a more portable form.

“Most remedies are toxic in the wrong doses. If something happens to the rest of you, I need to be able to defend myself, don’t I?”

“We became Hunters today! Why do you already know so much about poison!?”

“You’re the ones who took the mission!?” Hanoi had never felt so relieved for someone else’s conversation to be interrupted before, even if he had to wonder what Menas was doing there. And with the man from earlier that day, as well. “Has the beast been defeated?”

Mark nodded. “Yes, unless it can somehow revive and metabolize concentrated mantlion venom.”

Bailey buried her face in her hands. “Where did you even get that…?” She received no answer.

“Well done!” The man who accompanied Menas had a powerful voice, as well as a powerful stature. “See, Menas, I told you not to doubt them.”

“So you did…” Hanoi wasn’t sure if Menas was more perturbed by them completing the mission, or the methods Mark had used to do so. “Your reward will be waiting for you in the Quest Office.”

“Take the rest of the day off,” The other man added. “After your hard work here, you deserve it.”

It was late enough that Hanoi didn’t even need the instruction. He turned to the others. “Let’s go, then. We can stop by the cafe. Or, if someone has a kitchen, I could make dinner for all of us!”

“There’s a kitchen at my house,” Mark volunteered. “It’s on the same street as the inn, and there’s plenty of room for everyone.”

They started walking back. Kana turned their sword over. “Is it safe to eat there?” They asked, with more caution than they’d shown to any of their battles in the cave.

“Of course it is? Why would I do experiments where I eat?”

“There are people in Pleroma who haven’t learned that,” Hanoi admitted. “Or. There were. I never checked to see if they survived or not…”

All things considered, a successful first day.

Hopefully, they would have many more to come.

Chapter Text

Mark rolled out of bed, grabbed his glasses, and tried to remember why there were three other people in his house, currently making a ruckus in the kitchen.

Right… He’d quit his job and joined up with a rookie guild. It had all made sense in his head the day before, but with the reality that the others were currently emptying his refrigerator of eggs finally hitting him, he had to wonder if that had been his best decision ever.

The kitchen was, as expected, a mess. Kana was standing on a chair and ransacking one of the cabinets for plates. “Good morning!” They chirped. “The leftovers from yesterday are still good, but there’s not enough for all of us so Hanoi’s making omelettes.” Apparently, Mark’s share of the mission money would be for restocking his pantry.

There was, in fact, a downside to telling the others that they had free reign.

Hanoi glanced up from the stove. “How do you like your omelettes? Out of the things that were in your fridge, I mean.” Thankfully, he did not try to explain to Mark the contents of his own fridge. That would have been an insult he didn’t think he could forgive.

“Cheese and onions.” Normally, there were peppers involved, too, but those didn’t last as long as onions did because he knew more recipes that used them. By which he meant three as compared to two, all copied from observing the tavern, and none quite measured up to the originals, but it was something.

Bailey, at least, had brought out the leftovers. “I’m still surprised you can cook,” She stated, after swallowing a mouthful of potatoes. “I wasn’t sure you scholarly types did that.”

Hanoi, to his credit, did his best to look offended while also not letting the food burn or tripping over Mark’s cat, and in total not looking anywhere near Bailey at all. “Well, if we didn’t we wouldn’t have anything to eat. It’s not like the nobility, where they have ten chefs on call at any given moment.”

“What nobility have you met that had ten chefs!?” She paused, shook her head, and muttered something in another language. Mark wasn’t sure what language it was, but he assumed she was expressing annoyance.

“...Well, that’s what the books I read as a kid said.” He leaned over the frying pan again. “My parents were scholars, too, so that’s how I built my model of the outside world. There weren’t a lot of visitors from outside that were my age, and the ones that were there just thought I was weird.”

“Lla el emrai, if you think there’s anyone who’d have ten chefs. That’d be enough to feed a whole city.”

“Would it really?” Kana paused, only retaining enough visible attention to the world around them not to put the plates on the cat. “There’s some pretty big cities out there.”

Before Mark could interject on this enlightening conversation, someone knocked on the front door. “Give me a moment, I have to get that.”

When he opened the door, there was a messenger standing there, looking from a piece of paper to him and back again. “You’re Mark of Murakumo?”

“That’s me.” It still felt strange to be referred to that way. But it did solidify that the previous day had, in fact, happened and he’d actually injected mantlion venom into a bugbear.

The messenger nodded with a wide grin, clearly very proud of himself. “The president wants to meet with your guild. You are to report to his manor at your earliest convenience.” So there were, apparently, downsides to having a permanent address.

“I’ll tell the others.” He then shut the door in the messenger’s face, because there was a time and place to be polite, but he was just a bit too weirded out to be bothered at the moment.

So this was what his life was going to be like from now on. He couldn’t tell whether or not he regretted it.

Back when Kazan was a monarchy, the presidential estate had been a palace, and it still towered over the rest of the town. It was, Bailey assumed, A Thing done by the nobility when the world’s nations were first being decided upon, which newer countries had copied just because it was the Done Thing.

Kana kept turning around, looking down all the different hallways. “Mark, some of those rooms are bigger than your whole house,” They breathed. “Some of them are even bigger than the inn!”

This probably wasn’t wrong, because audience chambers and dining halls existed, and the trend at their time of construction had apparently been ludicrously high ceilings. People were paid to clean those ceilings. Amounts of hazard pay were included containing an incredibly high amount of zeroes, even for a royal treasury.

Bailey kept wondering if the maintenance of those ceilings had ever driven a nation bankrupt. “This is the seat of Kazan’s government,” She pointed out. “It’s not just President Agouto who stays here, but his staff, as well as any diplomatic visitors.”

Speaking of that, she probably needed to collect her stuff at some point. Mark’s guest room might not have been particularly comfortable, but at least there she didn’t have to worry as much about causing an international incident.

“Like the people from Miross,” Hanoi acknowledged. “I heard everyone talking about them earlier. I wonder what they’re here for.”

Kana shrugged. “I guess we’ll find out, if it’s important.”

Nobody offered any real theories, and they lapsed into silence, the only sound for a moment their footsteps muffled on carpet and the creak of the door to the audience chamber. Menas stood there. “We’ve been waiting for you, Murakumo. Right this way.”

The audience chamber felt really long, when it was just them. Few guards, fewer servants, just empty space. Bailey supposed it was fine if the president liked it that way, but sometimes it felt like the manor could house the entire permanent population of Kazan, so long as a few of the higher ceilings were filled in with another floor or two. For a small town, it was almost too impressive.

“Hm… Bold footsteps. Even with my eyes closed, I bet I can tell what your faces look like.” And then he did open them. “Haha! As I thought! Shining with glory. I’ve got a good eye for these things.”

Did their eyes shine so? Bailey had heard tales of people who wielded great power, how it would show itself in their eyes even when it was not in their auras, but she’d never heard it spoken of in the present day, even for the people she would expect.

Perhaps, if there was anyone who could see such things, it would be the legendary Hunter.

“I’m very pleased to meet with the four of you,” He continued, unaware of the questions he had just raised. From what she could tell, he was like that a lot. “Thank you for coming. My name is Doris Agouto- you may simply refer to me as Doris. Though I am the president, I don’t care much for titles. I’m not much more than an old Hunter.”

No matter how many times he said that, it never actually seemed to stop people from addressing him at least somewhat formally. Bailey appreciated having at least the option for lowered decorum, but he was a foreign leader, so she’d maintain it in her speech nonetheless.

Next to her, Kana shifted. “Why did you call us here?”

Doris gave them a look more serious than any he’d given before. “Because, from today onward, I’ll be working with you to help save this world.”

“S-save the world?” Hanoi stammered out, as pale as the ice he conjured.

Kana nodded. “Yeah, why us? Why not Kingsblade?”

“You’re surprising people,” Doris responded, as if that answered any questions whatsoever. “Nestor, as good as he is, simply isn’t suited for this task. It requires a more careful touch.”

He was saying this to a group of Hunters who had fought a non-native bear on their first day. Just how reckless was Nestor, if they were the better alternative?

Kana’s ears drooped. “But… saving the world…” They were visibly having a hard time coping with those words. Bailey wasn’t sure she could cope with those words. It was just… a lot?

“Putting it that way… does sound rather quixotic, doesn’t it?” Menas folded his arms.

“Poor Menas. You have no sense of poetry.” He turned back to the four of them. “You’ve heard, haven’t you, about the strange events and disasters that have been occurring in the world of late?”

“Like giant lizards making noise in the Rorakka Caverns?” Kana questioned.

“Like air currents getting harsher every day?” Hanoi suggested.

“LIke a bugbear ending up on the other side of the mountains?” Mark asked.

Bailey looked down at her feet. “...Like the barrier around Marlleaire needing to be refreshed early.”

“Yes, those are all examples of what I speak of.”

“Certain academics in Pleroma have reported even more disturbing phenomena,” Menas stated. “Though they may not have shared that with the general populace. And just yesterday, we received an urgent missive from Miross.”

So that was going to be relevant. “What did they say?”

“Their side of the Rorakka Caverns comes out in the Rorakka Forest. This forest has been covered in strange plant growth, and it’s believed that there may be more dangerous organisms within.”

“And I have a hunch this may just be the beginning,” Doris finished. “This is what I ask of you- go to Miross, and assist in their investigation. Report to Queen Emerald upon your arrival, and offer whatever help you can. Will you do this?”

Something as important as this… there was no way they’d ever refuse.

When the young Hunters left, a surety in their footsteps that could only mean good things for the future, Menas turned to Doris. “But really, why did you pick them?”

“Intuition.” Two sets of golden eyes, and another two that glimmered with it. Untapped potential that he was sure this experience would nurture.

“That’s all?”

“Don’t worry about it. That’s how I chose you.” And Menas had proven himself, several times over, as an excellent assistant… and a worthy successor, if it came to that. That part went unsaid, but somehow everyone knew it. “They’ll deliver. I’m sure of it.”

“...I’ll wait to see the results, before I believe it. I'll be returning to the Quest Office now.”

Menas took his leave, and Doris only had to wait for a moment before his next appointment of the day came in, slipping through the door so silently, it was like she wasn’t there at all. “Aitelle.”

“Doris.” She pulled her cloak tightly around herself, which made her look even smaller than she really was. “The people I passed earlier…”

“They’ll be assisting the investigation in Miross. Those flowers the messenger spoke of… They’re the same as the ones you told me about, aren’t they? The Bloom.” An unprecedented crisis, one that could mean the end of their whole world.

The mage nodded. “This will be the start of a long, possibly endless fight. One I don’t know can be won. But if you’re determined to fight this war…”

“I am. When you give up, that’s the end. As long as my sword arm works… No, as long as I’m still breathing! I’ll fight this war.”

“...I knew you’d say that.” Aitelle stared into the distance, a faraway look on her face. “You remind me of my beloved, in that way. He’s always been much the same. …I’m glad you believed me, when I first came to you. Not many would. Until we met, I hadn’t even thought of approaching anyone.”

“What would I have to lose? With your assistance, we can respond quickly to the problem. Menas may be skeptical, but… that's just the way he is. I trust you.” If she lied, the worst that would happen was that a few Hunters’ time was wasted that’d he’d need to compensate.

If she told the truth, the worst that could happen was that he ignored it, and his people perished in the ensuing war due to his own negligence. He knew which mistake he was willing to live with.

The position he was placing Murakumo in… he could only hope that, one day, they would be able to forgive him.

Miross was advertised to be a land free from interpersonal conflict. Mark always wondered how that could possibly work, though no one who came from there was responsive to his questioning, and something told him that asking the people of the city wouldn’t get him any more of an answer, but very well might have gotten him arrested.

But he could say that the place was very bright. From the flowerbeds lining the streets, to the white bricks washed daily, to the lamps of wrought silver, to the whites and light blues of the Mirossan palace. To even the bright colors worn by the palace staff.

Queen Emerald had two aides, the clean-shaven Grif and the bearded Volg. “This is who was sent to us? Four mercenaries? One of them a mere child?”

“Hunters,” Kana corrected, looking down at their shoes. “And I'm not just a kid.” Their fists clenched, but very admirably, they did not punch anyone. Mark had been sort of worried about that, with how their sword cut through everything that moved over the journey from Kazan.

“I am a qualified field healer,” He added, hoping that would distract Grif from the tiny Lucier. “As well as a toxicologist. If these flowers we’ve been told of prove a threat, I should be able to ascertain in what manner, and how best to mitigate it.”

“So that’s one qualified person.”

Volg sighed. “That’s enough, Grif. Knights, Hunters, Mercenaries… All are paid to serve the queen. These four should be no different.”

“...Vey well.” Grif did not look happy, but he stopped making barbs, so that was one thing. “Here is a map of Rorakka Forest. Once you are there, you are to meet with the Pleroman scholar Nowari. He will tell you what has been discovered so far.”

Hanoi adjusted his glasses. “So even Nowari… We’ll leave as soon as we can.”

Mark glanced at him. “Important person?”

“One of Lady Emille’s personal staff. For him to leave Pleroma, this either falls into his area of expertise… or it’s something larger than we were told about.”

“What are you talking about?” Bailey asked. “We were told we’d be saving the world. What could be more serious than that?”

Hanoi didn’t answer.

It was easy to identify the Rorakka Forest, because it was covered in flowers. The flowers were red and purple, with orange centers filled with spots of gold. If they hadn’t come to choke out the forest, if they didn’t smell like blood and smoke, Kana would have called them beautiful.

As it was, they reached out to brush a petal, and it faded away into the wind, leaving behind nothing more than a burn scar on their fingertip. “Ow!”

“Kana?” Mark glanced back, balancing precariously on the path between the flowers. “Is something wrong?”

They held up their finger. “I touched a flower, and it hurts!”

He came over and inspected it more closely. “This looks like an acid burn. I can’t tell for sure due to how small it is, but I’m not sure what else could create this type of erosion. No one step in the flowers unless you have to!” He called out to the others.

“So like the giant overgrown path?” Bailey called back. “There’s nothing safe here!”

“We call it the Bloom.” A man with green hair was led over by Hanoi, his wrists covered in similar burn scars. “It’s fragile, but when it crumbles the toxins have a chance to leak out. Every few hours, the research team has to leave for some fresh air.”

Kana could see why. The smell was already starting to overwhelm them. “These just… appeared one day?”

“And they’ve been growing rapidly since then,” The man confirmed. “I’m Nowari, a Pleroman scholar. Aside from the Bloom, we’ve seen signs of a large creature hiding within it. We believe it may possibly be a Dragon.”

“A Dragon?” Hanoi repeated. “Aren’t they just a story? And one only told in Pleroma, at that?”

“I thought that, too. But the signs are clear.”

This conversation would have been more helpful if Kana could understand any of it. “Um… What’s a Dragon?”

“Powerful creatures from beyond the stars, who prey on humans and Lucier alike. Accounts of how they appear are as varied as there are legends, but all agree that they are malicious reptilian beings.” They nodded, satisfied with Nowari’s explanation. “If our theory is correct, this forest holds a great danger, so tread carefully. When the first reports were investigated, not everyone made it back.”

Well. That was definitely something to have hanging over them during their second big job.

At the very least, if the tale were true, it seemed like they would be getting a good fight.

The Bloom was so thick, it blotted out the sun.

Bailey kept her head down, snapped her whip at a few hornets that attacked as soon as they got close, and tried to ignore the burning feeling biting at her ankles and aching in her lungs. There was no end to the flowers, no sign that they would stop, and much less life than the travel brochure said she could expect.

When that changed, it was Kana who noticed first. “Over there!” They pointed into the flowersea, ears as high up as they could possibly be, at an almost completely calm spot.

Almost. It sure was rustling a lot, for a place that was otherwise completely still. And as soon as it was pointed out, a massive blue creature emerged, lurching forward on wide, scaly wings. Sand whipped up in its path, which was very impressive for a battle started on soft forest dirt.

Some of it got in her eyes, and she had to pause to wipe it away. A cold wind brewed, and the first thing she saw once her sight returned was Hanoi freezing the Dragon’s limbs in place just long enough for Mark to inject it with what was presumably more mantlion venom.

Kana waved their sword, and as soon as the Dragon got out of the ice, launched forward with a chain of powerful slashing attacks. The attacks connected, but then they let out a cry of pain when they landed directly in the field of Bloom.

Encouraged by everyone’s actions, Bailey lashed out with her whip, striking as hard as she could, dodging lashing claws and whipped up sand until, eventually, finally, everything shuddered to a halt.

And The First Dragon fell.

The world was flooded with sunlight, as in a single moment, the Bloom evaporated, leaving nothing behind but the lingering scent of smoke and blood. They had only traveled in the forest for a day, but Bailey wasn’t sure if the stench would ever leave her nose entirely. “...It’s gone.”

“It must have been tied to the Dragon,” Mark said. “It all vanished the same moment that it died.”

For a long while, they all stared at the blue corpse in front of them, until footsteps ran up and Nowari arrived in the clearing. “The Bloom disappeared across the forest,” He gasped out, which answered no questions about how long they’d been standing there, except that if someone could make it to them from the entrance to the forest, it had apparently been much longer than Bailey realized. Was she so tired her sense of time had vanished? “Was this the cause?”

“It must have been,” Hanoi replied, brushing remnants of sand and pollen out of his glasses. “Everything’s… happened so fast.”

So maybe she wasn’t the only one wondering how long it had actually been.

Mirossan knights gathered around the corpse of the Dragon. “We’ll be taking this for further study,” Nowari explained. “...You should all head back to Kazan. You look exhausted.”

And absolutely no one found the energy to protest.

As soon as Murakumo gave their debriefing, they were whisked into the Guild Office, healers looking them all over.

Kana had to remind themself not to stab anyone, particularly while it was their ears getting poked at, but they weren’t sure they had the strength to lift up their sword again. “It appears to simply be a major case of exhaustion,” they heard one voice say, “in all four cases. The marks on their legs may warrant closer concern, however. I’ve never seen anything like this. But they should all be fine with plenty of sleep.”

Sleep… sleep did sound good, right then. But before Kana could even consider it, a lot of very loud noise started outside of the building.

“What in the world was that!?” The girl at the counter- Erin, her name was Erin- stood up quickly, the folder she’d been looking through falling to the ground abandoned. She ran out the door, but Kana could still hear her voice on the other side. “This is… what’s going on!?”

That was enough reason for them to stand up again. “Something’s happening.” They grabbed their sword, and slid it into its sheath. “Come on.” They weren’t sure why the others actually followed them, but they did.

“Wait, you have to rest!” The healer insisted. Kana ignored him, stepping out the door into a town filled with the Bloom.

“It’s those flowers…” Hadn’t they gone away when the Dragon was defeated? Why were they suddenly in Kazan? They picked their way through the streets, but all they could see was more flowers.

Eventually, they found their way to the gates of the presidential estate. Doris and Menas were standing there, surrounded by bright red blossoms. “Murakumo!” Doris’ voice, at least, was able to cut through the haze building in their head. “Our band of dragonslayers has arrived!”

Kana reached for their sword, but couldn’t bring themself to draw it. “Where’s the Dragon?” They heard Hanoi ask, and they felt snowflakes landing on the back of their neck, but didn’t turn around to look for him.

A loud roar- another one? Things had been so loud- cut through the air, and they looked up. The sky was dark and stained the same purple as the Bloom, dotted with scaly creatures of all kinds flying down. In the shadows underneath them sprouted the deadly flowers.

Menas stared into the sky. “Is this… the power of the Bloom we were told about?” They’d been… told about it? “The town’s being overrun… what do we do?”

“Keep it together, Menas!” Doris ordered. “Right now, the best thing we can do for ourselves is begin an orderly retreat! Escape is better than defeat!”

Running away? But… Kana wasn’t sure they could run. Wasn’t even sure they could fight, and fighting was in their blood. In their bones. To be unable to do as much as that…

“We’ll gather everyone we can in the plaza,” Menas decided. Someone grabbed Kana’s hand and started leading them away, but they could still hear behind them, even as their vision blurred. “Mr. President, what are you-?”

“I’m… staying here. It might buy you some time.”

“Absolutely not! You think I’d ever desert you!?”

“...Listen, Menas. One day, you will win this war. And when that happens, Murakumo will be waving the banner high. But this fight has been lost. Leave, Menas!”

There were footsteps behind Kana now, more people gathering. They collapsed against one of them- was it Bailey? It might have been Bailey. Or Erin. Somebody.

They grabbed onto the person as hard as they could, and the world went dark.

Aitelle slipped through the streets of an abandoned town, the air thick with the smell of Bloom. She dodged the paths of the hammer-headed Dragons with ease of practice, the Bloom crunching softly beneath her feet.

When she came to a stop, it was in front of the unmoving body of Doris Agouto. “A true Hunter to the last,” She acknowledged, raising her hands to weave her second most powerful spell yet. “I wonder… how long my sister will continue to fight this war.”

A girl ran through the desert under the moonlight, red flowers sprouting before her at every turn. “Go away!” She hissed, glaring at the flame-covered figure that circled above. “I get it! I’m leaving!”

Arcs of flame came crashing down, and she jumped out of the way, the place where she was standing replaced by molten glass. She didn’t stop, this time, but continued to run as far and as fast as she could, until the smells of blood, smoke, and sand all mixed together and she saw nothing but gold.

She wasn’t sure what to do next. But as long as she got away, as long as she still drew breath, that was all she’d need.

In Pleroma, three people were gathered on the top of the towers. A blonde woman with a golden crown looked down at her subjects. “So it’s begun, then.”

Nowari nodded. “These Dragons are mighty creatures. A petal of Bloom landed on the body we’d acquired, and it came to life again.”

“Even our researchers couldn’t have envisioned a new order like this one.” The brunette fiddled with the edges of her sleeves. “It would be unthinkable.”

The woman nodded. “It seems that the only limit to these abominations is imagination. Set everyone to researching this immediately. And… send messages to the whole world, particularly Nevanplace. We will need their help.”

“Our wise queen seeks a peaceful solution to dealing with the Dragons.”

“Given her wishes, and the current state of the world, we plan on leaving them be.”

“...I see.” Menas was a consummate professional, and would not allow his disappointment to show. Kazan had been abandoned, the bridge destroyed behind them, and their allies in Miross would do nothing beyond allowing them shelter.

He left them, walking through halls that, despite the outside realities, remained as pristine white as ever, and climbed a set of stairs in the east wing. There was a small bedroom there, where four bodies slept on, unmoving but for a girl mumbling something in Marero. It had been like that for months, and showed no signs of changing.

Menas stood and watched the unmoving forms, as the world continued to struggle around them. “...Weren’t you supposed to be our heroes? Murakumo?”

Chapter Text

The first thing Kana became aware of, after the attack on Kazan, was the feeling of a soft blanket. There was a pillow beneath their cheek, too, and that ear hurt- they must have been sleeping on it funny, or maybe just for too long.

But how long was too long?

They opened their eyes, and immediately shut them again against the harsh brightness- light bouncing off of pure white walls and bedding, streaming through an open window, pooling on a pale blue floor. They pulled a blanket over their head to block out some of it, and opened their eyes again.

It was a small room, with four corners, and one bed in each corner. In the middle of the room was a stained mahogany desk with a small lamp on it, but had no charged stone inserted, so it wasn’t lit up. There were curtains that could conceivably have blocked the light coming in, but they were white and almost see-through, so that certainly wouldn’t help.

Why whoever had put them there decided that the one with good low-light vision had to be the one directly next to the window letting in light, Kana had no idea. If they ever found out who it was, they would need to have words with them. At least looking out that window gave them a good idea of where they were.

Sprawled out before them were the Mirossan royal gardens, filled with color and plant life. Inside the walls, there was nary a petal out of place.

On top of the walls was a line of Bloom.

Kana stared at it for a moment, wondering if blinking would make it go away. It didn’t. “So, even here…”

There was a muffled sound from the bed on the other side of that window, and Bailey sat up, her once carefully done purple hair now a frizzy mess. She was saying something, but Kana couldn’t understand a single word that came out of her mouth.

…She also seemed a bit taller than she’d been earlier. That was probably a bad sign. “Bailey, do you know what happened earlier? The last thing I remember is…”

Fields of flowers. The calls of dragons. Being pulled along somewhere, probably to here, but they couldn’t recall any of it.

“I… we crossed the bridge to Miross.” Bailey reached for a long strand of hair and started braiding it without looking at it. “To keep the Dragons away, Menas… had to collapse it behind us. President Agouto didn’t make it out with us. They asked me to sing the- to sing a Song. To make everyone feel better, because I’m- I grew up Marero. I can do that.” Well, that probably explained what the language she’d been speaking earlier was. “I was so tired… I guess I made myself sleep with it. And maybe the rest of you.”

Kana was pretty sure they’d been unconscious long before they reached the bridge, but they doubted that bringing that up would actually help anything.

There was a moan from the bed closest to the door. “Can’t you be quieter?”

Bailey just rolled her eyes. “Hanoi, it’s the apla- apoth- the end of the world. Did you not see the Dragons?”

“I'll tell you if you help me find my glasses.” This seemed fair, so Kana and Bailey set off attempting to find Hanoi’s glasses- and Mark’s, after they accidentally woke him up by dropping one of the desk drawers. The crash echoed a lot louder than Kana had expected from a carpeted area.

“What’s all this noise about?” They heard Erin on the other side of the door before she opened it, a look of shock on her face. “You’re… finally awake?”

“Hey, Erin, do you know where Mark and Hanoi’s glasses are? They kinda need them to see.”

“I’d… have to ask Mr. Menas about that. You should see him at some point today, too. So he can tell you what’s happened while you’ve been sleeping.”

“...Was it a lot?” They didn’t like the sound of this.

“...You’ve been out for a while. Ever since the Dragons took over Kazan, three years ago.”

…Oh.

That was a lot.

Bailey stood on a marble balcony, looking down over the city below. Over the people of Miross and Kazan, living side by side as they had since the Dragons struck.

As, apparently, they had for three years.

“Finally done napping, are you?” Nestor, the redhaired leader of Kingsblade, the most renowned guild of Hunters in all of Kazan, strolled out onto the balcony.

Her hand gripped the railing even harder, fingers burning on the cold stone. “It isn’t like I wanted this.” By her original plans, she would have been back home by now, carrying with her the knowledge of the outside world she would need to do right by new arrivals.

But that hadn’t happened, due to a recent events and maybe a bit of using the Songs while exhausted. If she’d used a Ronam…

Her words, however, went ignored. “Well, while you were dozing, some of us were off doing actual work. The president and Menas both said you would save us, but-”

“We never asked them to say that.” She still wasn’t sure how she’d gotten pulled into that. All she’d done was help kill a bear, and then a Dragon, and now she could feel the weight of expectations from the knights she passed. They were just four people. How had this happened? “The bear mission was our first day, it shouldn’t have led to…” She couldn’t even describe what it had led to. Not in a language he would understand, anyway.

“...They’re already making plans to retake Kazan.” Nestor’s gaze was unfocused, his brow narrowed. “Because you woke up. Before, no one was going to do anything. The one time I said I wanted to-” He stopped himself, shaking his head. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said it in front of Volg. But for some reason, it’s okay now that you can do it! Just because-”

“You think I don’t know that?” It took conscious effort not to lapse into Marero, but she wanted to be understood, needed it like a sunfish needed water, craved it like a hornet craved honey. “You think I don’t realize how many people are counting on me!? Do you know who I am?”

The silence that hung in the air told Bailey that he did, in fact, know exactly who she was. It was as unsatisfying as she’d imagined it to be.

It was Kingsblade and Murakumo both who met with Menas and Erin in a little out-of-the-way corner of Miross’ Quest Office. The lightning wasn’t great, and they were all crowded around two tables pushed together, a map spread out in the center.

Hanoi had managed to eventually track down his glasses, or at least ones of a similar prescription, but even without them he was sure he would have been able to understand what was wrong with this picture. “For an official strategy meeting, this is…”

“It’s official to the people of Kazan,” Yuuri, Kingsblade’s lavender-haired magician explained, “Not for the people of Miross.”

“Queen Emerald wishes to make peace with the Dragons.” Despite keeping a diplomatic tone, Menas’ frustrations were plain on his face. “Due to this lack of support, we won’t have a place we can mount a sizable resistance from unless we take back Kazan.”

Kana leaned over the map. “So how do we do that?”

“...By defeating the Imperial Dragon. Some of you may recall, that day, a red Dragon at the head of the attack. That was an Imperial Dragon- a king among Dragons. If we can defeat it, the Bloom it spreads should recede, weakening any other Dragons in the area enough to clean up after.” That was at least somewhat consistent with what happened when the first Dragon Hanoi had faced, so the plan did have some logic behind it.

But there was an important question there. “How do you know this?” Even the stories he’d grown up on had never mentioned Imperial Dragons, or the Bloom, and it wasn’t like anyone would have had a chance to study them without being eaten.

Menas breathed out. “Because I was told this day would come. Four years ago, a strange woman entered Kazan, speaking of the Dragons and the Bloom. I haven’t seen her since the invasion, and I wasn’t sure I believed her before, but she was very specific about what fighting this war would entail, and that information has yet to be wrong.”

Hanoi wondered who that woman could have been. Nothing he’d ever read about Dragons indicated that they could be anything other than a fairytale. “I assume the bridge is still out, though. In that case, how will we approach Kazan?”

“Through Rorakka.” Genbu was the quietest member of Kingsblade, but he reached over and drew a path on the map. “The forest and cave system are both infested, but still passable.”

“Assuming nothing besides the bridge collapsed, anyway.” Bailey had spent the whole meeting so far in a chair even further into the corner than the rest of them, not looking at anybody. “Is it safe to travel through that much Bloom?”

“There isn’t much choice,” Erin pointed out. “At last estimate, eighty percent of the world was covered in it. But if you defeat the Dragons in an area, that may have an effect on the Bloom.”

Hanoi remembered just how poorly The First Dragon had taken to ice. Maybe his spells would be useful here. “...If the Bloom’s too much of a problem, I know a spell that can evacuate us. Space is… fragile.” Perhaps enough that it had let that original Dragon into their world even before the invasion. “I’m more concerned about having noncontaminated rations.”

Food poisoning was bad. Eating actual Bloom could only be worse.

Erin shrugged. “The trip should only be a few days. Keep everything well sealed before eating and drink from the springs when necessary. Nothing can pollute those.”

…Hanoi was going to take that under advisement, but he would still be carrying his own water.

“We’re sending all seven of you, because you’re the best we have.” Maybe the loss of papers from Kazan would explain how no one thought anything of their short battle record. But Erin had been there when they signed up, so surely she’d have to know better. “Murakumo will be taking the lead, while Kingsblade deals with the stragglers.”

“Are you kidding me!?” Nestor’s outburst drew some heads their way, and he quickly quietened down again. “I’ve been training for this day for years, and you give this to people who haven’t done their jobs for just as long?”

“We’ve been over this plan several times, Nestor. It’s the one with the most chance of succeeding.” Menas adjusted his glasses. “You should all leave as soon as you can. We’re all counting on you.”

Well, Hanoi wasn’t entirely sure how his life had gotten to this point, but he wasn’t about to argue with it.

Somehow, the patches of Bloom in the Rorakka forest were laid out exactly the same way they were the first time Murakumo had visited. “That over there is a Serpentine.” Nestor pointed out the teal snakelike creature floating above the flowers. “...They’re in the Valorian Woods as well as here. If the fog they create becomes unbearable, fall back to a safer location.”

Okay. This made sense. Bailey was pretty sure that fighting blind would just lead to trouble. “If you’ve seen them before, you know how to fight them, then?”

“Quickly.” Genbu’s sword was drawn, and he brushed it over a clump of Bloom, setting petals into the wind. “They’re quite bellicose- if you start a fight with one, others will hear it and make their way to join in.”

“...But that’s not always a bad thing.” Yuuri was sat down, now, applying some form of ointment to the scars the flowers had left on her ankles. “Even if you defeat them, leave them in the Bloom for long enough, and they revive. If the Bloom is cleared, though… they can’t do that.”

Kana nodded. “So we kill all of them at once. Hey, how many Dragons are in this forest, anyway?”

“...I guess we’ll be finding out.” Wincing as she brushed another petal, Bailey wondered if any of the Songs would be useful for mitigating hazards posed by the Bloom. It was the Nature Song for regeneration, wasn’t it? She’d been out of practice with that one. It hadn’t felt like something she’d need- it was meant to combat wasting diseases and poison, neither of which she’d thought she’d need to worry about until the day the whole world became covered in poison. “Mark, why are you directly picking the flowers?” Wasn’t stomping on them pain enough?

“If I compound this with the venoms already in my possession…” Well, if he wanted to kill the nerves in his hands… that was his decision.

It wasn’t like he could put that much into a bottle before Kana charged the Serpentines, anyway. They were already preparing to leap into combat. Hanoi glanced at Yuuri. “Are we absolutely certain healing springs are impossible to contaminate, or should we remove the flowers?”

“With how your guildmate is acting? I suspect there won’t be much choice.”

And with that, Kana lifted their sword into the air. “Charge!”

…On the bright side, if they survived this, it would be nice to remember what fresh air smelled like.

Dealing with the Serpentines turned out to be a simple matter of casting ice magic everywhere and hoping it landed. Hanoi was good at that, and if one Dragon fell quickly enough, another wouldn’t join in until the fog had cleared, and then it could start all over. It could be exhausting work, but it was rewarding all the same, to know that Dragons could be killed.

The least tired one, it seemed, was Bailey, who had been humming some sort of tune for the whole walk, until the last Serpentine fell and the Bloom disappeared, leaving behind nothing but a healing spring to break at. “What is it you were humming earlier?”

“Oh. You heard that?” She dipped her cup into the flowing water. “It’s… something special to my culture. I believe the closest word your language has for it would be Song. But it doesn’t mean just that. It’s… also a word for someone who is able to use them, even if they’re not one of us anymore, or if they never were but somehow managed to learn it anyway. When I sing a Song, it will accomplish something.”

Everything in the forest was peaceful, showing no signs of the gauntlet of battles fought shortly before. The one place in the world that was at peace. “What was that one supposed to do?”

“It’s- there were two of them. A remedy that you would call the Nature Song. And the Moonlit Song. It draws mana from the world and grants it to people. That Song… I’ve been singing since I was a child.”

Hanoi wasn’t entirely sure how much that meant, when she’d apparently gone through a whole growth spurt during their collective coma. But when she was talking about herself, instead of criticizing other people’s life choices, she could actually be really interesting.

…Of course, part of the intrigue came from the fact that she’d probably snap at him if he pointed this out. For now, he’d just enjoy the rest and the fact that he could count on the journey to have musical accompaniment from then on.

Sitting by the spring with his eyes closed… it was as if nothing had changed.

The second leg of the journey took them through the Rorakka Caverns, a twisted path patrolled by Dragons with birdlike heads and talons. Hanoi had taken one look at them and declared them to be Gryphonus. Whether that was from an old story or something he’d made up on the spot, Bailey wasn’t sure.

There were enough different passages stuffed with Bloom that it had only made sense to split up from Kingsblade. They all promised to meet up again at the cave entrance on the Kazan side, hopefully leaving the cave with fewer flowers than when they’d entered.

It was kind of boring, actually. Bailey had little to do but watch as Kana tore their way through one Dragon after another, sometimes not even bothering to pause between swings of their sword. If one enemy went down, they’d just turn their gaze to another.

With how small they were, it was kind of scary.

But as dangerous as the Gryphonus were, they still fell in the end. And everything was fine, for the most part, as they walked through the tunnels, marked by torches lit by long-ago travelers who had discovered the secret to undying fire and then never got around to telling anyone about it before being set upon by whitebirds and ripped to shreds.

…At least, that was one version of the legend. There was another where the travelers had been turned to stone after stepping on a scorpion’s tail. But that version was boring, particularly after the invention of stonol.

Still. The cave was quiet. And then Kana stopped in front of the group, peering ahead cautiously.

That was never something Bailey wanted to see from someone with good night vision who had been throwing themself into fight after fight just a few minutes ago. “Is something wrong?”

“...Remember those rumors, three years ago?” They asked. “About the giant lizard in the caverns?”

Mark nodded. “They said it was larger than an autumn tortoise, but…”

“...I think we just found it.” And into the torchlight stepped their next Dragon, spots of red blossoming under its feet, with sleek green and brown scales and a prismatic frill, a long horn sticking out of the center of its head.

“...That is- that’s a dinosaur,” Mark stammered out. “Just… why? Why is it- why is a dinosaur in Rorakka Caverns?”

“Because it’s a Dragon,” Hanoi replied, like that explained anything. “...Perhaps those fossils come from whatever created the legends in Pleroma.”

“Do the fossils tell you if you can eat them?” Kana was stepping back, but they also drew their sword, so there were a few mixed messages there.

Even beyond the really questionable part. “Didn’t you just eat?” She’d definitely seen them gnawing on a dodo bone at some point, which mostly served to raise the question of who had raised this child that they thought it was a normal thing to do.

“But think of the size of the steaks we could get out of that thing!”

“How about we don’t eat something that was just surrounded by Bloom?” Mark suggested.

“But then we couldn’t eat anything!”

“They… aren’t wrong.” Bailey hated to admit that, even as their potential meal was approaching them… Kana’s potential meal. Kana’s. Bailey did not want to eat a Dragon. She was not that desperate yet. “We should just kill it. Not for food, just to get rid of it. Hanoi?” An icicle was now lodged into the Triceratop’s frill. That looked painful.

But she didn’t feel sorry for it. Just by walking around, it was spreading the Bloom. That meant it had to die, if only to make some of that Bloom go away.

Her contribution to that effort mostly involved whacking it in the side with her whip, but it was better than nothing. At least she wasn’t Mark, wrapped up in experiments on how to dilute the Bloom so that it would hurt Dragons.

And then he did manage to poison that Dragon, and its death did remove the Bloom, so… everything was going according to plan? Maybe?

She’d just keep telling herself that and hope that it ended up coming true.

The hardest part of taking back Kazan turned out to be the final stretch of forest before the town.

Specifically, the hardest part of taking back Kazan was navigating the final stretch of forest before the town, because it looked very different than it had three years ago. Even discounting the Bloom, the way the trees stretched… how the paths turned back around on each other… it felt unnatural, even without Hanoi doing something weird with his space magic to confirm that it was.

Which he did do, and immediately pronounced the area as completely unnatural like the rest of them couldn’t see that for themselves. At least that meant no one had to worry that they’d forgotten the way to their own home. The way had just changed on them.

There were also the hammer-headed Dragons, which Kana had uncreatively dubbed Hammerheads. They were the most aggressive Dragons around by far, but also the easiest to avoid. And that part was important, when the biggest fight of all was up ahead.

The buildings were in sight, and the Dragons patrolling them eliminated. The underground healing spring that Mark would draw from to assist with smaller matters in the clinic had been dug up by massive claws, the water bubbling up to the surface and spilling out across a patch of mud. He didn’t even want to think about how long that would take to fix.

“You’d better not mess this up.” Nestor, Genbu, and Yuuri were going to go back into the forest to slay the remaining Hammerheads, packs slung onto their backs and swords at their sides. Nestor stared at the presidential estate in the distance, past the horse statue that had acquired a flower crown of Bloom. “It was the president’s last wish that you be the ones to do this… If you fail, I will never forgive you!” And then he stalked off into the woods, his guildmates following with apologetic glances.

…Coming from Nestor, that was about what he’d expected.

Kana dipped their finger into the spring for just a moment before recoiling from the cold water. “So we’ll just have to win this, for Kingsblade as much as for anyone else. What’s one Dragon when we’ve already killed so many?” That was easy for them to say- they’d actually eaten the Triceratop despite all warnings that the mean hadn’t been tested, let alone found fit for Lucier consumption.

“We haven’t killed an Imperial Dragon yet.” And Mark knew that things had names for reasons. Applying the wrong label to medication, making the wrong diagnosis in the first place… that sort of carelessness could cause irrevocable harm.

“Well, now’s the time to start!” They did not fall directly into the water after standing up, but it was a close thing, and Hanoi had to grab onto them. “...Where is the Imperial Dragon, anyway?”

“We’ve been through most of town already,” Bailey noted. “We even searched Mark’s house, and all we learned from that is his cat’s been successfully hunting bigpigs and he’ll have to clean that up later.”

He would, in fact, have to clean that up later. He was already not looking forward to it. “The only place we haven’t really checked is the manor.”

Hanoi nodded. “That makes sense. If this Dragon is a king among Dragons, wouldn’t it want to take the seat a king would? I know Kazan hasn’t been a monarchy since before we were born, but the same principle applies, right?”

“Let’s go check!” And then Kana darted off down the main street, through the flowers, around the statue of Remus, and it was all Mark could do to keep up with them. “Hey! Imperial Dragon! Where are you!?”

There was a growl from the flowerbed, and a large red head emerged, blinking a golden left eye- the right one was missing, with a gash through the space where it used to be. There were similar gashes all over the back of its neck, where natural armor may have used to be, with Doris’ sword stuck in there for good measure. Its arms, too, were in a similar state of disrepair, freshly dried blood obscuring shimmering red scales.

And then the Dragon spoke. “The wounds that warrior gave me may not have healed…” A pair of tattered wings unfurled, petals of Bloom spiralling into the air and vanishing. The exertion tore open some of the gashes on its back, new blood leaking out despite the years-old injuries. “But I can still devour you, flesh and bones!”

“...It can talk.” Hanoi lifted a hand, snowflakes drifting from his fingertips.

“Oh, good!” Kana brandished their sword, knocking away a set of heavy claws. “Hey, tell me your name! I want to know who I’m beating up!” …Mark decided that mixing up venomous compounds could wait until he was sure the completely insane Lucier he was stuck traveling with wasn’t going to die after saying that.

The Dragon lunged forward, snapping his fangs, and it was only Kana’s quick reflexes that got them safely out of the way. “I will not be spoken down to by morsels! I am Warcry! An Imperial Dragon!” As soon as the words were said, the air grew tense, and Mark could feel the air around him pressing in, trying to crush him. He huddled in on himself, focused on the healing power deep within, and tried to use it as a counter.

And then the pressure vanished. He looked up, and Warcry had a thick coating of ice covering his good eye. “You’ll have to try harder than that!” Hanoi declared. It was hazy, but it looked almost like he was shimmering with power. “Or do you only ever attack prey that doesn’t fight back?”

“This is a powerful predator…” Mark admitted, moving from checking on his own wounds to seeing if anyone else has been harmed. “But we’re Hunters.” Of little experience, but Hunters nonetheless. “In that way… we’re the same. So of course we’ll fight.”

Bailey nodded, still humming that same odd tune she had been since the forest. She didn’t open her mouth to say anything, but she did crack her whip threateningly when Warcry lashed out, and that distinctive sound was as good as any words, especially when followed up by an actual attack on the Dragon in question.

Warcry took a chunk of ice to the wing and attempted to strike Kana once more. As he had no good eyes, they just leaped out of the way. “Why are you-?”

“You took our town, and filled it with all these flowers! I was asleep for three years! So just get out already!” They dodged around claws that were just as quickly frozen into place, and all Mark could wonder is if the gold in their eyes had always leaked out like that, or if that was a new thing. “Get out of this courtyard, get out of this town, and just die already!”

And with that, they stabbed their sword right next to Doris’, buried in the Dragon’s neck, and pushed it through until the point of the blade came out the other side.

They pulled it out again in a gush of blood, and the first Imperial Dragon fell still, the Bloom it had produced fading from Kazan forever.

Kazan’s reconstruction commenced at once. So many were lost forever, but the people shed their sorrow and frustrations. In order to begin again, they worked night and day to rebuild their city.

And they remembered one man. One figure. Doris Agouto… the hero-king of the Kazan Republic, gone.

“With Warcry taking this place over, I expected to be a bit more of a mess,” Kana admitted, as Murakumo walked through the presidential estate in what seemed, to them, to be the second time in just one week.

Bailey couldn’t forget it had been longer, though. All the dust, all the people… this land was free from the Bloom, but it could still be seen from the highest vantage points. “I guess it can’t all have turned out like Mark’s place.”

Mark just let out a piteous moan and buried his face in his hands. “Don’t remind me…”

The door to the audience chamber creaked a lot louder than it had three years ago. The inside was emptier, too. Or maybe it just felt emptier, visiting someone different than she would have ever expected to.

But there was someone waiting for them, all the same. “Hm… bold footsteps. Even with my eyes closed, I bet I can tell what your faces look like.” Menas didn’t look comfortable on the antique throne, and for more reasons than the fact that it hadn’t been dusted yet. It was enough to make Bailey wonder why he was sitting there in the first place. Surely the new leader of Kazan could afford to commission his own fancy chair. “...That’s the first thing he said to you. It feels like yesterday.”

“To us, it almost was yesterday.” She still remembered what everything had looked like, on that day, the names and faces of the guards stationed, the exact pattern of sunlight dappled on the floor, which had been changed in the time since because all the old curtains were eaten by moths. The new ones had yet to arrive. “It still feels like… this isn’t really happening. Like I’ll wake up back in my childhood home.” Like she wouldn’t have already failed to meet people's expectations of her.

Maybe like the expectations had never been created to begin with. And then she could know better than to create them, because clearly this wasn’t working out like she’d wanted it to.

“...The Kazan mission must have been arduous.” This was probably the closest she’d get to an agreement from Menas that maybe sending people who had just gotten out of a coma to retake a city wasn’t the best idea. She’d take it. “But for the first time, we’ve been able to strike back against the Dragons. This is a watershed moment.” …She wasn’t going to ask what that meant. “We can’t stop here, though. As we speak, the rest of the world is being ravaged.”

“We can set out once we’re feeling better,” Kana promised, lifting a hand covered in Bloom scars. Bailey was pretty sure those were new scars caused by weeding the path back to the bridge… and then weeding the river the bridge was supposed to be rebuilt on.

Menas nodded. “Once things are recovered more, and someone can find where the president put it, I’d like to give you something to help you on your journey. For now… relax and enjoy yourselves. You’ll need all your strength for the journey ahead.”

“Well, if that’s all you wanted,” Mark turned around again, but glanced back to the rest of them. “There’s a celebration at the tavern tonight, for the Kazan reclamation. The bartender’s making a special drink called a Kazan Dream. Thankfully, those ingredients didn’t go bad. There’s alternatives for people who don’t drink, too.”

“A celebration?” Hanoi repeated. “We should all go, then. Menas, are you coming? I know the reconstruction must have you busy, but…”

Menas looked down. “...I’ll think about it.” He didn’t look back up at them, or say anything else, so most of Murakumo took that as their invitation to leave.

Bailey stayed behind just a bit longer. “Mr. Menas, I know this might not be my place, but… A wise man told me something, once. ‘Remember, life is short and you could die any day. Don’t leave regrets. But you can’t just be somber, either. You should make friends, drink up, and try to enjoy life while you can.’” He’d then thrown her into the war against the Dragons, but that wasn’t the point. “You must have been working very hard for him these past few years. But he wouldn’t want you to work yourself to death.”

“...I know. There’s just so much to do, I-” He took a sharp breath, and then shook his head. “...Save me a seat.”

Chapter Text

When Murakumo were ready to leave Kazan, now with heavy-duty boots to combat the corrosive nature of the Bloom, Menas presented Bailey with a large, twisted key that looked like wood but felt like stone.

“It’s not attuned to any of the portals yet,” He admitted, “But this portal key is worth the entire rest of the treasury. Attune it to Portal Seis in the southeast, and you should be able to return here from anywhere in the world.”

Not anywhere. There were none of those ancient structures around Marlleaire, the trees with gold and crimson leaves grown around a pitch-dark stone. The choice to live in those islands was a choice to be separate from the outside world in a way that not even the world leaders who carried these keys could circumvent.

Bailey wasn’t entirely sure how attunement worked, or even the word’s exact definition, but she was sure that, with Hanoi’s studies of how space worked, they could figure something out. “The key of Kazan? Won’t you be needing it?”

“Without attunements, there’s no use for it. Consider it a favor- it will be more useful once you’ve made those connections.” Okay, that made sense. It wasn’t like Menas could just go around the world adding destinations to the portal key- aside from maybe Portal Razo near Miross, the journey wasn’t exactly feasible for someone who was busy with matters of governance.

…Honestly, that was probably why the key was blank in the first place.

“But… where in the world will we go?” Kana asked. “There aren’t a lot of Dragons around Kazan and Miross anymore, so…”

“Cross Mt. Todowa, and make your way to Aizhen. Try and find out how well they are dealing with the Dragon threat, and lend your assistance as necessary.”

“...Okay. That makes sense.” Their ears twitched. “Just… does anyone here speak Aizo?”

Hanoi raised a hand. “I wouldn’t exactly call myself fluent, or anything, but I know enough that I should be able to function.”

Okay, good. Bailey had enough to deal with without adding learning a third language to her list of responsibilities. “I think that should be good enough, don’t you?”

“I should warn you that most of what I’ve picked up is incredibly formal and will feel out of place.”

Kana crossed their arms. “Yeah, but the rest of us don’t speak Aizo. I don’t think I’ve ever even heard Aizo.” Which was almost impressive, because the last time Bailey had checked, it was the most commonly spoken language in Eden aside from Pleron. “Unless Mark knows something?”

He shook his head. “Not unless you count being able to read the labels on common prescription medication, and that won’t even get us directions to an inn.”

…Hopefully, they’d be able to figure something out.

…In hindsight, maybe, in their travels, they shouldn’t have skipped over Miross.

Kana was absolutely certain about that, because then they would have arrived at Mt. Todowa early the next day, fully rested, and then maybe it wouldn’t have been so shocking when a round, green Dragon with spindly legs jumped down at them from a high cliff.

Of course, dealing with a Dragon of that kind- a Tower Dragon, Mark had declared, because it towered over all of them- was just as simple as hacking its legs off. Just removing one caused it to topple over under the force of its own weight. It was kind of sad, actually.

“You should all try wearing gloves,” They recommended, waving a covered hand. The thick red material provided an important insulation from the Bloom, though it didn’t do much about pollen being blown into their face. “Mark, why don’t you? Isn’t it a healer thing?”

“For surgical healers, and I do wear them when I’m working directly with my toxins.” As he said that, he plucked a flower of Bloom in a pair of tongs, shoving both into a small bag before the petals could fully dissolve. “But it’s easier to activate most basic healing concoctions with contact, and the activation process sterilizes everything, so it’s less useful for combat purposes.”

“...Is that really more important than not touching Bloom?”

“There haven’t been any studies done on it that I’ve read.”

“There’s probably some going on in Pleroma.” Hanoi pulled himself up to a higher ledge. “A new world like this one… Lady Emille would have declared it top priority.”

“Okay, but we can’t exactly go to Pleroma right now.” Bailey didn’t trip over a protruding stone, but it was a very near thing. “How would we cross the sea?”

That was a good question. They could do anything they wanted on this continent, aside from whatever was behind the locked door in the Rorakka Caverns, but reaching the others… Kana didn’t know much about boats, but they were sure that they wouldn’t be seaworthy after three years of disuse and the Bloom. And cleaning up the flowers on land was simple enough, with enough ointment, but they’d seen it floating on lakes and rivers, as well.

They couldn’t imagine that the ocean might have been spared from that.

Hanoi looked down, and pushed his glasses up again. “...Let’s worry about that if we ever have to go to Pleroma.”

A few seconds later, a Tower Dragon with frozen legs came crashing down. Kana pulled themself up to the cliff. “Was that always there?” They didn’t get an answer, though, because that was when a loud screech split the sky, and then they could think of nothing better to do than follow the sound.

At the peak of Mt. Todowa perched a Dragon.

This was not unexpected. The Dragons had, after all, taken control of the area. From the Tower Dragons leaping along the cliffs, to the Triceratops wandering the lowlands, there was nowhere untouched by Dragons or Bloom.

But, for the first time since Warcry, this Dragon had wings. “Pteranosaurus.” Hanoi was starting to wonder how many of those fossilized creatures found in the deserts around Nevanplace now roamed Eden. Was it all of them? Had this world, maybe, been invaded long before?

If so, why had everyone outside of Pleroma completely forgotten about it?

Bailey took a long, apprising look at the creature. “If you froze one of its wings in midair, I bet it wouldn’t be able to recover itself.” Like there’d been a single problem so far that Hanoi couldn’t solve by throwing ice at it until it went away.

“Most things can’t,” He agreed. It required a lot more precision than he could manage normally, but before the Dragons, most flying creatures had been small. “But… how do we get it over the gap?”

“Watch and learn.” She strode past Kana, who looked like they were in the middle of seriously considering the exact method of reckless slashing they wanted to attempt, and cracked her whip, drawing the Pteranosaurus’ attention. “Oh, do I have your attention now?”

…This didn’t feel like it was helping. “Bailey, what are you-?”

Bailey lashed out with her whip again, striking the Dragon right in the middle of the head, and it recoiled. “You’d better run!” She crowed as it flapped backwards. She then glanced at Hanoi. “Well? What are you waiting for!?”

…Right. Ice. Gravity. It took a moment of concentration to aim, and another to bend the elements to his will, but those moments were drawing ever shorter.

Ice formed along the wing he wanted it to, and with an even louder screech, the Dragon crashed down into the valley below. Confirmation of its death took only a few moments longer, as the Bloom around them rippled and faded away.

Kana approached the now-safer edge and peered out over the lands they’d come from. “Look, you can see Miross from here! And over there, there’s Kazan!” They waved their hands in the direction of two dots on separate parts of the landscape. If Hanoi squinted, he could see the distinctive white shape of Miross’ skyline, but the red roofs of Kazan just blended in with the sunset and the Bloom-covered sea. “It looks really far away.”

“We’ve been walking for a while.” Mark sat down, rubbing at his eyes under his glasses. “Even if you take out the time we spent at Portal Seis. And we’re incredibly high up, of course. That adds to the distance.”

Hanoi could agree with that. He remembered sitting in an airship, watching the world go by below, so high up that he couldn’t make out the ocean waves. How from the upper levels of Pleroma, it was almost impossible to see the portal tree, only visible from how its color differed from the forests surrounding it. It was a normal thing, maybe, that those spots so disconnected from the rest of the world would be hidden in such an obvious way.

“I’m surprised you can see Kazan, Kana.” It took incredible effort for him not to block out the sun’s glare. He’d heard that Lucier had good eyesight, but this was something else.

They looked away, ears twitching. “Well, it’s just the estate, mostly. And that’s just because I know where to look for it.”

“It’s a really clear view.” Bailey didn’t come so close to the cliff’s edge, instead focused on rolling her whip up again. “You see that brown line over there? That’s the Rorakka mountain range, isn’t it?”

It was, and that was proof of how far they’d traveled. It framed that section of the eastern continent perfectly, two mountain ranges and a flat stretch of land in between. “I never thought I’d come this far,” Mark admitted. “I always thought… I’d just spend my life in Kazan. It’d be simple, but I could live with that.”

Hanoi glanced over at him. “So what changed?”

“...It wasn't satisfying anymore. I can fix what people do to themselves while drunk, but stopping it from happening again is… another story entirely. Here, being reckless can actually mean something. And I don’t get beer thrown in my face.”

Hanoi wasn’t sure what a simple life outside of Pleroma would look like- he honestly wouldn’t describe anything in Pleroma as ‘simple’, at least to an outside viewer- but that seemed like a perfectly good reason to give it up.

Maybe he’d understand it more if he’d grown up like that. But he hadn’t, so he didn’t see how that ever could change.

A day later, their travels took them to a small farming village that still managed to function despite the red and gold flowers that surrounded it so perfectly, to the point that Kana could see where they’d walked before by the narrow path worn by their feet back to Mt. Todowa.

A woman who was sitting on a sheep pen near the village gates looked up at their approach, and promptly fell off of her post. “You’re- visitors!?”

Kana nodded, patting a sheep that wandered to the pen’s edge. “We’re Hunters from Kazan. We’d like to spend the night here, so we can set out for Aizhen in the morning.” Assuming there was an inn, and that it was still functioning after three years of no customers, anyway.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” The woman asked. “The only way there is through Gouga Thicket, and between the Bloom and the Dragonflies…”

Bailey blinked. “...What’s wrong with dragonflies?”

“...I told Lord Shion nobody was going to take his name seriously…” It took a few moments for Kana to get the joke.

“So… Dragonflies are Dragons?”

“Insectoid Dragons. All over the thicket. We don’t even know if there’s something more powerful there.” Okay, that could be a problem.

Bailey looked up at the woman, then down at her shoes, and back again. “This Lord Shion… is he the ruler of this village?”

“Yes. Lord Shion is lord of Simon Village. He came here with those of us who prefer a simpler life to what there is in Aizhen.”

“May we speak to him?”

“If he will see you. His home is in the very northwest of the village. But he’ll just tell you what I have.”

“Miss, you don’t have to worry about us.” Kana placed their hand on their chest. “We’re Murakumo. Dealing with the Bloom is our job!” They had been entrusted with it, and they didn’t want to let anyone down, least of all themself. “Just let us do our thing, and it’ll all be just fine!”

Lord Shion’s house looked no different from any others in the village. Bailey couldn’t imagine nobility elsewhere living in a place like this, as cozy as it was- it was beneath their station. Still, it was easy to recognize the person who lived in it because his clothes were so different from everyone else’s.

As soon as he lay eyes on them, he glanced over the wooden fence lining the village, and the almost unbroken sea of Bloom just outside of it. “I… haven’t seen you before. Are you travelers? I’m sorry I can’t offer you much, we’ve been cut off since the Dragons- but you must know that already.”

“That’s right.” Kana glanced over the fence. “We’re Murakumo, a guild of Hunters from Kazan. Since we cleared away the Bloom on our part of the continent, we thought we’d see how Aizhen’s doing… it’s not going well, is it?”

“I wouldn’t know. With Gouga Thicket as it is, we can’t send anyone to look. And our village isn’t important enough for King Sougen to bother trying to reach us even if everything was all right.” Because apparently, in Aizhen, it was acceptable to abandon villages to their fates if you just didn’t care enough. Given the Aizo she’d met, Bailey couldn’t even say she was fully surprised.

“Well, we’ll be finding out soon enough.” The travel couldn’t be that bad, right? “We were sent to lend our assistance… and also attune Kazan’s portal key to Portal Paco, but mostly the first one. …It is Portal Paco, right?” She could never keep track, since until very recently it had been completely irrelevant.

“The portal near the capital is Paco, yes.” Shion paused, before nodding sharply. “May I ask… if you’re traveling that way… could you take me with you? I… I have business in the capital, but I can’t find any escorts with how the world is now. I promise, you will be rewarded generously, I-”

“Only if you can find something that exposes your feet less than your sandals do,” Mark decided before anyone else could give their input. “It may be possible to gain some small resistance to the Bloom over time, but that doesn’t mean any part of you should be touching it.”

“I have traveling boots for long journeys. Will that work?”

Apparently, they were going to be playing escorts for a young Aizo lord. Bailey wasn’t really sure how to feel about this. “Will your village be okay without you?”

“If you truly will remove the Bloom from Gouga Thicket, I shall be able to return at the slightest sign of trouble. …Not that I see them needing me, at the moment. All of our troubles come from the complete stoppage of trade. If I can just start it up again…”

Okay, that sounded reasonable. Like the sort of thing Bailey herself would do, if the situation called for it. At least, she liked to think she would do so.

They could protect a noble kid. It couldn’t be any harder than fighting an Imperial Dragon.

The Gouga Thicket. Was. Horrible. Kana couldn’t go five minutes without a petal of Bloom landing in their ears, or a thorn pricking through their pants, or tripping over a bamboo shoot.

“If we’d stopped by the Zenma Thicket, we could have collected bamboo there,” Hanoi mused. “I’ve heard it is a delicacy.”

Shion nodded. “It’s the one luxury that my people can afford, because we live closest to it. But with the Sphere Dragons, not even we can gather it anymore.”

That was… certainly a name. “Sphere Dragons?”

“They inflate their stomachs full of gas, and float around.” This explanation did not make things make any more sense. “It makes them look like much thinner Dragons riding a ball, or so I’m told.”

Mark glanced up. “I guess that makes as much sense as- Dragonfly!” There was a bolt of light from Hanoi’s hands, and a frozen lump fell to the ground. “...I take it back. Seeing its anatomy, the name makes perfect sense.”

This was the third Dragonfly. A smaller dragonfly had, during the walk, tried to land in Kana’s mouth. They kept reminding themself that, the sooner they reached Portal Paco, the sooner they’d never have to make this walk again.

No more darting, buzzing Dragonflies that made their head hurt. No more getting divebombed by Pteranosauruses. They couldn’t wait.

“It’s strange, though.” Hanoi nudged the ice lump with his foot. “All of the Dragons I was told of in the past were reptilian- it was the one consistent part of the legend. The Gryphonus were considered a different tale entirely.”

“I’m still surprised you heard of them at all.” Bailey’s whip was good for clearing out Bloom, it turned out, so long as the wind was blowing in the right direction. When it wasn’t, the remnants of the flowers just ended up right back in everyone’s faces.

“It’s a collection of old Pleroman legends. And you recognize the dinosaurs just as well as I do.” A piece of bamboo crunched under his feet.

Shion looked around the group. “Are you… always like this?”

Kana shrugged. “I mean, there’s three years when we weren’t, but that’s because we were in a coma.”

“...Oh.”

“Then we woke up and I beheaded an Imperial Dragon.” Unfortunately, they had not been allowed to keep it as a trophy on the grounds that they had nowhere to put it. As much as they hated that fact, they had to admit that it was an excellent point. “I mean, he was dead before his head came off, but-”

“Kana, stop bothering the poor man,” Bailey sighed. “I’m very sorry about them. They’re very en- energy? Engine… Enthralling? No, that’s not right…”

“Enthusiastic?” Shion suggested.

“Yes. They’re enthusiastic. Maybe a bit too much.” Kana deeply wanted to protest, but wasn’t sure what they could say that wouldn’t be proving her right.

Also, if they opened their mouth again, more bugs could fly in there. That would be bad.

They ended up leaving Shion at a nearby healing spring for a bit, so they could challenge a Mantis Dragon with thick claws and outspread wings. Hanoi wasn’t sure why he was surprised anymore, aside from a brief moment of wondering when the Dragons had stopped being reptiles and became insects instead.

Kana was clearly having the time of their life darting through its attacks. “Hold still and let me stab you!” They cried with a manic gleam in their eyes. Hanoi was pretty sure they were the most stereotypical Lucier he’d met in his life. “Hanoi, put it in place for me!”

“I’d love to, but I’m busy at the moment!” Little wisps of fire kept kindling on the edges of the battlefield, and while a bit of ice would keep them away, that was all it would do. Looking away for too long would let everyone else be swarmed.

It was a good thing they’d left Shion somewhere relatively safe. He wasn’t too far away to call if there was trouble, but he also wouldn’t be caught up in this mess.

Another wave of snow pushed the wisps back again. They were almost more stubborn than the Dragonflies, and those just wouldn’t stay still.

“For the moment, the poison is doing its work.” Mark jumped backwards onto a rotten log, which crumbled under his weight, also crushing the petals that peeked out from under the side. “We’ll be fine as long as we can keep the wisps from healing it.”

“I guess…” Kana made a slash at the Mantis Dragon’s wings, driving it back a bit. Hanoi supposed that was one way of keeping it away from the wisps, but he’d stick with his magic. It got results. “Just stay still so I can cut your wings off!”

This actually made Bailey stop humming, for a moment. “Why would it stick around after that? Wait, if the Bloom is tied to this last Dragon, what happens if we drive it out of the thicket?”

Hanoi thought about that, between blasts of cool air. Surely, if the Dragons sustained the Bloom, driving them away would do as good a job at removal as killing, if only temporarily. But they would still produce Bloom elsewhere. “We chase it down? We can’t just let it go wherever!” If the Dragon was forced to leave the thicket, the most likely place for it to go next was Aizhen.

Something told him that wouldn’t be good for international relations.

“It’s not getting away!” Kana launched forward, again, with the kind of speed that they only showed in the heat of battle, and only at specific moments. The first strike was parried by a blunt claw, but the momentum propelled them upwards, and the second strike tore right through its wing. “Hah! Now you can’t leave!”

…He couldn’t say that they didn’t deserve the claw strike that knocked them to the ground afterwards, though he did feel sorry for Mark having more work to do than just stand back and watch toxins kill their enemy. But that wasn’t his problem. His problem was the wisps. The harsher the battle got, the more of them gathered around, a wave of light that somehow didn’t burn the flowers.

Unfortunately, while using magic to set the continent on fire would never have been a good option, it seemed that the option didn’t exist in the first place. Hanoi was sure he would have been much more annoyed by this were he a fire mage. But he wasn’t, so he wasn’t.

He’d cool the fires to nothing, and the others would kill the Mantis Dragon, and then they’d be off to Aizhen.

And, more importantly, to Portal Paco. Kana wasn’t the only one displeased with such a walk.

The guild of Hunters known as Murakumo dropped Shion off at the main gates of Aizhen’s capital city before setting off for Portal Paco. They expressed the desire to spend the night in their own beds, or at least in the guest rooms of their healer’s home, and set off without so much as setting foot in what the history books claimed was the oldest still-extant nation in Eden.

Shion didn’t go through the gates, either, watching the four of them leave without a care for the Bloom they trampled beneath their feet. He wondered if it would grow back.

Once their forms vanished over the horizon, he turned and set off on his own. Not through the ornate main gates with their wrought-iron bars and sharp-eyed sentries, but along the outer wall, carving his own painful path through a sea of flowers.

Maybe Murakumo would notice, when they came back the next morning. Maybe they wouldn’t.

If they did, it only mattered so long as they could find him.

Shion’s path into the city led him to a crumbling part of the wall, where a makeshift gate had been installed by people who wished to come and go without walking through the High District. No one much cared about that gate- it was the checkpoints between the High and Low Districts that were well guarded. It was easy to wonder, sometimes, if maybe the idea was that a bugbear could get in and wreak havoc on the commoners, but the High District would be protected.

Whatever the reason, it was a boon now. Shion crossed over a bone-dry canal, stepping into the Bloom-free air of Aizhen City’s Low District.

The Resistance Headquarters awaited.

Chapter Text

It was a fact of the Bloom that being in the mere presence of such flowers would darken the sky. Destroying them, in turn, made the world brighter, and a sufficiently large clearing would allow the sun the full force of its intensity. As such, after stomping out the Bloom, and while applying medicine for the wounds it left on their bodies, it was normal for Murakumo to sit in the center of the area they’d cleared and enjoy the restored light.

Now, they stood halfway between Portal Paco and Aizhen City, with a much wider path than the one they’d forged the day before. “Does anyone know what it’s like, in Aizhen?” Kana plucked at the grass, which had somehow survived three years buried. It was a good sign for the survival of other plant species. “The only person I’ve met from there was kinda…”

There was no good way to describe the man who’d lived in the room next door to them in Kazan’s inn, except that his presence in the building had been a good argument for moving into Mark’s guest rooms.

“The ones who would come to Pleroma were all nobles, and most were fairly unpleasant.” They didn’t know if Hanoi was aware he was agreeing with them or not. “They were dismissive even when I had to try and translate for them. I wonder why they even bothered coming, if they think we’re so beneath them. Bailey?”

She looked down. “...No one really talks about where they came from, in my home. I was told never to ask.”

…Well. That was thoroughly unhelpful.

“I know Miross was part of Aizhen until fairly recently,” Mark ventured. “And also that Aizhen has not, historically, had a good relationship with the Lucier. But the most that tells us is that Kana would get us less attention if they wore a hat, and that’s not exactly useful.”

Of course it wasn’t. Kana didn’t own any hats. There were only a few kinds that didn’t make their ears hurt, and they tended to be very, very expensive.

It normally didn’t matter. The fur on their ears was more than enough to keep them warm. “...I don’t think I need to. Like… even if they are really full of themselves, they’re not dumb enough to yell slurs at someone carrying a sword, right?” And maybe it wouldn’t even get that far, since Shion hadn’t been very full of himself except for maybe his assistance on accompanying them through a Dragon-infested thicket. And he’d clearly ended up regretting that all by himself.

But what they’d seen from other nobility, the ones who had supposedly gone for the sake of diplomacy, was not promising.

Bailey shrugged. “Well… even if they are that stupid, they probably wouldn’t chase us back to Kazan. Aizhen doesn’t do…” Kana was not sure what the next word she said was. It was probably something from her language.

“Do what? I… don’t think that was Pleron.”

“You know. It’s… the thing. If you do something against their laws, and then leave, no one will give you back to them.”

“Extradition treaties?” Hanoi suggested.

“If that’s what you call them.” Okay, but they were meant to be fighting Dragons. They couldn’t exactly do that if they were fugitives. “But it’s not going to come to that. We can just go straight to the king, ask him about the local Dragons, and they won’t insult the people actively working to save their country unless they have a death wish.”

Hanoi paused. “...What if they do have a death wish?”

Kana wasn’t entirely sure how the conversation had gotten here. “Well, we should probably warn Shion before we leave, he seemed nice…” They then realized the flaw in this plan. “Did… did he tell us where in the city he was going?”

Mark shook his head. “Not that I heard. He just said he had business to take care of.”

…Well. It was probably going to be fine.

Surely, whatever the people of Aizhen were like, they wouldn’t let it get in the way of their nation’s continued survival.

Right?

Just on the other side of Aizhen’s walls, there was a canal deep enough to act as a moat, though the rushing water at the bottom only came up halfway. There was a checkpoint at the city gate, and the guard on duty took a long look at Kana’s ears and Bailey’s dress before allowing all four members of Murakumo into the city.

In fairness, Bailey wouldn’t have worn something this nice for travel if she had any other clothes to choose from, but her spare outfits had been amongst the casualties of Kazan’s occupation by Warcry, mostly due to moths. How the moths had survived the occupation, she wasn’t entirely certain.

The bricks in the road were shaped like pentagons, and in the middle of the main street, there was a giant marble statue too old to make out what it was supposed to be from this distance. Apparently, Remus the Presidential Horse was not the only being to have been given such an honor, though that statue was newer and more well-maintained. The canals from around the town’s walls came inward around the statue, complete with red wood bridges crossing them.

The Aizo claimed that theirs was the world’s oldest nation still extant. Bailey had yet to see anything that would specifically disprove that fact, but the day was still young.

“The palace is at the end of the main street.” The guard had a whole introductory speech for them, apparently, that he was directly reading out the script for, paper literally in his hands. In fairness, this was the first time in three years that would have called for it. “The west side of the city is the High District, where the respectable people live. Down that road over there, you will find Waterlily Spa and Hotel, the best lodgings for tourists in all of Aizhen City. For foreign Hunters’ convenience, the nation’s Quest Office is located on that same block. Missions are assigned personally by King Sougen, so you will not receive them there.”

So, for any matters of great importance, they would have to petition the nation’s ruler directly. That… sounded incredibly inconvenient, even if it seemed to be a simple fact of life for people outside of Kazan. Even before circumstances had forced him into a leadership position, Menas had been recognized for his administerial capabilities, and part of that was understanding an occasional need for delegation.

Kana nodded. “We were planning on seeing the king anyway.” Again, the guard gave them an odd look, staring for several seconds at their ears, which had not gotten any less pink or fluffy over the past two minutes.

Still, he eventually got over himself, and returned to his script. “If you see any Lucier at work, do not bother them. The work they do is too important to be distracted from, and you wouldn’t want to upset their masters, particularly if you have Lucier of your own.” Bailey was beginning to understand why no one ever fondly reminisced about Aizhen. “And whatever you do, avoid the Low District on the east side of town. There’s nothing good to be found there.”

Curious, Bailey walked a bit past the station and turned to face east. For a long while, there was pristine city, and at the very end, just on the horizon line, another wall taller than the one around the city itself, with another checkpoint. “...We’ll keep that in mind.”

Hanoi, also, glanced in the direction of the Low District. “I know I can only speak formal Aizo, but… I’m curious about the other part of town.”

“Would they let us back in, if we went there?” Kana asked. “That guy was looking at me funny, and he said…”

“Let’s not risk it.” Even if she was also curious. “You’re our translator, Hanoi. You can’t just run off to another part of the city. What if no one else we talk to speaks Pleron?”

“...I know. It’s just, after hearing everyone say nothing but good things about Aizhen…”

“We might have time once we’re done here,” Kana suggested. “Once the Dragons are gone… who cares if we’re allowed into the High District or not? What are the chances we’ll have to come back here?”

Well, they had Kazan’s portal key, so the chances weren’t zero. But, worst case, they could just throw the key at Menas and tell him to do his own diplomacy. If they were lucky, it wouldn’t even end in a war, but they’d thought that about the first time the Bloom infested Rorakka Forest, too.

Still… Bailey had gone out into the world to see it for herself, and that meant the bad as well as the good. “We should think about it. I’d like to see what these people aren’t telling us.”

The streets of Aizhen City’s High District were pristine, shining with water from a recent wash, and the buildings were all elaborately decorated, constructed majorly of wood instead of just different kinds of stone.

The palace of King Sougen was much the same, but even more so. The higher floors were held up by finished wooden support pillars, the halls wide enough for the entirety of Murakumo to walk side-by-side while still leaving plenty of room for servants to squeeze past.

There was an audible rippling of water, and when Hanoi looked in the direction it came from, he saw that some of the rooms had koi ponds set into the floor. It sort of reminded him of the fountains in Pleroma, except those had walls so people wouldn’t fall into them.

And he could only assume that people occasionally fell into the koi ponds, given the occasional spots of water damage on the plush red carpets laid out over the stone floor. With how dignified everyone acted, he could only wonder how anyone’s reputation would ever recover from that.

“King Sougen is currently-” Given the context, he could only assume that the word that came next was something along the lines of him having other responsibilities at the moment, so that was what he’d relay to the others. “Wait here until you are spoken to.” That probably wasn’t quite right and might have meant something a bit more formal in the registers the guard might assume a traveler would speak most often, but this was probably a bad time to ask for clarification.

The guard walked off, and everyone turned to Hanoi. “He said that the king has other business and we should wait until… someone calls for us?” That seemed about right. At least, as Aizhen was the furthest thing possible from a neutral ground for discussion, there was a pretty good chance that the king spoke at least some Pleron, and that’d be one less thing for him to worry about. “...I did say my Aizo isn’t the best.”

Bailey shook her head. “No, that makes perfect sense. I think that’s the default for getting audiences with rulers, isn’t it?”

Hanoi wouldn’t know. The only times he’d witnessed the Chief Scholar in any capacity, it had been for festivities in the outdoors plaza that she’d supposedly been forced to attend in order to get any amount of sunlight, and that went for more scholars than just her. “I wonder what it is he’s doing.”

As if sensing the opportunity for trouble, Kana’s ears pricked up. “I think… people are arguing,” They ventured. “They’re saying…” They then quickly rattled off Aizo syllables with terrible pronunciation. “Did you… understand any of it?”

If a random noble from Aizhen were to eavesdrop on Lady Emille’s business, Hanoi would not have explained it for them even if he was fluent in their language. Still, he wasn’t sure what his minimal understanding could possibly hurt. “It… sounds like they’re saying something about water.” Probably. He’d only ever seen the character in books, and made his best guess about how to pronounce it, but it was a reasonable estimation that it would sound vaguely like that.

“Water…” Mark repeated with a furrowed brow. “The canals are supposed to be full, aren’t they?”

If that was the case, then them being lowered raised questions about why the palace had so many koi ponds. Surely one was enough, unless there were several people living there with their own separate passions for fish.

“I don’t think any of us could say,” Bailey replied. “We haven’t been here before.”

The yelling from the audience chamber increased in volume to the point where Lucier hearing was no longer required. “They’ve brought up flowers, now. I think that means the Bloom.” It was, at least, an easy assumption to make when there was a carpet of it as far as the eye could see. “If that’s the case, they might be talking about Dragons, too, but I wouldn’t know what word to look for.”

That was the issue with things that had only recently been discovered. Names had to be decided, and people who weren’t there for it wouldn’t know what they were. It was enough to make him wonder how the people of Simon Village had known what to call the Bloom. It hadn’t been a term before the invasion, at least that he knew of, and now everyone was using it.

Kana leaned back against the wall. “You know, the Bloom’s really fragile… why doesn’t anyone just stomp it out?”

“Besides the toxins?” Mark asked. “If it hasn’t been fully eradicated, it grows aggressively. We’ve all seen it. It may not be worth trying until the largest producers in the area have been killed off.”

“...It’s not that hard.” Hanoi had to disagree with them. Yes, proper application of ice magic could end a fight fairly quickly… but there were many fights, over a short period of time. “I-I didn’t really believe we’d be saving the world, but-”

“Kazan’s Hunters?” Instead of a guard coming to find them from the audience chamber, it was Nowari of Pleroma, arriving from another part of the palace.

This was, at least, someone Hanoi was willing to speak with. “Scholar Nowari. What brings you here?” He hadn’t seen the man’s airship anywhere, but that meant little in such a large city. For all he knew, it was illegally parked in the palace courtyard. All he knew was that he couldn’t have used Pleroma’s portal key, or there would have been a trail cleared between Portal Paco and the city already.

At least this sort of explained how people on Aizhen’s land knew what to call the Bloom.

“I’ve come to counsel King Sougen on the threat of the Dragons. I assume you’ve come for that as well?”

Kana nodded. “Menas sent us, since Kazan and Miross are safe now.”

“So Kazan has been reclaimed…” It seemed news hadn’t reached Pleroma yet, or Nowari had been sent before a messenger could reach the towers. “I should warn you, you may not be very impressed by Aizhen’s king.”

“Why not?”

“Aizhen City’s main water source is the Hiyoron Spring, located in the depths of Hiyoron Grotto. The flow of water in the area has been drastically reduced, as the grotto has become the lair of the Imperial Dragon Eclipse. I came to solicit his cooperation against it, but he claimed it was unnecessary while promising to keep in touch.”

“He… doesn’t care about an Imperial Dragon blocking the water supply?” Bailey stepped back, his eyes wide. “Does he not realize what that could do to his people?”

Hanoi nodded. “You’d think he’d at least care that his koi ponds might dry up.” Even if they were the projects of other nobles… that just felt like setting the stage for a rebellion. Had this king not learned from his father’s loss of Miross?

“He believes that Eclipse is a much less imposing foe than it is. Between the Bloom and the dwindling water, a Dragon is deadly long before it strikes.” Nowari sighed and shook his head. “You must excuse me. I need to inform the Chief Scholar of these happenings. I may be sent to Kazan after, but-”

“If that’s the case, we’ll see you there.” Hanoi gave him a firm nod, and he went on his way.

Just in time, as the door opened once again. “Murakumo.” The guards in the palace wore no armor, claiming it was only for emergencies. “King Sougen will see you now.” Despite how Nowari’s discussion had been entirely in Aizo, the guard was now speaking Pleron. Hanoi couldn’t help but be relieved by this, and also mildly inadequate, but that part wasn’t new.

The throne room was large enough to contain multiple buildings on its own, or maybe a small village. The king’s throne, instead of the admittedly very nice chairs used by the leaders of Miross and Kazan, was a bench with a golden frame and intricate detailing on the back that looked like a pair of wings, as well as a red velvet seat. Hanoi had never laid eyes on such an expensive piece of furniture.

The floor where the throne sat was raised up from the rest of the room by two flights of stairs, the tops of both layers fenced off. So that was where they put the safety precautions that were meant to go around the koi ponds…

On this throne sat a man with a very colorful crown. “First in Eden, father of civilization, King of humanity…” He wasn’t even surprised by the grandiose titles, though they were a few centuries out of date to still be respectable. “I, Sougen, potentate of Aizhen, bid you approach the throne.”

…Apparently, just as Hanoi only knew incredibly formal Aizo, the king had focused on the most formal Pleron. Admittedly, not the worst choice for matters of diplomacy.

None of them were really sure who was meant to speak in this situation. Kana was the founder of their guild, technically, and the one who led the charge into battle… but they were also a Lucier child with the self-preservation instincts of a rabi. Maybe not the best person for handling foreign affairs.

But it didn’t matter immediately, because the king continued to speak. “You journeyed here from the frontier. What is your purpose in doing so? Like that scholar, do the Dragons concern you?”

Bailey stepped forward, which at least was not the most disastrous option, even if she and the king would both be speaking in their second language. “...They do. We have recaptured the Republic of Kazan, but we know that the rest of the world still suffers. The new leader of Kazan, Menas, requested that we continue the war on other fronts.”

…And, in this particular case, she was clearly more eloquent than some native speakers. If only she could be the same way when buying groceries.

The king laughed, and waved his hand. “Do not worry. Aizhen remains unperturbed. Even the Imperial Dragon Eclipse has fled to a hole to cower away from my soldiers. It is a petty Dragon, who can only play with shadows, and who will surely fall before them when they get around to it. You need not worry.” Given the information that Nowari had stated, and that wasn't being stated here, Hanoi couldn’t help but worry. “Report my words back to that new leader of yours.”

“...And that’s what he said to you?” Menas asked.

Kana nodded. “Also some stuff about his culture being better than everyone else’s culture, but I kinda just tuned that out ‘cause everyone else had already given the whole speech.” Really, did all those people think they had nothing better to do than sit and listen to them talk? They’d seen squirrels that were more interesting!

The squirrels were also cute, fluffy, and didn’t make racist comments. Unfortunately, they suspected they would be in a lot of trouble if they tried to replace Aizhen’s leadership with rodents, or they would be doing so already.

“I see… But can they really fight an Imperial Dragon on their own?”

“I don’t see why they couldn’t.” Really, Murakumo was just four people, and they’d done fine on their own. “But… I don’t think they want to. So if they won’t, we’re just gonna have to do it for them.”

Menas gave Kana a long look. “Is that why you’re the only one here?”

“...Maybe. But they’re running out of water, and he’s not doing anything about it!” They were pretty sure that, by the time lack of water started to impact him, it would be too late for a lot of other people. Possibly even some of the other stuck-up nobles. “He doesn’t even care that the Bloom is poisoning people!” They’d lost three years of their life to those flowers!

…And probably a few other factors. But if anyone asked them, they’d blame the flowers.

“...Try not to start a war.” All things considered, that was a perfectly reasonable request.

Kana would keep that in mind, but they didn’t make any promises. It likely wouldn’t come to that, anyway- if King Sougen didn’t care enough to send his soldiers after Eclipse, he likely wouldn’t mind Murakumo showing up to deal with the problem, either. It should be fine, they just have to go into the grotto and fight the Imperial Dragon.

…They wondered when that had become a thing that they could just think to do.

While Kana was off informing Menas that they might or might not have been planning an international incident depending entirely on whether King Sougen was capable of graciousness or not, the other three were hanging out in the palace of Aizhen City, mostly because no one had yet asked them to leave.

The shadows in the royal audience chamber were even deep enough for them to hide in and eavesdrop from. At one point, a woman joined them with a bright red cloak and a pin with the symbol that marked her as one of the king’s wives. Her Pleron wasn’t the best, but between that and Hanoi’s limited knowledge of Aizo, they were all capable of communicating with each other.

“I… watch, sometimes,” The woman admitted, sitting on the least-comfortable looking wooden seat in the whole building. “What he does to Aizhen… I keep hoping he will know.”

Bailey was pretty sure she’d sounded like that, when she was first learning Pleron. “I think.. ‘See’ might be the word you’re looking for here. Or… I know there’s a better one.”

“Understand, probably,” Hanoi suggested, and then he told the woman something in Aizo. She nodded, and replied. “She says that she wants to think he can change, but that the situation would have to be truly dire for him to do so. She thought that the water situation would be enough for him to come to his senses.”

Except, apparently, it wasn’t. “Just a bit ago, you said he exiled someone for being upset her daughter died of thirst.” Given how much water the rich people had access to, she definitely couldn’t say that the upset was unjustified. “Or… he tried to. Would he actually care if she stayed?”

The Third Empress shook her head. “Not if she stayed in the Low District for the rest of her life.” Where the water wasn’t. Because if he left the dissenters for long enough, they would die on their own and he wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore.

Bailey still wasn’t sure how countries were meant to be run, but she was putting the nation of Aizhen at the top of her list of what not to do. “Wasn’t the last king doing something like this the reason Miross declared independence at the start of his reign?”

The king’s wife shrugged. “I was not taught about such things.” She turned to Hanoi, then, and another rapid conversation in Aizo occurred, though the mage stumbled over multiple words. She then stood up and slipped through a side door.

“What was that about?” Mark asked.

Hanoi looked down. “She… offered to give us help with something, and told me to wait. And I think it’s meant to be a secret, so don’t talk about this to anyone but Kana.”

Kana was going to be upset they missed this, weren’t they?

When the door opened again, the shadowy corner they sat in had slightly fewer shadows in it, as the empress carried in her hands a small, red glass orb with a strange light flickering inside. Bailey didn’t need an extensive education to know that this was the kind of artifact legends were made of. “Your speech… would call this the True Orb. Take it.”

Mark inspected the object closely. “Wouldn’t this… be extremely important to your nation? Is it okay to be giving it away?”

The woman said several sentences that weren’t in Pleron, before leaving again. Bailey glanced at Hanoi, hoping for answers.

“...She said the king won’t notice.”

As soon as Kana made it back to Aizhen, Murakumo set off for Hiyoron Grotto, set in the southernmost hills of the continent.

They made it exactly five steps in before they were stopped by a soldier of Aizhen. “The Imperial Dragon lies in the depths. From here on, it is extremely dangerous.”

Kana wasn’t overly worried about danger. Dragons were powerful, yes, but a team that worked together could overcome many threats. “We’re Murakumo. Kazan’s Dragon hunters. Whatever's in here, I’m sure we can handle it.”

“A-Are you sure? An Imperial Dragon-”

“Wait.” A man in a purple cloak with a topknot walked through a clump of Bloom, the flowers disappearing at his touch. To his credit, he didn’t even wince. “If these are Kazan’s heroes against the Bloom… you must not impede them in any way.”

The guard immediately stepped back. “I’m sorry, my lord! I meant no offense!”

Well, that made things simpler. “...Thanks.” Kana was pretty sure they could have gotten around him, but it was nice not to have to. “But… who are you?”

“I am Duke Rikken. Of all the sons and daughters of Aizhen, I am the eldest.” They wondered if his title would sound more grandiose in the original language. As they did not speak that language, they didn’t ask. “The two of us have been entrusted with monitoring this situation, and resolving it.”

“Just the two of you?” Bailey cast a golden gaze over the guard with his shaky sword hand, and Rikken, who was absolutely not dressed for combat. Kana agreed with her- while Murakumo might not have looked much like an elite strike force, those two looked even less like such. “...Are you sure he wants you to succeed?” …They had, however, hoped not to start a war.

Rikken didn’t seem offended, however. “I don’t claim to understand the king’s motivations,” He claimed, which was probably a bad sign. “But it does seem we need your help to dispose of the Dragons. Whatever we try, it seems we can’t dispel the Bloom on our own.”

At least they knew the reason for that. “You’d have to kill the Imperial Dragon for that. And to do that, you’d have to get past the Dragons in the way…” It had been a force of seven to reclaim Kazan, because that was what they’d needed to deal with the sheer number of Dragons.

“If that is the case, then… we must ask for your help.”

“My Duke!” The soldier sounded extremely scandalized. “Is this really…?”

Rikken looked the soldier in the eyes. “In our country, even a soldier like you is taught to value his honor. However, neither honor nor tradition can resolve this crisis. We two will suffer this shame, for the sake of all Aizhen.” This cemented him, in Kana’s mind, as the least insufferable noble in Aizhen except for maybe Shion.

…Whatever happened to Shion?

“Don’t worry about us. We’re really good at our jobs.” They wondered if mentioning the fight against Warcry would be necessary or not. “Just… there’ll be other Dragons in the way, won’t there? What are they like?”

“There are two kinds of Dragons in this grotto,” The soldier replied. “Schools of small Faerie Dragons roam the area, and swarm anything that approaches. Each school is led by a larger Enshentas.”

Kana looked down one of the hallways at the creatures moving through the Bloom. “Do they look like fish?”

“Yes. Be careful not to let them swarm you, or you won’t make it anywhere near Eclipse.”

“And what of Eclipse itself?” Bailey ventured. “Do you know anything?”

Rikken nodded. “It will be secreted in the depths. Eclipse is a creature of darkness, and hates the light. We thought we could use that fact to weaked it somehow, but the only thing I could think of that would help is an artifact of the royal line… I’m not trusted with such things.”

“And artifact of…” Hanoi repeated, before reaching into his pocket and bringing out a glowing red orb. “Do you mean this?”

There was a long silence. “...I’m not going to ask where you got that from,” Rikken decided, “But yes. There’s a pedestal by what would be the spring’s surface, if the water flowed normally. Using it… we can focus the light to the depths where Eclipse dwells. …Of course, thinking on it some more, we couldn’t be both here doing that, and downstairs fighting the Dragon.”

Well. At least someone here had a plan. Kana was perfectly satisfied with just going down and stabbing things, but they needed to know the things would be capable of being stabbed, first.

With that now as close to confirmed as it could be, there was no reason not to hurry to the deepest parts of the grotto.

They couldn’t wait.

The Imperial Dragon Eclipse was not a particularly visible figure. In fact, when Hanoi first saw her in the deepest part of the Hiyoron Grotto, she was nothing but a ball of writhing shadow above a pool of violently rippling water.

And then she noticed them, and from the ball of shadows emerged a hazy shape of claws and fangs, a violet light appearing where eyes were meant to be. “You…” She rasped out, in a voice that Hanoi had to strain his ears to make out over the sounds of the water she was suppressing. “You come here… to the depths of my darkness…? Fools… to come and be swallowed here…”

Kana brandished their sword. “Imperial Dragon Eclipse! We challenge you to a battle!”

The Dragon hissed, and more shadows began to leak out… until a wide beam of red light was cast right on top of where the water was, surrounding her completely. “This… This faint light…!” The shadows shrank in on themselves again, leaving only a writhing mass and the head with the glowing not-eyes, as well as a few tendrils that attempted to shape themselves into limbs.

The key word being attempted. Hanoi had considered using a combination of ice and shield magic to make the light even stronger, but… The more he looked at the struggling creature, the more unnecessary it seemed.

Kana, meanwhile, charged in with a triumphant battle cry and almost tripped over an icicle. Apparently, dealing with the Enshentas and their Faerie Dragons had taught them nothing. “Give the Aizo their water back!”

Despite her weakened state, Eclipse managed to fight back with an ice-covered claw, assuming that a mass of shadows could be considered a claw. Hanoi was a scholar of space, not a biologist, but he was well aware that the very existence of a creature made from darkness raised a lot of questions about cladistics and also the physical laws surrounding light.

Maybe it was just a Dragon thing, along with the flowers that covered the walls and, even in this damp place, stunk of blood and smoke. Those went against his previous understandings, too.

“This light… will not defeat me…” Ice magic flew through the cave, and Hanoi drew a magical barrier around himself, which shielded him from the worst of the cold. So this was what it was like, to have an enemy he couldn’t fight. “Mere morsels… will not defeat me…!”

Bailey sliced an icicle in half with her whip. Just another reason to never make her mad. “The king of Aizhen, as he is today, is not a man who should be leading his people,” She declared, “Because of how he treats their fears about the water. Between yourself and him, the fear the people feel…” Her next declaration was in Marero.

The Dragon responded in Marero. This somehow ended in a pitched argument that nobody but those two could understand, while one side of the conversation was being attacked by a kid with a sword.

Mark walked behind Hanoi and his shield and started fishing out vials of poison. “...I chose this life. I really did.”

Had he? Even that morning, Hanoi hadn’t been aware that his life was going to take this particular turn, if only because he’d hoped that every fight against an Imperial Dragon could be as dignified as the one against Warcry, but apparently not. “Is what Eclipse is made of something you can poison?”

“If she doesn’t die soon… I’m going to have to try.”

Thankfully, it didn’t come to that. Kana eventually managed to stab Eclipse through the lights that seemed to act as her eyes, and her body collapsed in on itself and vanished, until a massive spring of water shot up from where she once was in perfect unison with the dissipation of the Bloom. It was probably a good thing she was tied to those flowers, since it would be impossible to tell the moment she was dead otherwise.

What was this going to do for the people of Aizhen? Would it help them to live with their thoughtless king? Or would Sougen finally be the ruler selfish enough to let the whole kingdom crumble?

Hanoi didn’t intend on staying long enough to find out.

Kana fell backwards onto the damp stone. “Ow!”

“I’m not sure what you thought fighting over a highly-pressurized amount of water would do,” Mark replied, bandages at the ready. “But I recommend never doing it again.”

“Yeah, I figured that out… How long will it take for Aizhen to have water again?”

“I guess it depends on how far the waterway from here to the city is.” For a moment longer, the red light filled the spring, and then it vanished. Presumably, whatever Rikken and the soldier were doing with the True Orb- which probably wasn’t the right translation, when he thought about it, but it wasn’t his problem now- they’d stopped doing now that Eclipse was dead. “But if the people are responsible about their use of the water, what they have now shouldn’t run out until the new supply reaches them.”

Their ears drooped. “But the king isn’t responsible…”

Bailey sighed. “I agree. But we don’t have the time to be overthrowing nations right now. I- I promised before I left home. That I wouldn’t start any wars. I think civil wars count for that.”

Okay, Hanoi was curious. “Why would anyone need to tell you that?”

Kana looked down. “Actually, Mr. Menas said the same thing to me.” Okay, but they’d once tried to keep the head of an Imperial Dragon as a trophy. That just seemed like a reasonable precaution. “...I didn’t say I wouldn’t, though.”

“...How about we go right back to Kazan after this?” Mark suggested, face suddenly pale. “That duke, Rikken- he can tell the people what happened and we don’t have to talk to the king.”

As it turned out, avoiding King Sougen was more appealing to Kana than the thought of starting a war. Hanoi would have to keep that in mind in case this ever came up again.

They’d freed the Eastern Continent. For now, this victory was everything they needed.

Chapter Text

“So… Eclipse has been defeated?” In the imperial throne room of Aizhen, King Sougen stared down Duke Rikken, who kneeled reverently before him.

“...That is correct, my king.” Sougen believed it was just the two of them in the room. Rikken was less sure, as he paid enough attention to be aware of the Third Empress’ proclivities. “The water levels should return to normal over the next few weeks.”

This would be too late for a number of people. While the High District had thus far been unaffected, the Low District had had almost the entire water supply cut off, leaving the people with the choice of either having something to drink or watering their crops. Rikken had read the reports, and he could already see that this would result in both human deaths and a poor harvest.

The less said about the status of the Lucier in the Low District, the better.

Sougen nodded, but his gaze was not focused on Rikken at all. “Then there is only one threat left to Aizhen’s future.”

…This was not a good sign. “My king?”

“The resistance in the Low District… they cannot be allowed to threaten my rule. Duke Rikken, once you have recovered from your ordeal at Hiyoron… Deal with them.”

“...Of course.” Rikken turned, walked down the red carpet that was still stained from when one of the guards had fallen into a koi pond, and carefully stepped behind one of the room’s barriers.

As expected, the Third Empress stood there silently, a pleading look on her face. He shook his head.

Before they could go somewhere more private, they heard Sougen continue speaking. “That upstart Shion… Rikken and his claim to the throne… Let them destroy each other. The crown is mine… It is mine!”

Rikken and the Third Empress shared another, more serious glance. It seemed that there was only one way to respond to this.

“You may borrow my good ink if you want. I don’t have anyone I wish to write to, anyway.”

“I must decline. We can’t both be suffering the consequences of this.” Was it treason? Maybe. He didn’t know how he’d be able to look himself in the mirror, after this.

But for the good of Aizhen… he could only hope that reaching out would be the right thing to do.

When Murakumo returned to Kazan, Nowari was already there, speaking to Menas. “It seems that the inhabited parts of this continent have been largely freed from Dragon occupation.”

“It’s Murakumo’s work,” Menas replied, not looking up from the paperwork he was filing. He probably had people to do that for him, now, but it seemed he was staying in the habit. “Other guilds have made progress since they woke up, but that first step- defeating that Imperial Dragon- was their doing.”

When they’d been asked to take that step… there hadn’t really been much of a choice. For the sake of their planet, and also so Mark could have his house back. He still wasn’t sure why it had fallen to them, but whatever the reason, it was working.

“Two Imperial Dragons.” Kana inserted themself into the conversation with no regard for the fact that Menas and Nowari were both important individuals. “...We beat Eclipse.”

“You have?” Nowari looked up. “So that’s two Imperial Dragons defeated… I don’t suppose you could tell me how you did so?”

“We took advantage of her vulnerability to light,” Mark explained. Not that he’d had much part in it- it turned out that he couldn’t effectively poison a shadow, even with his newest Bloom-based concoction. “By the time she could start trying to push through it, the battle was over.”

It was almost enough for him to feel bad for her. Almost. There was still the matter of Aizhen’s water supply.

“...I’m surprised King Sougen let you help.”

Kana laughed, ears pressed down. “Yeah, about that…”

“We told Duke Rikken to take credit if it looked like it would be a problem,” Bailey explained, “Since we couldn’t just leave it in hope it’d solve itself. I hope… you don’t take issue?”

Menas shook his head. “We were just saying that our goal is the defeat of the Imperial Dragons. Clearing the Bloom has to take priority, whatever it takes.”

“It’s god you arrived when you did,” Nowari added. “Chief Scholar Emille wishes to broker an alliance between the nations of Eden against the Dragons. We thought it might be a good idea to send you.”

“...Why?” Okay, he hadn’t meant to say that part out loud. He was apparently an important person now, for some reason, but he wasn’t sure that extended to this. “Just because we can fight Dragons, that doesn’t make us good at…” Well. At things that involved not fighting.

This question actually made Menas put down his papers. “According to Nowari, Pleroman scholars have been studying the Dragons and the Bloom for the past three years. But they haven’t made any progress in fighting back. The four of you have proven that it’s possible. And-” He glanced at Bailey, but she shook her head.

“That… should not bear on this. I can speak to them, but… promising my words will reach them… I can’t do yet. Not even to those people.”

“Speaking to them is all we’re asking of you.” He sighed, and adjusted his glasses. “I’m sorry. I know it’s a lot of responsibility for just four people. But we believe you’re the ones most likely to make it to Nevanplace.”

Hanoi raised his hand. “...Does Pleroma not have a portal key? I know Portal Fel’s only a short walk.”

Nowari looked away, a faint blush coating his face. “The key of Pleroma may have been lost in the warehouses somewhere. We’ve had people searching for it, but…”

Mark was starting to wonder what the point of the portals was, if only a few people had a key, and the ones who did kept losing them. “How would we get there, then? The sea…” From what he could tell, the ports had all been destroyed when the Dragons appeared.

“There's a seaship in our bay we could let you use.” Nowari said nothing about how they would reach Pleroma in the first place, but presumably it had something to do with how he was on the continent, and in contact with his own people, to begin with. “That is, if you’ll accept this mission.”

“Of course we will!” Kana smiled, but it wasn’t wide enough to show their fangs, let alone reach their eyes. “This is important, yeah? So we’ll have to do it. And I… I’ve never been to Nevanplace. I think I’d like to see it. It’d be better without Bloom, probably, but we can fix that.”

Nevanplace… the kingdom of the Lucier. Mark had heard it was a land of vicious cold, surrounded by lands of scorching heat. “We’ll have to pack well, for a journey like that.” Besides basic provisions, they’d need more water, and warm clothes. The clothes, at least, could probably be stored at his house until they had the ship, since they could use portals, but the water was still in question.

“It’s fine if you need time to prepare,” Menas reassured them. “Scholar Nowari will be staying here through tomorrow. You can take that time for yourselves.”

Well… it probably would be a good idea for Mark to go through his things and clean up a little. Fixing Kazan as a whole had taken priority, and now there was time to find someone to help deal with the growing puddle under the sink.

He wasn’t sure when there’d be time to stay home, and enjoy it. The best he could do was keep everything prepared in the event that day came.

Nowari had landed his airship near where Kazan’s seaport had been, prior to the seaships all being smashed or set on fire. It was, to Hanoi, an utterly normal sight.

“We’re… traveling by air.” Mark sat down heavily on the long row of seating by the equally-long window, deliberately not looking outside it.

“It’s the result of our crystal technology.” Nowari counted heads, and, satisfied that everyone had made it inside, slid the door shut behind him. “Under ordinary circumstances, airships are the fastest way to travel.”

Mark continued looking down. “No one said anything about…”

“It’s not common, even in Pleroma,” Hanoi admitted. “I’ve seen how much building one costs, and a lot of people will never see that sort of money in their lives, let alone all at once.” It was the crystals, mostly, behind the price. “This is my first time flying, too.”

Kana placed their bag under the seat, and moved to staring out the window. “How high does this go?”

“We could cross mountain ranges if we had the need for it.” As Nowari spoke, the ground beneath them shifted, and the world outside started to move. “We’ll simply be traveling over the ocean today, so no need for that kind of height.”

When Hanoi glanced out the window, he could see the red mass of flowers stretching out over the whole ocean. It was shifting with the waves, swirling about in the same patterns as the water. “The view’s normally better than this, I think.”

“So even the sea has been taken…” Bailey wasn’t sitting down, or losing her balance. It was like she didn’t register that the ship was moving. “From the cliff edge, I would see it. But it felt untrue. Is the whole ocean… like this?”

Nowari shook his head. “Around Pleroma, our surviving ships have been keeping passages between the islands clear. And Marlleaire’s barrier, so far, has held.”

“That’s… good. That means they should be safe.” Her relief was tangible.

Hanoi watched the swirling flowers for a moment later, and then turned to Mark, who was still looking anywhere but the window. “Do you not want to see the ocean?”

“I’d… rather not remind myself we aren’t on solid ground.”

“...You didn’t have a problem in the mountains.” If he had, surely they would have known about it, no matter how much adrenaline fighting the Dragons provided.

“The mountains were stable.” …Okay, fair enough. “I don’t think I’d like normal ships, either. I’m not sure they’d make me sick, but they move around a lot.”

This was probably one of those situations that the portals had been created for, assuming that the portals were created and hadn’t just appeared overnight. WIth just how space twisted in on itself around them, however, it was easy to believe it was deliberate.

Except, of course, a key could only take someone to a portal it had been connected to before. “...I guess you’ll just have to deal with it until we reach the western continent. Once we find a portal there…”

Well. It wouldn’t fix everything. There were some places in Eden that simply couldn’t be reached on foot. But maybe they wouldn’t need to go there.

…By this point, Hanoi was well aware that was wishful thinking. But he’d still wish, up until the point such a thing became impossible.

For several hours, the flight went smoothly. The skies were clear, the door was sealed tightly enough that the smell of blood, smoke, and salt couldn’t penetrate it, and Mark’s fear had settled enough that he was able to play a board game with Bailey and Kana.

So far, Bailey was winning. Mark was pretty sure she was cheating, but didn’t want to voice it. Kana either didn’t notice or didn’t care. It was hard to tell with them.

“That’s the move you’ve made? Okay, then.” Bailey reached for one of the eight-sided dice, and tossed it around a bit in her hand. “We’ll see how that works for- Ah!”

The airship shook, and the die went flying. “Does that count as her taking her turn?” Kana asked.

“I’m not-” The ship shook again. “What’s happening?” He knew travel by air was a bad idea.

“Scholar Nowari!” A white-haired Lucier technician ran into the cabin. “The Imperial Dragon Invisible-”

“How many times have I told you!?” The Dragon’s booming voice shook the ship even more, tempting Mark to try and look out the window. He resisted the temptation. “If you think you can attain mastery over the skies… you have me to contend with!”

Her words echoed, and faded, and the next time the ship shook, it was much more violent, and it didn’t stop. The game board itself clattered away, pieces scattering.

Nowari stood up, somehow, despite this movement. “Draper, what’s the damage? Will we be able to reach our destination?”

…As long as this new Imperial Dragon was alive, Mark didn’t think he’d be trying air travel again, assuming they all survived this.

“We’ve built up enough momentum to reach the main island. We… may have to walk to the towers, though.”

“Prepare for an emergency landing, then.” Nowari then turned to the members of Murakumo. “Find somewhere stable to sit. We may be in for a rough landing.”

When Mark did glance out the window, he saw the Bloom-covered sea flying past at a rate he never could have imagined. He immediately turned his gaze away, but now that he’d seen it, he couldn’t stop imagining.

At the very least, sea travel couldn’t be any worse than this.

Two women stood at the window at Pleroma’s peak, and watched an airship trail down to a landing in the distance. “It seems Nowari has returned.”

“I-is he going to be all right?”

“They’re over land. It should be fine.” The woman with the crown shook her head. “Still… That monster Invisible… We really do need to do something about it. Your research on the matter…”

“It- It’s coming along, I- I promise!”

Most of Pleroma existed within a singular building. A giant tower, that split in two halfway, and then remerged at the peak. With the rough landing they’d had, it was a relief to see it.

“Welcome to Pleroma Island.” Hanoi hadn’t thought he’d ever say those words together except maybe in relation to Portal Fel, but there he was. “The city’s in that tower over there. Are you all okay with stairs?”

Mark peered up as best he could from the airship’s doorway. “What kind of stairs?”

“Normal?” Why was that the question? “Chief Scholar Emille lives on the topmost floor- If we’re to speak with her, that’s where we’ll have to go.”

“Chief Scholar Emille…” Bailey repeated. “I… may have read books about her.”

That wasn’t a surprise. She’d been Chief Scholar for as long as Hanoi could remember. “Lady Emille has long been a distinguished member of our community,” Nowari stated. “She is also the foremost expert on the Dragon threat.”

And that was sort of surprising, if only because it brought up something Hanoi had only ever thought of as trivia. “She’s written multiple dissertations on the stories surrounding them, hasn’t she?” Those legends were near enough to the reality to be a useful guideline, even if things like the Bloom had been left out of the texts.

Nowari nodded. “Thankfully, in this case she is mostly restricting herself to the facts, and not to her… unorthodox opinions.”

Hanoi had never read any of Emille’s Theses, but every time this subject came up, he was sort of tempted to, if only to try and figure out why she had such strong negative feelings about portrayals of Legendary Warrior Takehaya. But he had better, more interesting things to do, like learning how to turn air into a solid.

Kana crossed their arms. “What kind of opinions?”

“Nothing about the Dragons themselves,” Hanoi tried to reassure them. “Aside from more vitriol than you’d expect her to show a mythological creature, at least. From what I’ve heard, it’s complaints about the human character who fights them.”

“If you want to be specific about it, she doesn’t think that he should have had a love interest.” The weariness in Nowari’s voice told the story of a man who, in the past three years, had needed to explain this fact many times over. “Fortunately, this is not a context where that comes up a lot.” He strode ahead, vanishing into the trees, and that probably meant the discussion was over. Hanoi trailed after him, well aware of the path.

Bailey fell in next to him. “This Chief Scholar… is there anything we must know about her?”

“I can’t really think of anything, except…” Was this too outlandish to tell people who weren’t dedicated to gathering every piece of knowledge possible? He didn’t think it was. “She may possibly be immortal.”

“...Could you repeat that? Either I didn’t understand that last word, or…”

“She’s been in power longer than anyone can remember. And she looks the same as when I was a kid. So she’s either immortal or a ghost, and people have seen her eat at festivals.” There was a betting pool going around, made of people who had noticed, because they were all tactful enough not to come out and ask. One day, someone would notice her continual youthfulness who was a lot less tactful, and on that day, many payouts would be made.

Hanoi had not yet jumped in on the betting, because he didn’t have the funds to spare and still go off studying the spatial distortions that he was pretty sure the Dragons had used to attack Eden. Also it would have required social interaction with people bored enough to put money on whether the head of their government was dead or immortal. He liked sharing ideas with people, but he wasn’t that desperate.

“...That’s never come up in books.”

“It doesn’t normally come up in Pleroma, either. If she’s not sharing, there’s nothing we can do about it.” She kept a tight rein on her temper, but when she lost control of it, everyone knew about it. No reason to provoke her with things she probably didn’t want to talk about. “I don’t really think this will be relevant, just… She’s been around for a long time, and knows a lot of things. We’ve never spoken, but a lot of people find her strange. She’s someone to be respected.”

There was a pause. “Is she a better ruler than the king of Aizhen, at least?”

“I’ve never had any complaints about her. I’m afraid that’s the most I can say- what everyone else says about her is just conspiracy theories.” And they’d just been over those. “But she wants to support us. For now, that’s the important thing.”

He didn’t expect that he’d ever learn anything about Emille, beyond that.

She’d kept her secrets for that long, after all. Why would that have to change?

The interior of Pleroma was brighter than the entirety of Miross, every surface shining, either from polish or, on the third floor, water that overflowed from the agricultural fountains.

“This is where our food is grown,” Hanoi explained, plucking a ripe tomato from a nearby vine. “This is the plot for use by the department I’m technically part of… if they haven’t ousted me for spending three years out of contact… It’ll probably be fine.”

“What does your department research?” Mark knew that Hanoi’s preferred area of study was spacial distortions, such as the kind around the portals scattered throughout the land, but he wasn’t sure if that was official business or a personal project.

“...It’s just magic in general, really. We’re mostly just… a bunch of mages trying to figure out the theory behind how we can freeze, or burn, or shock things.” As if in demonstration, he conjured a snowflake in the hand not holding the tomato. “It’s instinctual, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be a reasoning behind it.”

Kana tapped their chin. “But what’s that have to do with portals?”

“Space magic is a recognized kind of magic. By distorting space, I can shield myself with a bubble made of nothing but air.” He demonstrated this, and continued walking, the overflowing water displaced by his bubble. “You’re… not wrong, though. I think I was put there because it was the closest department we had… what’s this?”

He paused at the stairwell to the west wing of the fourth floor. “West Wing,” Mark read, because Hanoi apparently wasn’t going to do it. “Fourth floor, monster studies. Fifth floor, Dragon studies and the botanical sciences. That’s… not the worst department to put it in?”

It did, at least, answer the question of why the Bloom was already cleared from around Pleroma.

“...I guess it isn’t.” Hanoi forced a smile, and reached for the stairwell. “...Careful, these stairs can be pretty slippery… I’ll see if I can’t contact someone to fix the plumbing issue, or if we’re stuck with it.”

“We fixed Kazan, they can keep their towers from flooding. …Um, no offense.”

“None taken… if you tried to make me fix this, I think I’d just make things worse… Ice isn’t good for metal pipes.”

No one asked Hanoi how he knew this. That was probably for the best.

The top floor of Pleroma was dedicated to the Chief Scholar. The two rejoined towers reached a summit covered in reflective surfaces, at the end of which sat a woman with golden hair and a golden dress, upon a regal throne. At the side of the room were a large number of windows, from which the entire island was visible.

“So.” Emille’s eyes were the color of red wine, or maybe of the grapes used to make it. Unlike grapes, her gaze was more harsh than sweet. “You’re Murakumo? The ones who liberated Kazan from the beasts inhabiting it?”

“That’s us!” Kana tried to smile, but something about the atmosphere made it hard to do so. Maybe it was just that the woman in front of them hadn’t blinked once since their arrival. “You… said you wanted us for something to do with the other nations?”

Emille nodded, and stood up, making it possible to see just how absurdly poofy her dress was. Kana had no idea how she’d been able to sit down. “Yes. I believe that, to save this world, we will need the cooperation of all of Eden. I would like you to visit Nevanplace, and invite them to a summit to take place here. There, we can discuss the eradication of the Dragons.”

Assuming that they weren’t all gone by that time, since a determined bunch of Hunters could clear out the Bloom from a given area in roughly a day. “Is there a particular time this will happen, or…?”

“That hasn’t been decided yet. If the key of Nevanplace is registered to Portal Fel, just giving the message should be enough for now. And while you’re there, you can help them deal with their Dragons.”

To be fair, they were probably going to be doing that anyway.

“We haven’t heard much from them since the invasion,” Nowari noted. “So they may need some assistance. We’re sure the area is the home of at least two Imperial Dragons, so it may help if you defeated one of-”

“No. Not just one of them.” Emille’s eyes narrowed, as if it was possible for her to look more serious than she already did. “Not just the Imperial Dragons. All of those abominations must be slain, until your descendants won’t even know what we called them!”

…Kana wasn’t sure they liked Emille. She scared them.

Nowari sighed. “We’re getting there, Chief Scholar Emille. One step at a time, remember?”

“Well, then. Step faster.” She paused, and took a deep breath. “Faro should have arranged things at the seaport. Once you find her, she can give you the details. Leave for the western continent at the first opportunity. Make no detours.”

…So. That happened.

…Despite all sense telling him otherwise, Hanoi ended up in the unofficial gambling den in a warehouse just outside the tower. “I’d like to put three thousand gold coins on Chief Scholar Emille being immortal.”

“I, uh, yes. Your name and title would be…?” The brown-haired woman looked up, squeaked, and looked down again.

“...Scholar Faro?” When everyone set off to look for her, they’d assumed that she’d be either at the seaport or somewhere in the tower, not in a dark place like this. “Weren’t you supposed to be giving us a seaship?”

“Oh, you’re from… from Murakumo…” Faro was now shrinking away even further.

“...I won’t tell the Chief Scholar about this,” He promised, and she audibly sighed. “So not even you know for sure what her deal is?”

She shook her head. “I just… know she’s been around long enough to know about the Dragons. She’s told us about them, but never… never…” She looked up again. “I’m really sorry! I’ll get you all to your seaship immediately! Um… if there’s more of you…?”

Hanoi wasn’t sure this was the way he remembered Pleroma being. But… maybe he just hadn’t been paying attention. Maybe he needed to leave the towers more, or at least frequent more than two floors of them. “They’ll be in the tower right now, but I can get to them. The spatial realities of these towers…” He understood them completely.

Maybe a bit too completely, since the two of them appeared in the middle of a crowd. Faro squeaked and ran off.

…Maybe this was why she didn’t normally make public appearances.

Chapter Text

On a night filled with stars, five young girls gathered in a small room. Two of them had long, pink hair. Another was a Lucier with frizzy turquoise ears and a white rabbit doll, and next to her was a girl with golden pigtails. The final girl, with a purple braid, sat in the corner.

The girl with the pigtails turned to the purple-haired one. “Why are you hanging around back there, for? Are you dropping out already?”

The purple-haired girl shook her head. “If I were you, Sora, I’d be more worried about Momomeno. She hasn’t brought out Nagamimi since we were five, and now she’s hugging her like there’s no tomorrow.”

The Lucier girl looked up, a faint smile on her face. “You remembered her name… You even said it right.”

“Well, when I win, I’m going to have to know how to, won’t I? But… you are okay, aren’t you, Momo?”

“I-I’m fine, just…” Momomeno yawned loudly. “...Been practicing too much. And it’s past my bedtime. So now I’m sleepy.”

Sora looked down at her. “...I guess that’s one person who’s not going to be much competition. Who’s idea was it to have this thing at night, anyway.”

“Tradition.” One of the pink-haired girls stood up, realized everyone was looking at her, and sat back down again. “It- it’s always been done this way, ever since the Second Queen. To honor the First Queen’s decision-making process.”

The other pink-haired girl laughed. “Leave it to Rie to know everything about the process.”

Rie shook her head. “Leave it to tradition to interrupt Meno’s beauty sleep. I’m not that much of a nerd, Rose.”

“Really? I mean, I’m only here because Mother said you could only enter if I did, too. But that just means you have a better chance of winning it.”

“I have a better chance of doing well if I win, you mean. But that’s not how they’re judging us.”

Sora nodded. “Yeah, our politics don’t matter. Just our voices. What would twelve-year-olds know about politics, anyway?” She turned to the purple-haired girl. “Right?”

“...I knew enough to know why I wanted to come here. Can you say that much?”

Sora huffed and crossed her arms. “You’re such a killjoy, Bailey…”

They really hadn’t meant to make any detours. They’d set off in their ship, carrying themselves, their supplies, and some research papers they’d been given. Even after docking, Mark was leaned over them with a furrowed brow. “Hanoi?”

“Is something wrong?” Aside, of course, from how the only port on the western continent any of them were qualified to dock at was Zeza, right at the edge of a vast desert?

“I’m simply… worried about your colleagues’... eccentricities.”

“...What brought this up?” He hadn’t taken them towards the labs, because he knew better than to expose his friends to people who left their floor maybe once a year for special events. Those sorts of people were the reason there were washrooms on every floor.

Mark brandished the paper he was reading in a clenched fist. “Bloom research has only been underway for the past three years. But even then, I’d expect some level of common sense.”

“...What’s wrong with what’s written down there?” And was it what he would have become, if he hadn’t gotten the urge to study spatial distortions up close?

“I’m just concerned about why anyone felt the need to write down ‘Never eat the Bloom,’ in all capital letters. It paints a stark image of someone who desperately lacks a sense of self preservation. Or… lacked, perhaps.”

Hanoi had not been informed of who in Pleroma had or hadn’t died in the past few years. He hadn’t asked about it, or even approached anyone who he knew. He hadn’t been particularly close to anyone, anyway, so it was more important to ensure his friends didn’t get lost and disturb an important experiment.

He hadn’t actually considered that there were things he needed to know. “I guess you’d know, since you use it for your poisons. I’m not sure what goes on in the Bloom Research Department, it’s… sort of newer than when I left.”

In that moment, the passage of three years hit him even harder than when he’d first been told about it.

“Should you have those papers on the beach?” Kana had stopped leading the charge at some point, the dragging of their feet leaving trails in the sand. “Won’t they get wet?”

“I’m being careful,” Mark promised. “And I’m… sure the scholars wouldn’t have given us the only copy.” He glanced at Hanoi. “They… wouldn’t have done that, right?”

“It would be against policy if they did.” Assuming the policy hadn’t changed. Assuming his understanding of the policy had been on point in the first place. “Let’s not worry about that, and instead worry about what kind of food there will be at the local inn.”

“I bet it won’t be as good as your cooking!” Kana offered. “The next time we find a portal, you should make dinner for us again!”

“I-I’m not sure we’ll have the right ingredients…” They could probably get what they were missing, assuming they offloaded their extra bird feathers and violet manes. “But if there’s enough, I wouldn’t be against making something to share with you all.” That first dinner they’d shared together as a team had also been their last night of peace. He’d spent that night excited about a future that turned out nothing like he’d expected.

Perhaps, if he brought back the memory of it, he would feel the same way he did back then.

“That sounds nice,” Bailey glanced back at the three of them. “A tasty simple meal… I do not think I could have too many of those. I can have good food any time I want, but…”

“But why would it be hard to get simple food? You can just throw an egg in a frying pan and-” Kana stopped, their ears swiveling upwards. “So, does anyone else hear desperate mumbling, or is that just me?” Hanoi and Mark shook their heads.

“...We might not be close enough,” Bailey suggested. “Where is this… mumbling… coming from?”

“It’s… over that way. I think there’s a dock.” They turned in that direction, leading Hanoi, Mark, and Bailey down to a rickety wooden dock facing east. On that dock sat a woman with her hair tied up in a salt-soaked red ribbon. “Excuse me, miss?”

The woman looked up. “Llem e lall. Llama ar aemml el ee? laal errara irlamlmerl llem e'l lererr... Lalaara, lall la... Rai ramme ram la aimme mlel llera!!”

“Um…” Kana stared ahead for a moment, and then looked back at the rest of them. “Do any of you know what language that was?”

Hanoi nodded. “I’m pretty sure it’s Marero.” No other language held such a hatred for hard consonants. He’d never had any reason to even consider learning, but he knew that much about it, at least.

Their ears perked. “Oh! Bailey speaks that, don’t you?”

Bailey froze, and then nodded. “Um, yes. Better than Pleron, actually.”

She stepped forward as the woman made her way off the dock, still not done talking. “El mlama errara e rer melr ma lamae. Rai lar’m laal ma?”

“Ah- Seren? Rela ma larai ml’ar Marlleaire?”

“Sala! Raalai melai Vailey!?

Bailey sighed. “Bailey. El ma rerra Pleron, malama lall irlamlmerl ala lee. Raalai melai ma, Raalai melai Bailey.”

…Hanoi was sure that, if he could understand that conversation, it would have been fascinating. Bailey continued to speak with the mysterious woman for minutes after, and then she turned back to them.

“Chief Scholar Emille said not to, but… detours. Can we take one?”

Kana paused. “I don’t think she’d know if we did or not. Why?”

“I- I think we should take Seren here back to Marlleaire. No one else in Zeza speaks the language Marero, so… it’s us or no one.”

And so, they ended up back on their ship half an hour later, desperately hoping that no one ever let Emille know about this.

“This is what we’re supposed to sing for them?” Sora unfolded the sheet music that had been passed around. “...I’m not sure what half of this is.”

“It’s other languages,” Rie explained. “Over here, this bit’s Aizo. And the chorus is Pleron.”

“There’s some Lucien, too,” Momomeno pointed at part of it. “Here, talking about blue skies and clear nights.”

“You know Lucien, Meno?”

“Mom taught me. She said that I should be able to leave Marlleaire if I want, and part of that’s talking to other people.” Her ears pressed flat. “Did none of your parents teach you?”

“I know some Aizo,” Sora volunteered. “And I know Rose and Rie speak Pleron. Which is… probably a lot more useful than Aizo. Bailey?”

She shook her head. “I’m not allowed to learn. Mom says I shouldn’t, because there’s no reason I’ll ever need to talk to men.”

“So what’s she going to do if you win? You’d have to learn, then.”

“I-I don’t know.” She looked down at the score in front of her, covered with inscrutable lyrics. “I… didn’t even tell her I was trying out. Rie, do you know-?”

“If anyone’s ever entered without maternal permission before, they’ve never won. Or, if they have, no one ever wrote about it in the books I read. I… guess we might find out.”

For a moment, the five of them fell into silence. And then Momomeno stood up, walked over to Bailey, and reached out with the hand holding Nagamimi. “I think… you need her more than I do, right now.”

“Momo, I’m twelve. I don’t need a bunny.”

“You don’t. But you need someone who really loves you.”

“Mom loves me! She just-”

“If you’re sure enough she won’t be proud of your singing that you snuck away here, there’s a problem,” Sora declared. “Sure, Mama only said it about men and rulers, but mothers can’t be much different.”

“Why do you say that?”

“They all want to have complete power over you.”

As the ship passed the Tower of the Gods, Bailey called the rest of Murakumo together for an important discussion.

“How long would you be willing to stay on the ship? Marlleaire doesn’t allow the entry of men, so I need to know how long I can be there without you sailing off without me.” Yes, she was meant to be back by then, but when that plan was first made, it was thought that she would have been learning something. Or at least conscious for most of it. “...Or, if you want to present as female for a few hours, I won’t stop you. I… don’t think half the island knows the difference between humans born boys or girls, anyway.”

“...And no one’s going to look past my ears?” Kana finished, tugging at one of said ears with their hand. “...Today’s not the worst day for it. I can be ‘she’ for a little while, but I’ll definitely be ‘they’ again by Nevanplace. If only to keep people from getting ideas.”

…All right, Bailey would keep that in mind. It might make the duration of her visit a bit weird, but it drastically reduced her chances of being asked to explain why she had friends who weren’t women, so it was probably a fair trade, if Kana was okay with it.

“I’m fine with staying on board for a while,” Mark stated. “But… what is Marlleaire like?”

Bailey shrugged, because she really wasn’t sure how to explain the place where she’d lived her whole life. “For a place made just out of immi- emma- newcomers, there’s an incredibly strong sense of culture and tradition. Maybe it’s the ruler’s voyages to the Tower of the Gods that cause it. If you sensed us passing magic when the Bloom stopped, that’s the wall which Raa- that Queen Setis creates with the power of Song.”

Kana stared back towards the Tower. “Your Songs can do that much?”

“Only the Songs of the rulers, I’m afraid.” Was now the time to say it? It hadn’t come up before, but the majority of the Marero spoke other languages, so it wasn’t like it could just remain unspoken forever. “Heirs don’t learn to sing them until near the end of their training, unless the ruler’s health is poor, or her voice is failing.”

And Queen Setis, the last time Bailey saw her, had been the picture of health and a strong voice.

“How are your heirs chosen?” Hanoi asked. “You don’t have to answer if it’s not something for outsiders, but-”

“It’s fine.” She hadn’t been told not to tell anyone, at least. “The right to rule Marlleaire comes from the power of Song. When a ruler or long-sitting heir wishes to choose a successor, girls from the ages of ten to thirteen will participate in a battle of voices.”

“You mean a singing contest, right?” Mark suggested. “And not… screaming at each other until they pass out?”

“It’s the first one, yes.” She knew there’d been a better word for it! “On the night of the summer solstice, or the first clear skies after, they will sing for the people of the island, and the winner becomes heir. The last one… was right after the current ruler took the throne. She wanted to be sure the islands would be safe, in case of disaster.”

“It sounds like she had the right idea,” Kana remarked. “With the Dragons showing up, and everything. What if she hadn’t?”

There were many reasons that Bailey didn’t want to think about that.

The hardest part of the song they were given, at least in Bailey’s eyes, was pronunciation. The words from the other languages had letters different from those used in Marero, hard sounds that she’d heard from those who spoke other languages, but never tried to copy, aside from the sounds contained within of her own name.

She was too afraid of how her mother would react, if she overheard her.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Rose reassured her. “Even with Pleron, me and Rie don’t have the best accent. And we’ve practiced our whole lives!”

Rie nodded. “If you can sing well enough in our language, I’m sure they’ll overlook you being bad at k’s and t’s. There’ll be all of training to learn, and they can’t expect us to actually know all four major languages.”

Maybe not. But all four were spoken, to some extent or other, in Marlleaire. There were many people, visitors and residents alike, who Bailey simply couldn’t communicate with.

“The only requirement on signing up was being able to speak Marero,” Momomeno agreed. “And… I think that’s just to be sure we actually live here?” She was squeezing Nagamimi again, the tips of her ears connecting perfectly with the top of the rabbit’s.

Sora nodded. “It would look bad, if a woman took her daughter here on vacation and came back without the daughter, wouldn’t it? Or if a new winner had to be chosen because the first was grounded and then left the island?”

It might have been easier to ask for the mother’s permission, in that case, but Bailey was sure they hadn’t thought of that, or maternal permission would have been required to sign up in the first place. “...How many rooms of us are there?”

“I think there’s three,” Momomeno suggested. “That’s… less than signed up, but…”

“I remember that one girl who dropped out as we were coming in,” Bailey agreed. “Because her mother made her sign up. Maybe everyone else like that just didn’t show up.”

“No one wants an heir who is completely opposed to inheriting,” Rie noted. “Whatever you feel about mothers sharing custody with fathers, forcibly changing the agreement like this would be very bad for us as a country. The barrier keeps out monsters, not warships sent by Lucier nobility.”

…Well, as many second thoughts as Bailey was having about this, at least her potential victory had no chances of starting a war. When she kept that in mind, it gave her more motivation to keep practicing the pronunciations. Even at the last second, it had to amount to something.

Her eyes narrowed, and she focused on differentiating between an s and a z. That was the thing tripping her up the most, at least of the ones she hadn’t given up on completely for the night.

At the very least, from growing up with Momomeno, she could say she’d mastered the letter n, and knew the difference between a g and a k, even if saying them was a bit harder. Surely, some of the other contestants were worse off?

Before she could mentally reassure herself of this fact, there was a knock at the door. “Excuse me.” A maid looked in. “Which one of you is Rose Maron?”

“That’s me!” The younger twin stood up with a twirl. “Is it starting already? I thought Ronam took longer to set up than that!”

The maid blinked at her. “...You’ve been here for four hours.”

“Really? It felt like less than that.” Rose turned around and gave a little wave to the rest of them. “Just you wait! The next time we all see each other, one of us is going to be a princess!”

If Kana was being completely honest, which was mostly in her own head, she probably would have presented as a girl more often if she were human. Humans didn’t have things like obvious dimorphism to give people an instant impression. They could just style their hair and clothes the way they liked, and no one would think twice about it.

Kana, on the other hand, had a pair of very large fluffy ears. And while they worked great in terms of hearing things and expressing what she felt, it meant that to keep their normal presentation anywhere near neutral, the most feminine thing she could really indulge in was hair accessories.

It was a shame, because she didn’t necessarily mind skirts. It was just far too strong an impression to leave when she only considered herself a girl about five percent of the time, and didn’t want people to completely invalidate them for the other ninety-five.

At least, in Marlleaire, there were beaches and seafood. There was incredibly little Kana wasn’t willing to do for beaches and seafood. Even if it wasn’t her most feminine day, it was worth a little discomfort for grilled crab and jackfish sushi.

“You… sound really excited about the food,” Bailey noted awkwardly. “For someone who eats Dragon meat.”

“Dragons are tasty!” A bit tough to chew, and some of them definitely hadn’t been meant to be consumed, leaving her with a minor stomachache afterwards, but tasty nonetheless. “But fish are easier to chew, and there’s a lot more of them than Dragons.” She hadn’t even seen a Dragon since Invisible attacked the airship.

“I guess that’s fair… Seren!” Bailey shouted a bit more, and the woman they’d met in Zeza finally got off of the boat, escorted by Hanoi, who’d apparently gotten into Kana’s supply of hairpieces. He was going to pay for that later, she just had to figure out how.

“Are you coming ashore?” Hopefully, he was, and he hadn’t just decided to go through their accessories for the fun of it. They were never averse to helping people try new things, but that involved keeping an eye on them so nothing expensive broke or got lost.

He nodded. “Mark’s busy recalibrating his poison doses. If I have to listen to it any longer, I’m going to explode.”

“Aren’t you big on the whole learning thing?” She was pretty sure that was the point of Pleroma, from what time they’d spent there.

“I like learning about space and ice magic, and how to kill Dragons with them. Not the creation of biological weapons.”

“It could be worse. He could be doing stuff with Bloom Seeds.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s called a war crime… Or, it will be, when people actually get together to talk about it.”

On the other end of the docks, there was a lot of shouting in Marero. Kana and Hanoi walked over to see Bailey in intense discussion with one of the guards and the woman they’d found. The guard looked at them for a moment, and then the discussion continued.

…Maybe sneaking off the docks entirely and visiting a seafood restaurant was actually feasible.

And then the woman they’d found walked away with the guard, and a woman with a long brown ponytail approached. “Raalai melai Bailey?”

“Shandora.” Bailey straightened up, her hands perfectly folded together. “I’m afraid this can’t be my proper return. I’m just stopping by while traveling with the guild of Hunters Murakumo. Hanoi and Kana here are two of them. But if there’s anything you need-”

“Murakumo, you said?” The woman responded in Pleron. “Queen Setis has heard of them. She’s… been wishing for their power for a long time.”

…How was it that everyone was hearing about them? There were no portals nearby, and this was the whole other side of the world!

Bailey looked down. “Is it that bad?”

“I think it’s best you speak to her. If just to reassure her you are still alive. I trust you remember the way to the castle?”

“Of course I do! It’s only the biggest building on the island!” She paused. “...My friends might get lost though.”

Shandora nodded. “In that case… Follow me, Princess.”

It took a great amount of effort for Kana not to trip over her own feet. “...Princess?”

After Rose, it was Rie who was called. And then Sora, then Momomeno, until finally it was Bailey’s turn to take the stage. In front of her, the people of Marlleaire were gathered. At the head of the crowd was the young Queen Setis.

She hadn’t memorized the lyrics. With the number of music sheets scattered near her feet, she suspected that no one else had, either.

“Now presenting Bailey Finch!” This was it. The moment that decided her future. She stepped forward, determined to do her best, hoping that her best would be enough for her to at least be considered as heir.

The blue crystal instruments, the sacred Ronam, hummed to life around her. Bailey took a deep breath, opened her eyes, and sang.

When she stopped, there was silence, and then a thunderous round of applause.

“I maybe should have said something about it earlier,” Bailey admitted once they reached the palace. It looked just the way she remembered it being, the last time she’d been there. Right before she’d left to learn more about the world her subjects would be coming from, so she could understand them better. “But with the appearance of the Dragons… there was never a good time for it.”

Kana and Hanoi had no time to respond to this, as the door to the throne room had already opened.

…Somehow, it seemed that Setis had acquired even more maids over the past three years, as the ones in the throne room now equaled the number of guards. Setis herself sat on a gilded throne at the end of a long stretch of white carpet with gray detailing.

She continued to wear giant red flowers instead of any sort of crown. Bailey continued to wonder what she’d do if someone with a pollen allergy approached her for an audience. “Queen Setis. I’m afraid my friends don’t speak Marero.”

“I understand.” Aside from Marero, Setis’ best language was Aizo, but her Pleron was still enough to hold a conversation. “Princess Bailey, you are part of Murakumo?”

She nodded. “I… have a duty to the world, now, and not to only Marlleaire. But it seems that duty has taken me here.” Sure, they probably should have been delivering that message to Nevanplace, but… Her people needed her.

Making Marlleaire safer… that was why she’d become the heir in the first place.

“It’s probably for the best that you’re one of them. The barrier needs refreshing, and it will be faster for you to do it.”

“Really?” She hadn’t expected to even see the sheet music for those songs until she was in her twenties! And Setis looked perfectly healthy, and was speaking well. “Why?”

“The Imperial Dragon Dreadnought has taken up residence in the Tower of the Gods,” Shandora reported. “Poor weather delayed our traveling to refresh the barrier, and in that time it landed. If this situation is not resolved swiftly, the monsters- and the Bloom- will come.”

And the Amazons weren’t equipped to fight in large amounts. It would mean the end of Marlleaire.

“We have no power to expel the Dragons without reclaiming the tower,” Setis agreed. “And we cannot reclaim the tower without expelling the Dragons. So, I must request…”

…Emille was going to kill them. “Of course I will.” She turned to Hanoi and Kana. “Sorry, I know this is a bit more of a detour than you agreed to, but…”

“It’s your home,” Hanoi finished. “The hardest part, I feel, will be explaining this to Mark. But I’m sure he’ll enjoy testing the dosages of his poison further.”

She could only hope he was right. “To refresh the barrier…”

“Come with me.” Setis stood. “And I will explain it. Listen carefully, as I am not writing this down.”

Chapter Text

The Tower of the Gods, despite the name, was actually three towers, the ones to the side four stories tall while the central tower was five, each floor with a cavernous ceiling. Bailey had never entered before, but she’d read a copy of the blueprints, and the thing that stood out the most was that the dimensions meant there were a lot of stairs.

Seeing them close up, in person, the first thing that came to mind was the Bloom growing out of the side like vines. The only spot devoid of the toxic flowers was a healing spring flowing out of the side of the central tower, the water pure as ever.

She’d always known that the towers were old. Seeing the plants on the walls, the fallen bits of stone… For the first time, it made her wonder exactly how old they were.

“...I can’t see the top.” Kana peered up, standing on their toes. “Wait, is that moving thing up there supposed to be there?”

“I think that’s Dreadnought.” She wasn’t going to look up herself, because she didn’t want to see just how far the flowers went. “There’s… probably other Dragons here, too. If one could get in…” Once upon a time, the towers had been a gathering place, and they had the size to match. “We’ll have to kill all of them, if we want free use of this place.”

“Is it okay for us to be fighting here?” Mark poked at the stone wall, and a few pebbles came clattering down.

“If we’re focused, it should be fine! …I think.” Maybe, she could whip a Dragon into submission and have it turn against the rest of the floor. “So, how do we want to start this?”

Hanoi adjusted his glasses. He had not returned Kana’s hair accessories yet. Bailey fully expected that he’d end up regretting this. “What do you mean?”

“Each tower has a Ronam in it. To go to the top of the central tower, where Dreadnought is, we must activate all three Ronam into harmony.” She wasn’t actually sure what song she was supposed to use for it, but if it were important, Setis likely would have told her. “More than that, they must be in harmony to refresh the barrier.”

“How do you do this normally?” Mark asked.

“Normally, it’s a safe procedure with no Dragons. The Ronam repel monsters under normal circumstances, so there’s little danger.” While all Songs were a thing of beauty, and most associated the power with light and healing, there was actually more music with the potential to harm than to heal.

Redirecting the energies of monsters… that was a core component of the Song that would defend Marlleaire. The special thing about it was that it contained both redirection and protection.

This was all Bailey had been taught about it. Apparently, Marlleaire’s queens had been making up their own lyrics for generations, ever since Queen Alusha drowned in a storm without being able to pass the original lyrics down to her successor.

Hanoi approached the entrance to the western tower. “I’d ask how large the Dragons could be, but… after what happened to Kazan, I don’t doubt that they could just make themselves fit in the tower.”

Kana followed, stepping carelessly on the Bloom. “Is that possible?”

“...Before the invasion, it was within the realm of purely theoretical magics. Chief Scholar Emille believes it possible, but the amount of power it would take to sustain such a thing… I don’t believe it could be provided by anything less than an Imperial Dragon.”

Fortunate for the Dragons here, then, that one would lay claim to the top of the tower.

“...Be careful, when we fight them.” Bailey wasn’t sure it needed to be said, but she wouldn’t allow herself not to say it, just in case it did. “Maintenance on these towers was lacking even before the Dragons appeared.” They’d believed that, as long as the towers still stood and the Ronam could play, things were as maintained as they needed to be.

In fairness to the stonemasons, it really was a long boat ride to get here from the main island. And it wasn’t like they could have predicted the need for combat inside the towers.

No one could have predicted this, except for maybe a woman that Bailey had never met.

The Dragons on the first floor were known as Wyrms. Hanoi had seen speculative pictures of them in books, before, when he was younger, and this felt like the best fit for the name. They were large enough for their wingspan to fill the corridor, begging the question of what a large winged creature was doing indoors in the first place.

He could tell why they were on the first floor, though- even with the corridors as wide as they were, bricks stretched out in a way that didn’t seem quite natural even with the Bloom sprouting between the cracks- they simply were too large to take the stairs.

“Are these the right stairs?” He asked, to distract himself from logistical questions that could really wait for later. “Or- are there other stairs around?”

“This tower brags a large number of staircases,” Bailey replied. “Supposedly, it’s a safeguard so the ritual can work around structural damage.”

Mark adjusted his glasses. “...Is that a problem often enough to worry about? It feels safer to go with something simpler.”

She shrugged. “It was our First Queen’s decree. Even as heir, it isn’t my place to question it.”

Perhaps that was fair. And it was kind of the people who made the building new, to have some sort of preparation for when it was old.

What would the towers of Pleroma look like fifty, a hundred, a thousand years later?

“Even if it weren’t a concern, the building’s large enough to merit it.” Growing up, Pleroma had felt like the largest building in the world. And yet, in comparison to the towers, it looked like nothing more than a petty trinket.

Space might have been distorted by the presence of the Dragons, but something told him the exterior wouldn’t change. Even if the vertical space seemed to be mostly stairs.

Kana approached the foot of the stairs, tucked away in a corridor all their own that explained just as much of the thickness of the entry arch as the presence of Dragons did. “Is there anything we should look out for?” Their ears were pointed entirely toward the ceiling, a sign that anything people said would receive their full attention.

“The second floor should have its own Ronam lock. You will know what it is when you see it- they are built out of… special stone.” There were about three words that Hanoi could think of that would fit there. He wasn’t going to suggest any, just in case he guessed wrong.

“...Those are instruments.” They started up the stairs. “Do- do your people lock everything with instruments?”

“Only places and objects of cultural importance.”

“How many of those do you have?” Hanoi wasn’t sure he needed to know the answer, but if they were getting a cultural lesson today, along with a workout slaying Dragons, it might as well continue.

Besides, it was that or climb stairs in silence for however long it took to reach the second floor. High ceilings were certainly impressive, but past a certain point they became excessive. There was a reason Pleroma’s highest ceiling was on the top floor, and it was not an aesthetic choice.

…Probably. He didn’t know the minds of whoever constructed it.

“It’s only a few islands, really. There are stories about what’s inside them, but no one’s really seen them. Or needed to go looking.” She rested her hand on the curve in the wall that seemed to serve as a handrail. “I don’t know what it would take for that.”

Kana looked back, almost tripped over a stair, and looked forward again. “So they’re something important? Not just treasures?”

“I don’t have the words to tell you the stories behind them.” She paused. “...I knew we were climbing stairs. Why did I wear a dress for this?”

“We could go back to the ship so you can change,” Hanoi suggested. The time he’d spent learning to slip through space had to be good for something, didn’t it? “We’d be back before the Wyrms can revive.”

She shook her head. “The guard would see us come and go. She’d question us.”

And, well, if she wanted to risk tripping over herself on a giant staircase, that was her decision.

At the top of the staircase, as if it was waiting for them, was a Little Dragon. There was no other name for it- the small blue creature, the exact same color as the first Dragon, darted at them all with such speed and ferocity there was nothing else it could be called.

Aside from maybe ‘Kana if they were a Dragon,’ but Hanoi suspected that wouldn’t go over very well with them.

But as it was small, it was fragile. Kana looked it over with gleaming eyes. “...It’s small enough for one person to eat!” They realized.

Mark groaned. “...I still don’t know how you can stomach that. They live surrounded by potent toxins.”

“Doesn’t everything?”

“Not when the Dragons aren’t invading.” Saying that, he started gathering Bloom from the nearby rubble. “I… think we might have picked the wrong staircase, though. With how much of it has caved in. It… might take a bit of climbing over.”

It went unsaid that none of them wanted to climb any more stairs than necessary.

“At least the Ronam key’s on this side,” Bailey pointed out. “We only have to climb over it once.”

When they did climb over, they were immediately besieged by more Little Dragons.

Hanoi couldn’t bring himself to feel surprised.

The third floor was infested with dinosaurs.

Specifically, it was infested with Tyrannosaurs, though perhaps ‘infestation’ was a bit strong of a word. There were only four of them.

This was still more than logically should have existed. Mark was starting to wonder if the dinosaurs had ever gone extinct in the first place, or if they’d just fled Eden to wherever they were now invading it from. “That’s the last one. What do we do next?” Thankfully, they seemed rather susceptible to being poisoned. He’d tested several concoctions on them, each more potent than the last, and their size made them good for experiments on boosting the potency of toxins that had already entered the victim.

Results were still inconclusive. He’d need a few more test subjects for that.

“We unlock the Ronam,” Bailey replied. “We press the switches in the right order, and I ready it to harmonize.”

Kana nodded strongly enough for their ears to bend. “Right. What’s the order?”

“It should be written on one of the walls downstairs…”

“...The ones that are crumbling in?”

“...It appears the people who built these towers did not think of everything.”

Once, someone had brought a lockbox to Kazan’s tavern. Mark had to help heal a concussion after its owner, who might or might not have stolen it, and definitely didn’t know the combination, got frustrated and threw it at another customer’s head.

This lock was a lot less complex than that one, but brute-forcing it was no less daunting of a task. “We could check the walls for the combination. It might still be intact.” It would require taking the stairs a few more times, and crawling over more rubble, and doing laundry after this would be painful. But it was an option too valuable not to consider.

Bailey nodded, and ventured to the stairs. At the very top of them, she stopped. “...If we find it, I should write it down. So… the walls can be fixed later.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Hanoi agreed. “And you can have it written down somewhere else safe, right?”

“A royal treasury seems more secure than the floor right underneath the lock, anyway,” Mark added. Either people could get in too easily, or something happened to the wall and no one could get in.

Bailey took a sharp breath, and went down one step. “...You’re right. It would be.”

Bailey had a slip of paper in her pocket with information that was never meant to be written down.

This wasn’t the first time she’d done something she wasn’t meant to. She doubted it’d be the last. But this felt bigger than skipping lessons, or sneaking an extra piece of cake.

She was less certain how it compared to running away and being named heir to Marlleaire, but she didn’t think she’d be able to compare anything to that, really. Not even if she spent the rest of her life trying.

But this was important in a similar way to that, she decided. Using this information, she unlocked the Ronam, and set it to harmonize until someone came by to turn it off again.

Maybe whoever it was would even be qualified to reset the lock.

This was the purpose of the Ronam in the side towers. To resonate with the ones in the center and below, to power the greatest Song that anyone could hope to perform.

That was all she’d been told.

But, of course, each tower had four floors. So the rumbling from behind shouldn’t have surprised her in the slightest.

Kana darted through before anyone could stop them, because of course they did. “What’s up here?”

“I’m… unsure.” The top of the central tower was the one everyone talked about. No one ever spoke of the smaller ones to the side. There’d have to be a large Ronam, to help the melody resonate, and something to maintain it, possibly, but she wasn’t sure if that had been a priority.

“Can we go look?” Their ears were twitching, which meant they’d probably run up the stairs either way. They were predictable like that.

But it wasn’t forbidden. If it were, Bailey was sure it would have come up before she was given the duty of actually climbing the towers. It hadn’t, so it wasn’t. “We may, so long as nobody breaks anything.” That sounded like a good rule to set. It was even one she was sure would be followed.

Kana let out a cheer and darted up the staircase. Bailey, Mark, and Hanoi followed at a more sedate pace, as this stairway was much steeper than the ones below.

And they stepped onto the roof of the tower.

Before them, the sparkling sea stretched out all the way to the horizon. The other towers blocked out the side that would be covered in Bloom, so it was a stretch of blue and green as far as the eye could see.

It wasn’t quite as far as could be seen from the peak of Mt. Todowa, but none of them had been expecting that, anyway. Bailey watched the rippling waters for a moment, and then turned around again.

The giant Ronam, like everything else in the tower, was covered in Bloom. “I feel like we should clean this off,” Mark observed, walking under the lip from which sound was beginning to spill out into the world, “but it seems dangerous.”

“It’s still working.” That was the important part. As long as the Song could play, all of this could be fixed. Still, she walked beneath it to get a better idea of the size. “Once Dreadnought is dead, it should be-” She stopped, and knelt down.

“Bailey?”

“I think I see something.” Was that an indentation in the crystal that the Bloom was growing out of? Or just her imagination? She reached forward, and brushed the flowers away with her bare hands, instantly regretting it as her fingers burned.

But there, something that looked like a handle carved into crystal. And lines around it, like a door of some sort.

“What is it?” Hanoi came up behind her. “Some kind of maintenance hatch?”

“Maybe.” She couldn’t tell just by looking at it, though. “Let’s find out.”

This felt incredibly forbidden. But if no one ever bothered to pass down the rules, who was to say those rules ever existed at all? She placed her fingers into the handle, cool enough to chase away the immediate pains of direct Bloom contact, and pulled down.

It wasn’t a maintenance hatch.

Inside were piles of papers, preserved in some sort of magical way, possibly a spell produced by the magic of the Ronam itself. Bailey carefully withdrew one of the papers, and breathed a sigh of relief when it didn’t instantly crumble.

“It’s paper?” And now Kana was crowded around, too, and it was a miracle that no one was falling over the edge of the tower, guardrail or not.

Bailey unfolded the paper. “It’s sheet music.” Complete with lyrics.

Just as a test, she hummed some of the notes, to see what power, if any, responded to her call.

When she got her answer, it took all of her effort not to crumple the paper in shock. “This Song…”

“Is something wrong?” Hanoi asked.

She shook her head. “No. Just… When we climb the east tower. We should go all the way to the top.”

She thought she knew what she might have found there.

Just as she’d suspected.

After fighting their way through another tower, with the exact same Dragon distribution- at least they knew what the central tower would have to throw at them- they arrived at a rooftop that was a mirror image of the one on the opposite side.

Complete with a secret compartment in the side of the tower’s main Ronam, hidden only by a shock of flowers.

This time, instead of one of them touching the Bloom directly, Kana cut through it with their sword. “Is this good enough?”

“It should be. Let me see here…” Bailey opened the compartment. As she’d thought, there was more paper.

As she’d thought, the music on it was a complete mirror to what she’d found on the other side.

Mark leaned against the Ronam. “What sort of music is it?”

“It is… the kind to change the world.” Magical fields were the stuff of legends, to the point where the barrier ritual was the only one that could be enacted in the modern day.

The Cages, which could drain magic out of the air completely, or magnify the effects of all spells cast within its confines… Those were thought to be mere myth.

Except, apparently, they weren’t. They’d just been stored away in the Tower of the Gods and forgotten about. Somehow, that was more disappointing than never finding them at all.

Taking a copy of this piece- having copies of both- felt like the most forbidden thing Bailey had done yet.

She did it anyway. “If I am right about what this is… this war is as good as won.” It would take time, and practice, and they were the sort of Songs where every performance would take a great deal of effort, assuming she had the ability to perform them at all.

She had a pretty reliable way of finding out, at least. The barrier ritual hadn’t relied on its proper lyrics in a long time, assuming it ever did. And even if it had, Ronam were not limited to a singular Song. Just to what the player was willing to perform.

If she did this… it would be a statement. One she couldn’t take back, one everyone in the vicinity of the towers would hear. Ancient powers that had been hidden away were now hers to command, assuming she succeeded.

Only one way to find out.

After having the exact same experience in the two towers previous, climbing the central tower felt almost a little bit too predictable. Wyrms on the first floor, Little Dragons on the second, Tyrannosaurus on the third. More than a little scrambling over and around rubble to access everything they needed to undo the locks. The door opening to the fourth floor.

The one change was resting by the rusted pipe that brought up water from the healing spring below. And there, they discussed their strategy.

Mark looked up, towards the very top of the tower. “The biggest question is, what happens if Dreadnought flies to where we can’t reach? Warcry was too proud to do so, and Eclipse too weak, but considering Invisible…”

“Maybe we’re lucky and she’s territorial?” Kana suggested. “If Dreadnought doesn’t stay where I can stab it…” How they planned on threatening someone who they couldn’t reach with their sword, Bailey couldn’t say, but that was definitely the air they gave off.

And they wouldn’t have to. If this plan worked… “I can stop that. I just can’t fight with you.”

“How will you do that?” Their eyes were wide, and their ears were pricked to full attention.

“When we reach the top, you challenge the Imperial Dragon. As you do that, I’ll activate the Ronam. With its power, I’ll trap the Dragon.” The barrier, a Cage… whatever form the Song took, it would confine those within its range. “The rest of you will fight.”

“A magical field against the minor warping of space that Dragons produce…” Hanoi placed a cup under the pipe and let it fill up with water. “I wonder which will win.”

So did she. “We’ll learn today.”

Dreadnought looked more like a boat than a Dragon. Admittedly, one with the anchor in the place where a sail would be, and more mouths than any creature really had the right to have. Just looking up, Kana could count at least six.

“You’ve climbed all this way,” The Imperial Dragon spoke with all of their mouths at once, none of which were in sync or in tune with any of the others. “Stubborn creatures, aren’t you?”

They were going to take this as a compliment. “And we’ve killed all the other Dragons, too.”

There was no chance of both sides making it out of this alive. Best to make that clear now, before the fighting started.

Dreadnought rolled lazily, showing off their full complement of mouths. There were a lot of them. “They’ll be back. Not that you’ll live to see it.”

From an opening in their body that did not appear to be a mouth, the Dragon fired… a smaller Dragon.

It flew directly into Kana’s sword.

This was… incredibly underwhelming.

Mark removed a jar of poison from his bag. Hanoi conjured a snowball that wouldn’t do much more to a creature of Dreadnought’s size but get their attention.

And Kana readied their sword.

Bailey stood at the controls of the Ronam, the sheet music for her Song of choice carefully pinned into a slot made for precisely that purpose. She rested her finger on the activation switch, and took a deep breath.

“What Doris said about my eyes… if I really do have that power… Then this should work. Let this be my finest performance yet.”

She couldn’t see her own eyes. If they were truly glowing like molten gold, she wouldn’t be able to tell. She flipped the switch anyway. She started playing notes on the Ronam.

And she started to sing.

“~Traces of the voices that came here before and crumbled~”

“~Like a false paradise that’s fallen from the world~”

Music echoed all around the top of the tower. Bailey’s voice did, too.

“That sound…” In comparison to the music surrounding them, Dreadnought’s voices sounded even worse than they already had.

It also distracted them long enough for Mark to stab a syringe into them. So. That part of it was going well.

The glowing Ronam and strange feeling in the air were… probably also according to plan. Kana was pretty sure, if it wasn’t supposed to happen, Bailey would have stopped it.

“~In the rain of tears that falls on down endlessly~”

Streaks of light started crossing the sky that surrounded the towers, connecting together just over Dreadnought’s anchor. The spaces between them filled in with another, bluer light.

“~The future’s melody is so blue, so blue~ I sing it to you~”

At that note, the strangeness in the air locked fully into place. Hanoi made his way to Kana past a rain of Bullet Dragons, which bounced harmlessly off of a barrier of compressed air, the explosions almost completely covering the music. “I have an idea.”

“Really?” They didn’t pause in cutting down the Bullet Dragons any more than Mark paused in his introducing Dreadnought to new and interesting toxins in a way that wasn’t necessarily aligned with the scientific method, unless the hypothesis he was testing was ‘more poison makes Dragons die faster.’ “What is it?”

“This field is incredibly magically conductive. If you were to follow your attacks with mine-”

“We can do that already.” Sure, it took a lot of effort, and they needed to make sure they were on the exact same page before an attempt, since the window was incredibly short…

“This will be easier. And stronger.” He gave them a wry grin. “What do you think about wielding a sword made almost entirely of pure ice magic?”

“...I think that’s the best thing you’ve ever suggested. Let’s do it.”

Hanoi stepped back, his face screwed up in concentration. “As soon as I’ve attacked. You know what to do after that.”

Right. And they needed to hurry, to do that before a Bullet Dragon managed to hit Mark. They were weak, but there were a lot of them.

“~Would you like me to show you a road to the future that won’t curve at all?~”

Hanoi’s eyes took on a faint golden glow. Kana’s might have, as well, but if that was the case, they couldn’t see it.

“~What will you pray for?~ What do you believe in?~”

“Now!” He reached his hand forward, and a massive wave of ice swept forward, crashing into the Imperial Dragon’s side, blocking the holes from which they shot the Bullet Dragons. This did not prevent there from being any more explosions, but at least they were the deafening kind and not the destructive to the towers kind.

Kana leapt after the wave, reaching forward with their sword. They couldn’t call upon the magic themself, but if it was there already, and they linked it to their weapon…

A coating of frost appeared, like usual when this worked. Unlike usual, the frost glowed, and turned into a sheet of ice with a razor-thin edge.

Perfect.

“~What is it you’ll reclaim?~ What Song will you sing out?~”

“You little-” The Dragon tried to get away.

They didn’t succeed. The sword ripped them open from one mouth to another.

Dreadnought hit the ground, and burst apart. Whether their insides were supposed to be that color, or the poison had been acting just as quickly as the magic, no one would ever know.

As if to solidify this, the Bloom around the towers vanished.

Bailey noticed the Bloom disappear, and knew exactly what it meant.

But the Song was almost over, so she might as well finish it before performing the ritual proper.

“~I’d like to talk about all of it with you~”

After the last notes of the Angel Cage faded, after Bailey performed the ritual she had been sent there to perform in the first place, they all paused to drink from the tap again before Hanoi magically transported them to the bottom of the tower.

There were, of course, people waiting for them there. Waiting for her, more specifically.

“I’ll return when the Dragons have been driven from our world,” She promised them, because that was an easy promise to make, and she was starting to think she might have been able to keep it.

She was getting used to not telling her people things, so she didn’t tell them about the music she’d discovered. Maybe if someone was already on their way up the towers, but not right now. This wasn’t the time for that, any more than it was the time for her to return to Marlleaire.

But there was another thing she needed to say, and that actually was relevant, probably. “By the time I return, I’d like for repairs to be done to the second floors of the towers. Time and the Dragons have done a lot of damage to them.”

If they would be fixed, she wouldn’t have to do anything with the three slips of paper hidden away within her pocket.

If they wouldn’t, she’d ensured that she’d have significantly fewer walls to scramble over, at least, for her part in the ritual. Either one was something that she could live with.

She’d just have to wait and see which one it was.

Chapter Text

“You’re heading out?”

The girl paused in the doorway, tying up her long, blue hair with a red ribbon. “Yeah. Thought I’d head down to the sand flats, see if there’s something I can do.” She pushed the door open, paying little mind to the sand that spilled into the house.

It always got this way after a windstorm. At least this time, there were no petals of Bloom mixed in. Her feet had been sore for days…

She supposed, though, that that was the cost of life in Basho. Or anywhere doors and sand coexisted like this.

“Yoba is filled with Dragons. You should be aware of this.”

“And it’ll stay filled with Dragons as long as no one does anything.” She inspected her quiver, made sure all her arrows were there. She would need to be well-supplied for this hunt, and to keep her wits about her. The first, at least, would always be well within her control.

The soldier who was hosting her sighed, in the way he tended to do when she acted like anything other than a native of this port town. “We’ve tried that. They just come back again.”

Sure. But the previous hunting parties had only killed one or two Dragons at a time and then hidden away for a month or longer. She planned on doing something a bit more impressive than that.

Maybe, if all of the Dragons died, that would stop them coming back. Or maybe it was tied to the most powerful.

There was significantly less Bloom on the coast at the moment, so clearly there had to be some way to get rid of it. “No one’s killed the Armanos.” The armored Dragon that made its den in the Yoba Sand Flats’ oasis only had a name because a lucky traveler managed to escape it over a year prior. They’d defeated Stony Dragons, albeit with the local clinic learning to restore people from being statuary. The Worm Dragons, blind creatures that used vibrations in the sands to ambush their prey, had also been struck down on occasion.

And pretty much everyone who could fight had killed a Stegosaurus at one point, but those were pretty much harmless. While it did take time to bring one down, the only even slightly dangerous bit about them was the tail.

But the Armanos… She’d been told it was the size of a tree, and had skin the same color and hardness of stone. When she asked what kind of stone, the traveler had given her a confused look and gone to talk to someone else.

She wasn’t sure why. Some stones were much harder than others. It was an important question.

“The Armanos!? Are you insane!? It’ll eat you alive!”

It was certainly said to be large enough to do so. Time would tell how close those stories were to reality.

But she wasn’t worried. “It’ll have to catch me, first. And if it’s that big, it’s slow.” Probably in the same way as the ice constructs that occasionally wandered down from Mt. Jomaron, only with less melting in the extreme desert sunlight.

“I wouldn’t be so sure…”

“Trust me! Soon enough, we’ll be going to and from Zeza, just like old times!” Or what she’d been told the old times were. She’d only come to Basho after the Dragon invasion.

Her host sighed. “...Will you at least stay for breakfast? Aspiring dragonslayer or not, you won’t get far on an empty stomach.”

“I’ll just eat some cactus while I’m there.” She could grill it over a fire, lined with the rock constructs that kept coming to life and getting swept away by the sandstreams. “It’s supposed to be really good, isn’t it?”

“...I can see there’s no making you see reason. When do you expect to return, if you survive that long?”

Well, the fact that she could survive was being acknowledged now. That was probably an improvement. “...I’d give it a few days. Even ignoring travel time, it’s a big place.” Nowhere near as long as her journey to Basho had been in the first place, but she’d been young enough, at the time, for llamas and anteaters to still be a threat to her.

When the only hope for survival was to hide, any trip would take longer than it had any right to be.

The soldier nodded. “Just remember, if it gets to be too much for you… try to come back home safe. We’ve all enjoyed having you here, these past three years.”

“You don’t need to worry about me. I’ve even got a plan!” The plan amounted to trying to concuss the Armanos with arrows, and let it kill itself while acting erratically, and occasionally pelting it with more arrows from a reasonably safe distance. She knew how it would sound to him, so she didn’t tell him that. “I might even stop by Zeza. Bring back some fish for everyone. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

None of them had tasted seafood since before the Bloom.

She wasn’t sure she’d ever known what it tasted like. Living in the desert, it wasn’t exactly a common experience.

Satisfied that there wouldn’t be search parties sent after her, she stepped out the door. “I promise, I’ll be back! And we’ll have port access again!”

It wasn’t a far walk from the soldier’s house to the edge of the village. In fact, she could see the Bloom that covered the desert sands from the front step. She didn’t think it had been that way when she first arrived, but after this long, she’d gotten used to it.

Today, the flowers were growing right up to the edge of the village gate. Someone would have to stomp them out later, but it was far too early in the morning for that. And dealing with that had never been her job, really.

So she walked right on past, hopping between gaps in the flowers when possible in order to reduce contact. The sand was unstable enough to make it risky, but not enough that it would be actively making it worse unless she had a bad sense of balance to begin with.

And her balance was fine.

By the time she turned around to look at Basho, the village was completely hidden by a wave of red flowers.

The members of Murakumo sat around a table with a map of the western continent spread out before them. “It looks like we have two options,” Mark stated. “The inland route, or the northern sea.”

“...At this time of year, traversing the northern sea would be more dangerous than usual,” Hanoi pointed out. “And it’s dangerously cold at the best of times.” It wasn’t even fully explored, because no one wanted to deal with winter storms if they didn’t have to.

He wasn’t even sure the seaship was rated to withstand such storms. It hadn’t seemed important enough to ask Faro, back when he had the chance.

Mark nodded. “But if we take the inland route, we’ll have to travel through the desert. In particular, the only clear path through the southern mountain range is the Yoba Sand Flats.”

“Yoba… Yoba…” Kana’s brow was furrowed in concentration. “Is that the one with the tasty cactus?”

“Even if it is, it’ll be covered in Bloom,” Bailey pointed out. “Maybe wash it first.”

“You’re not trying to stop them?”

“If they’re eating cactus, they’re not eating Dragon meat.” Okay, fair enough. Hanoi hadn’t ever looked into the exact biological differences between humans and Lucier, and the relative edibility of Dragons wouldn’t have come up even if he did, but that didn’t feel normal.

“We already know most Dragons are coldblooded,” He noted. “And if something lives in the desert, it probably isn’t prepared to face ice magic either way. I’d be able to fight more effectively if we took the land route.”

Besides that, he was interested in seeing if the presence of Dragons had any effect on how the sands shifted. The Bloom grew over the ocean, but did it grow on moving sand? This felt like the perfect opportunity to find out.

“I have a good supply of antitoxins, for the desert creatures,” Mark agreed. “Of course, we don’t know what kind of Dragons have been living there.”

“I’ll go ask!” Kana volunteered, darting out of the room before anyone could tell them no.

Bailey sighed. “Do you think anyone here’s actually gone to see the Dragons?”

Mark shrugged. “If you want to try and stop them, go ahead.”

“...I think I’ll pass.”

Despite everything they’d been told of the dangers of the Yoba Sand Flats, the desert was almost completely quiet. The sand slipped over itself at speeds that would tear a rabi apart, yet somehow not the Bloom, and weaved around the cacti, and not a single monster made an appearance.

Which, given how far their line of sight was, was actually slightly concerning.

“There’s Bloom about, so there should be Dragons somewhere.” Hanoi gestured at a group of the flowers growing on a cactus next to him, just a bit too hard. He hit the flowers and the needles. “...Mark, how much of that ointment do you have left?”

“Not enough to get us to Nevanplace, if you act like that.” Still, he dutifully handed over a bottle.

“Technically, there don’t have to be many Dragons about,” Bailey pointed out. “Just one tied to the Bloom.”

“In a desert this big? Unlikely.” Hanoi finished applying the ointment and handed the bottle back to Mark. “It’s more likely that Dragons are hiding under the sand.”

“Or something killed them before we could. That can happen,” Kana pointed out. “You remember when that hunting party came back from the Nameless Cave with all that Hammerhead steak? Oh, and the heads, too.”

Supposedly, the smith in Kazan was trying to turn the heads into actual hammers. Results had yet to be reported. Personally, Mark had his doubts on the usability of such a hammer- surely, the size and weight of it would only work with the force of the actual Dragon’s muscles and skeletal structure behind it. For a human or Lucier to replicate it would be a difficult task.

“We’ll just have to watch carefully,” Bailey decided. “Then, if Dragons appear, we’ll be ready.”

Between the four of them, they agreed that this was the most reasonable course of action. They then stepped into the shifting sands, and were swept away through a massive field of Bloom, accumulating injuries all the while.

He’d been right. There was no way the ointment was lasting all the way to Nevanplace.

So perhaps she’d miscalculated a bit.

The lesser Dragons were simple enough to slay. She could ride the sand while firing carefully aimed arrows into the eyes of the Stony Dragons, or into the back of a Worm Dragon’s throat. The Stegosaurus were complete non-threats, but she dealt with them anyway, just to be thorough.

But the Armanos ruled Yoba for a reason. Tracking it in the area around the oasis was the simple part- it left large footprints, pressed deep into the sand by its weight, at least in the parts where it lay still. From a distance, it looked a bit like a rock, but no one with decent eyesight would be fooled for more than a minute, no matter how still it tried to be.

Getting closer, she could see that its hide was more like leather than scales, stretched across a creature as tall as a tree and as wide as a market stall. A target she couldn’t miss.

A target that her arrows wouldn’t satisfactorily penetrate. Its body structure appeared to be almost entirely muscle and bone, leaving few ways to puncture anything important. Perhaps the underbelly, but shooting that area with arrows was impossible to even think about seriously.

When that first arrow hit, and bounced off, the Dragon noticed her presence. It stood, and ran forward, the ground shaking with its every step. She fell back, firing as rapidly as she could in the hopes of shaking its skull a bit.

It didn’t really work, and she escaped the initial charge by ducking behind a tree. The tree itself didn’t get up so easily, uprooted and shattered into splinters for no other reason than being in the way of a gray beast.

This wasn’t going well. Not in the slightest.

Unwilling to give up, though, she strung another arrow. If she could circle around, and gather up the ones that she’d dropped… She’d need to be quick about it, though. The Armanos was turning out to be surprisingly agile.

She ran at an angle from the splinters of the fallen tree, searching for bits of wood scattered in the sand. If any of the arrows were intact, she could make another go for it.

There were many small things buried in the Yoba Sand Flats. The golden glint of coins, buried petals that would cause blisters if she stepped on them, bits of wood sticking out where they fell.

Judging those sticks for if they were workable arrows was something she didn’t have time for. She’d sort through them once she was in a more sheltered location.

“Hey, look over there!” A voice called out over the sands, and it took every bit of her willpower not to trip. “It’s a person!”

And then, from outside the Labyrinth, came a group of four. A Lucier with fluffy pink ears, a girl with complicated purple braids, and two men with nearly identical hairstyles.

If she hadn’t kept track of her water supply, she’d say she was hallucinating.

Three of them- the Lucier, the girl with the braids, and the man with black hair- charged at the Armanos. The man with brown hair stopped in front of her, a touch of magic on one hand and a vial of medicine in the other. “Are you all right, miss?”

“I’ve been better.” Even in the past three years, things had definitely been better than this ill-conceived battle. “I’d be more worried about your friends, they went right at the-” And then there was a flash of ice, and the Armanos’ feet were frozen to the ground. “...The Armanos.”

“Armanos…” He sounded out the name. “I have to ask, are you why we haven’t seen any Dragons so far?”

“Probably.” The hunt had, admittedly, gotten a bit out of hand. “After a while, I lost track of how many of them I killed. You’re Hunters, right? Don’t you fight Dragons?”

“As a team, yes.” Those word alone confirmed that she’d gotten in far over her head. “We’re Murakumo, from Kazan. Have you heard of us?”

She shook her head. “I’ve been living in Basho, these days. A bit under halfway between here and Nevanplace. You don’t get a lot of news in Basho.” There was a military encampment a day or so’s walk away, but that was a long way to go for a bit of gossip. And they probably didn’t know much more about what was going on.

“...Is there a portal near Basho?”

“Portal Rey’s kinda in the same area?” It was hard to quantify, it was just so off the beaten path. “I could probably show you the way.”

“I’ll discuss it with the others.” He turned and started towards the battlefield. She followed him. “By the way, my name’s Mark.”

“Tricia.”

The Dragon at the desert oasis was big and tough. Just how Kana liked it. It wasn’t quite slow enough they could run circles around it, or maybe it was just far too big for that, but there was nothing like an interesting enemy.

It probably wouldn’t taste good, though. It looked far too tough for that. “Once we’re done here, we should celebrate with some of that cactus!”

“...That might have to wait for a town or portal,” Hanoi ventured, taking a step back and conjuring more ice. “I’ve heard it tastes best in curry, and we don’t have ingredients for that.”

Because it wasn’t necessary. Because when camping out under the stars, the best foods were the ones grilled over an open fire.

If the others wanted curry, though, Kana was perfectly willing to wait.

Bailey’s whip made contact with the Armanos, and fell to the ground without doing much. “Where’s Mark?” She asked, looking around. “I think he’ll have to poison it, if we want out of here before nightfall.”

As nice as Hanoi’s ice magic was, there were few things that poison wouldn’t speed up. Kana took a moment to look back in the direction they’d come from. “He’s still with that girl,” They reported. “I… think she’s getting ready to shoot?”

There were some fighters who could follow in the path of an arrow, their axes cleaving the air in two. Kana was more of a sword person, but they knew the stories.

The stories of the fighters. They never paid much attention to the ones who fired the arrows in the first place.

Bailey kicked a pile of sand, and two snapped halves of a broken arrow came flying out. “...Will that work?”

If she was anything like them, she probably didn’t care about that. Just that she had to try. “I hope it does.” If this world had others with the same kind of determination…

The weight of the war was always going to rest on their shoulders. But it was nice to know that Eden would always have created some way to fight back.

When the Bloom finally receded from the Yoba Sand Flats, it was clear to everyone involved that it was a long time coming.

They stayed the night at the oasis, gathered near the edge of the healing spring. The stars were out, like always, taking advantage of the clear desert sky.

Tricia had almost forgotten what the world smelled like without the Bloom.

“I was trying to clear the way to Zeza,” She explained, removing her sandals to check on her feet. Days of wandering in the Bloom had left them scarred and blistered, but medicine, healing water, and a good night’s sleep would probably serve well enough for the return trip. “No one’s heard anything from the eastern continent in years. We weren’t sure you still existed.”

“Well, we’re fine!” Kana declared. They were carefully whittling at a cactus with the edge of their sword. “There aren’t even any Imperial Dragons there anymore! …Unless there’s stuff to the north. Do any of you think there’s stuff to the north?”

“There’s no way to tell,” Hanoi admitted. “Airships couldn’t get that high even without Invisible.”

Mark shrugged. “There might be access through the Rorakka Caverns. They’ve never been fully explored.”

“I’m sure, if there were much less, we’d still be hearing about Gryphonus.” Tricia didn’t need to have any knowledge of Murakumo’s adventures to sense that Gryphonus was probably the name of a Dragon.

Kana crossed their arms. “Kingsblade could handle them. You know. Like with the Hammerheads.”

There were, apparently, just as many kinds of Dragons on the eastern continent as there were in the west. “Kingsblade?”

“Other Hunters in Kazan.” Bailey was inspecting her own wounds from the Bloom. “They had fame before we did. If we did not kill every Dragon between Kazan and Miross, it’s because of them.”

Kana nodded. “They cleared out most of the Dragons around Kazan by themselves. We just fought the Imperial Dragon. But… they probably could have done it, too.”

Imperial Dragons… when the name was spoken, Tricia pictured flames stretching out across the sky, obscuring even the stars. “Something like that can be fought?” And everyone told her she was being ambitious with the Armanos!

“Three of them have fallen at our hands. Warcry, Eclipse, and Invisible.” Bailey counted them on her fingers. “They are alive. They can die.”

Tricia turned an arrow over in her hands. “How do you do it?”

“Huh?”

“How do you fight Dragons like that?” She’d spent such a long time planning this venture, knew this desert and the weakness of all things within, and it still went wrong at the end.

“I think… all I can say is that we’re good at what we do,” Mark admitted. “Hanoi, Bailey, and I were all in the habit of using our powers before the Dragon invasion, even if not for combat purposes. Kana?”

They stopped what they were doing with the cactus. “Well… there’s a lot of weapons and stuff around Melluride, if that counts. I didn’t make a very good smith, though.”

Their three teammates blinked at them. “Of all the things I thought you could have done before coming to Kazan… that wasn’t on the list,” Hanoi admitted.

“Yeah. Cause I wasn’t good at it.”

If Tricia looked at them, they seemed a bit young to be a full smith. And if they fought Dragons in Kazan, and trained in Melluride, that would have to have been close to four years ago, at the latest. “Maybe you were just too small for it at the time.”

Their ears drooped. “...I can use swords fine. I just can’t make them.” They stood up, and walked away to harvest another cactus.

…She got the feeling that she might have said something wrong. Time to change the subject. “...So, if I practice my archery more, I could kill Dragons like the Armanos? Or an Imperial?” If she could kill an Imperial Dragon… If she had that kind of power…

Mark inspected one of his own bottles of poison. “After everything that’s happened to us so far, I don’t see why not.”

The girl from the desert, Tricia, agreed to lead them to Basho, and then to Portal Rey a day later, or whenever she was able to walk again after trudging through all that Bloom. They all found this agreeable, and so the five of them walked together over the flower-covered sands.

For a moment, Hanoi sensed something odd. The world had been changed, in minor ways, by the presence of the Dragons, but this felt like something more than that. “Is there anything south of here?”

Tricia shrugged. “Not really. Just Mt. Jomaron. I guess it’s the biggest mountain in Eden, but there’s enough lost souls that no one really wants to go there.”

A place where the undead, normally a very rare occurrence, gathered… he wouldn’t want to go there, either. Maybe that was what he was sensing. The undead. It wasn’t like he’d ever encountered them before to know differently.

“Lost souls? Why would they be there?”

“I’m not sure… lost travelers, maybe.” And that would make sense, if Mt. Jomaron had ever been a place frequently traveled.

Hanoi didn’t know the history of the area. So he couldn’t really make a judgement on that. “It’s just that few places foster that kind of development. And no one really knows what about those places causes it.” Maybe it was something about the way space settled.

“We could check it out sometime,” Kana suggested. They’d been mostly quiet that day, focused on slashing through any creature that dared to show its face. “Once the Dragons are gone, there’ll be lots of time to do lots of stuff.”

What would it be like, to study a location in a world without the Dragons? For a time, Hanoi had expected that, had planned to hang around portals and use Hunter work for the sake of his living expenses. Then there was the mission to Rorakka Forest, and from there, no more plans could be made.

And it would be different, after the Dragons. “I’ll think about it.” Maybe he’d do a bit of poking around. Maybe he’d just go back to studying the portals. Maybe he’d find something entirely new.

And maybe he didn’t have time to think about that right now, as in the distance, he was starting to see something circling in the sky. “Those aren’t birds over there, are they?”

Tricia’s face turned white. “They’re not.”

They ran as fast as they could, but it was already too late to stop Tricia’s world from falling to pieces once again. Even from a distance, she could see the bright blue shapes of Dragons perching on the village rooftops. “That’s-”

“...They look like that first Dragon we fought,” Kana breathed. “...We never named that kind.”

“It’s smaller than a Wyrm,” Hanoi observed. “So, let’s call it a Wyvern.”

“I don’t care what it’s called.” Did she have enough arrows for this? Was she strong enough to fight the entire invading force at once?

Was there even anyone left in Basho to save?

How long had these Dragons been here?

“No, but we know how they work!” Kana was grinning, now, with bared fangs. “We never get that! It’s not that bad, just don’t let them get sand in your eyes!”

Like that wasn’t the number one piece of advice for dealing with desert battles in general. Especially for archers. “I’ll put an arrow in theirs, first.”

Sand and Bloom crunched under her feet. As she got closer, she saw that the red flowers had grown past the village’s borders, into the walls of the buildings. The buildings themselves seemed to already be in a state of decay, despite how little time must have passed. Even the walls meant to protect them from the outside had crumbled.

Or, more likely, they’d been smashed by the Armanos that were now wandering the streets.

She’d had so much trouble dealing with just one, in a place that she wouldn’t have minded destroying. How was she meant to handle more of them?

Mark took a sharp breath. “It looks just like Kazan did.”

Bailey nodded. “Same thing. Different Dragons.”

Tricia didn’t have time to listen to their musings. She stepped forward, through the path in the Bloom she’d carved when she left. The path ended where the streets of Basho began.

“Hello!?” She called, not entirely caring if it gained a Dragon’s attention. That was what the others were for. “Is anyone still-?”

There was the sound of clanking metal from around a corner, and for just a moment, she got her hopes up.

And then they actually showed up.

It was hard to pretend things could be okay when zombies that used to be people she knew were shambling in her general direction.

She shot the zombies. They fell to the ground. One of them was beheaded completely. “Is anyone actually alive?”

It didn’t take much scouting to be sure that the answer was no.

The others found her sitting in the remnants of a destroyed market stall. “How do you want to do this?” Hanoi asked, ice crystals drifting around his hand.

“...Can we just go to Portal Rey? I- I don’t…” She didn’t want to sit this out. This was her village, ever since the Dragons had first arrived.

But firing arrows at the bodies of people she’d once known was worse.

Better to wait for the corpses to rot.

“...Yeah. This can wait.” Kana took a deep breath, and placed their sword back into its sheath. “Go on, then. Lead the way.”

Chapter Text

Your people have been known for their metalwork since there was metal to work with, and Lucier to work with it. For generations, the secrets behind your prowess have stayed hidden, as was the wish of your predecessor.

But I know it is not, as you claim, simply the quality of your mines.

Those powers have not been at their peak in a very long time, waning as generations go by. You believe that this might change in the future, but this is the present.

The prophesied one has not arrived.

The world as you know it is ending around us. Bloom bursts from unattended land, and Dragons once more walk the surface of Eden. There is no need for further description. By this point, I am sure you will have seen them for yourself.

Of the civilizations that existed the last time such a thing happened, yours is the only one that has survived to the present day. That carries a certain duty.

This time, the rest of the world deserves a chance to survive.

The key to the Dragons’ destruction lies in the land of your people. In the powers of those long past. You may already know what it is I am referring to. You may not. The time will come when you will know, and you will have to make use of it to kill our enemies.

But that time is not now.

Our foes are many, and they are powerful. To save this world, all must be eradicated. Not even a single petal of Bloom can be allowed to remain. The continued existence of the flowers is a testament to your ancestors’ failure that your people must repent for.

The repentance will come at my word. It will come at a time when the war may be ended in but a single strike.

I pray that the Lucier do not fail me once again.

-A letter from Chief Scholar Emille to the 163rd King of Nevanplace, three months after the start of the Dragon invasion.

The people at the military encampment had no idea about what happened to Basho. They hadn’t even sent anyone there since before Tricia left, so a more accurate time for the attack couldn’t be given.

Tricia had… sort of expected this, really. Even when things were good, Basho wasn’t exactly a major tourist destination. Let alone now, when the various towns and villages were left to fend for themselves in a sea of toxic flowers.

“What do you plan on doing next?” Mark asked. She could tell he’d been by Portal Rey because he was carrying more ointment for her feet. She wasn’t sure when that had happened, though, since she was distracted by the loss of her home and her feet being in constant agony.

She shrugged. “I know where an Imperial Dragon is. Might try and do something about that. It’s a bit of a walk, though.” How was it that those four were journeying the world, when just one step outside of town meant pain?

“You’re going to need better cover for your feet, then.” He wasn’t wrong. Her sandals had been perfectly fine, growing up, but they weren’t suited for the Bloom. “There’s a kind of boot that Kana swears by, but even well-constructed loafers should avert most of the damage you’ve been taking.” He paused. “Socks would also help. Anything that averts direct skin contact.”

She knew that. It was just that she’d never lived anywhere with the habit of making boots out of anything other than metal. Which was the worst possible thing to be wearing in the desert.

Really, she didn’t even know where the metal boots came from. Who thought they were a good idea?

Was there anyone left she could ask? “Aren’t you going to tell me not to fight it?”

“I’ve learned that there’s no point in arguing about these things. People will do what they want no matter what I have to say about it. Just look at Kana.”

She couldn’t, because they weren’t anywhere near the building. “They’re your leader, right?”

“As much as we could be said to have one.” He inspected his glasses. “I couldn’t really tell you anything about them. They just showed up in Kazan a month before the Dragons did.”

And, before that, they and Tricia had lived on the same continent.

Not that she tended to assume otherwise, when it came to Lucier. This was, after all, their continent. “You never asked?”

“When would I have the time? Medicine and toxicology are both full-time jobs.”

And yet, he still found the time to be a Hunter despite that. What kind of dreams was he chasing, to do battle with monsters while studying two different disciplines? To fight Dragons?

What was the necessary level of genius to defeat an Imperial Dragon.

Satisfied that her feet weren’t going to fall off, she handed the ointment back to Mark. “If you’re going to Nevanplace, I’d like to go with you. I think… I’m going to need more than I can get at a military camp, to kill that Dragon.”

Looking back, Tricia would never be able to name the moment when she joined Murakumo properly. Paperwork would be filled out in Kazan, under Erin’s watchful eye, but that was a legal formality more than anything.

But she thought that it might have started in this moment.

The western continent could be divided into sections of extreme heat, or extreme cold. Sand mixed with tufts of grass, which mixed with snow before the next horizon. The border was, Kana had been told, an incredible thing to witness.

At the moment, though, they weren’t witnessing it. It was covered in Bloom. The shift in temperature, though, that was noticeable immediately.

Bailey turned back to where the desert sands still stretched out behind them. “I didn’t think this was how tema- tempura- how hot and cold works.”

“It’s not like this on the eastern continent,” Mark pointed out. “Maybe the west works differently.”

Hanoi knelt down and destroyed a patch of bloom, drawing up a handful of snow. “...It’s not magically created. Even if it was, we’re too far from civilization for anyone to be maintaining it.”

“Why would we use magic to keep things cold?” Kana didn’t mind it that much, since they’d grown up with it, but there was something to be said for not having wind constantly blowing through their ears. “That’d be a waste of good mages.”

“So the climate’s just… like this?”

“It’s been this way as long as I can remember.” As long as anyone could remember. This was just what things were like. “You know. Except for the flowers.”

“...They weren’t here when I came by,” Tricia agreed. She didn’t seem to possess any sort of winter clothing, but she buttoned her jacket and buried her face in her scarf, and she didn’t look like she was in immediate danger of freezing.

“And when was that?” Mark asked.

“It was… a while ago. The Dragons had only just landed.” Right. Because their landing mattered just as much as their continued presence, even for those from outside Kazan. Kana had never asked anyone what those days were like. They’d assumed that everyone just barricaded their towns and stayed inside like the Mirossi had.

But then, the people of Miross were forbidden to fight the Dragons unless there was danger of the town wall being breached, under an unknown penalty. So maybe it wasn’t the most usual nation to observe.

“We wouldn’t know anything about that,” They admitted. “I don’t remember what happened back then very well.” And then, of course, they’d been unconscious for three years.

“You forgot a bunch of giant things with wings dropping out of the sky?” Tricia paused. “I mean, they don’t all have wings, but…”

“No, I remember that part.” It was the last clear memory they had. “It was just… everything after that.” How the people had gotten to Miross. Why, in a place that boasted of no conflict, the people of Kazan were always on-edge around the Mirossi. How Queen Emerald had thought that making peace with the Dragons was possible to begin with.

And now, they’d be seeing what similar events had befallen Nevanplace, at least once they’d walked through a massive field of snow and murderbears and afro birds.

It was likely still standing. All the major settlements were.

They wondered if Melluride was also intact. The mines probably weren’t- too ideal a habitat for Dragons- but the settlement itself had a chance, didn’t it?

“That makes sense. It did get pretty messy out there.” Tricia adjusted her scarf, and then her quiver. “Every time you closed your eyes, there’d be more Bloom. But I think that’s normal.”

“It does seem like new patches can grow overnight,” Hanoi agreed, pulling a paper of Bloom research out of his pocket. “Would you like to read about it? There have been studies.”

And that gave the archer pause. “Who has time for stuff like that?”

“The Pleroma Bloom Research Department. That apparently exists now. And yet, when I applied for a team to study space magic well before that, nothing.”

Kana took a step forward into the snow. It crunched beneath their feet, loud despite the disintegrating carpet of Bloom. “...If they approved it, you wouldn’t be here.” And maybe they would have made friends with another mage, or joined another guild of Hunters that started up at about the same time.

Maybe they wouldn’t have taken that mission, and could be just a normal Lucier facing the end of the world. Or maybe that wouldn’t have happened.

It felt almost impossible, at this point, that they could ever be a normal anything.

Mark’s main observation of the western continent, now that he’d spent some time observing it, was that, aside from the mountains, it was a very flat place. Stretches of sand or stretches of snow, covered in Bloom all the same.

As they got further north, the red and yellow and white vanished into the distance, met with a large number of tress. “Is that a forest over there?”

“The Miracle Forest.” Tricia stepped lightly over a snowdrift, which Kana then trampled over. “We don’t go there.”

“Some of the plants eat people,” Kana agreed with a sage nod.

“Plants… eat people…” Bailey repeated. “Some plants eat meat in Marlleaire, but they are not very big.”

“Well, they can bite your ankle off at least. Probably.”

Mark adjusted his glasses, wishing not for the first or last time that it was warmer so they wouldn’t fog up as much. “Neither of you have been there, have you?”

“Why would we?” Tricia asked.

“I was just curious. The plants could have medicinal properties.” Or poisonous ones, but at this point, the Bloom provided all the toxins he could ever need.

He could worry about finding other sources after it was gone.

“I’m sure there’s someone in Nevanplace you could ask. People in the palace are supposed to be good at that, I think.”

Mark hadn’t really tried collaborating with the healers in other places they’d been. There were few in Miross, as there was no conflict to necessitate them. In Aizen, he didn’t speak the language. Unlike Hanoi, he was not confident enough to try to gain access to Marlleaire.

The less said about how impossible the Pleromans were to hold a dialogue with, the better. It seemed that Hanoi, Nowari, and the Chief Scholar were the only real conversationalists they had. “I’ll think about it.” He didn’t know Lucien, and he wasn’t sure he was willing to ask Kana about it, even assuming they’d been keeping in practice, but if he ran into someone he could talk to, he wouldn’t turn down the opportunity.

“It could go well for you,” Kana agreed. “If you prove you already know what you’re doing. And that you want to get better. They like things like that.” And they would know, being the one who was actually from this country.

That made things easier. “Do you think I would be able to speak to them?” Only knowing Pleron had worked, in Kazan, back when he had no intention to travel. And he wasn’t sure where in Kazan he would have learned anything else. But as time went on, the limitations became more apparent.

They shrugged. “I think it’s only the really old people who just speak Lucien. There’s others who use it regularly, but they can use other languages if they want to. You know. If nothing’s changed since I left.” They kicked at a snowdrift, sending petals scattering into the air. “Just don’t ask me to translate. I still keep mixing up the words for ‘tree’ and ‘copper.’

Bailey blinked. “...Didn’t you used to be a smith?”

“And I told you I wasn’t good at it.” Like being unable to work with something was necessarily related to being unable to talk about it. Mark wondered if he’d understand better if he knew another language.

At this point, it was probably a terrible time to learn.

“I know enough Lucien to ask for directions,” Tricia volunteered. “And half a dozen swear words, which I don’t think this is the time for. Unless things go badly.”

She didn’t sound all too confident that things wouldn’t go badly.

“Where did you learn those?” Hanoi asked.

“I once met someone who was very… foul-mouthed. There’s another word he used, too, but I’m pretty sure that one’s a racist slur against humans. He was not a pleasant person, and I wouldn’t be sad if the Dragons ate him.” Versus what had happened to her village. She hadn’t spoken about it since they returned to travelling.

“This is better than Aizhen,” Bailey observed. “We have two people with us who know some of the language.”

And, in these circumstances, this was something to be thankful for.

Mark tried to keep those thoughts in his mind even as the watchtowers of Nevanplace appeared on the horizon.

Kana didn’t visit the main city of Nevanplace very often. If one discounted the Bloom trimmed away to a reasonable distance from the walls, however, it looked much the same as they remembered.

The stone brick walls stretched high, and if they squinted, they could see a lining of snow on top of the crenellations. A long, flat bridge stretched over a moat filled with water from the glimmering lake the city sat beside, though, as with most of the year, the water was currently frozen. Supposedly, it had been dug during a time when the climate was much warmer, and there was no reason to change things when it began to freeze.

It was a manner of thinking their people were familiar with. Even if something didn’t fit the original plan, there was no reason to throw it out until it was actively causing harm. Currently, having the moat harmed no one, so long as they didn’t skate on it in the middle of summer. So, until that fact changed, it could stay.

They weren’t sure there was anyone around who’d know how to fill it in, anyway.

“Welcome to Nevanplace.” They wondered if it was too late to invest in a hat. Or maybe a nice, floppy hood, that wouldn’t constrict their ears too much but would keep them hidden from view. “The city was built around the palace, so it’s easy to get to. Wherever you are, just head towards the center and you’ll find your way eventually.”

It would be even easier than that. The main entrance to the palace was the one facing the city’s front gate. It couldn’t quite be seen from the gate, except as the top of the skyline, but if someone knew what they were looking for, they could possibly make out which of the shadows it was.

Kana couldn’t. They just didn’t know the city well enough. Even stepping through the gate felt like walking into another world, where salt was used for roads instead of food, and basically every meal was cooked in a pot.

At least, compared to outside the walls, the wind wasn’t anywhere near as strong.

They took a step forward, and the snow crunched beneath their feet. A nearby guard, slumped against the wall, immediately straightened up. “I wasn’t asleep, ma’am, I- You’re not Sierra.”

They weren’t. They didn’t look anything like her. This man must have been incredibly sleep-deprived, if he was mistaking them for the princess, of all people.

They weren’t sure what to say. They were never really sure what to say, when in Nevanplace proper.

“No, we’re here to talk to the king,” Bailey agreed smoothly. Her left side was slightly caked with snow from when the wind had blown her over, but she still managed the same polite smile as when talking to any sort of important figure. It was a princess thing, maybe. “Just down this street, right?”

“Yes. I don’t know how many petitioners there are on a given day, so there might be a bit of a wait, but the king does seem to prioritize visitors from the outside… particularly in these dark times.”

And that would be good. They could deliver Emille’s request for an alliance, and then head to Portal Loco to go someplace warmer. Maybe, if they were fast enough, no one would suspect the detour they had taken to Marlleaire.

And then Kana wouldn’t have to see or talk to anyone who would recognize them.

While Aizhen was the world’s oldest human civilization, Nevanplace far outdated it. The Aizo palace was built in imitation of the Lucier’s, but smaller, as they didn’t have quite so many stones.

It also had a less practical interior. The palace in Nevanplace wasn’t going to risk perfectly good carpet with water from a koi pond. It was a well-heated building, between the kitchens and the royal family’s personal smiths, and books were kept wherever there was space for them.

Like every other place of the kind, though, the throne room was a large area of space with a red carpet. For the most part, it was longer than it was wide, and the king sat on a large throne with every surface covered in soft cushions. There was a second one next to him, but it was empty- his queen had died well before Kana was born.

To each side of the thrones was a suit of armor. Besides the one near the king stood Prince Jake and Princess Sierra, wearing the garb of the royal family. The king himself sat stiffly in his seat, despite the softness of the cushions, and a single shaft of light illuminated the star garnet set in his forehead.

…Well, Kana thought it was a star garnet. It could also have been almandine. They knew it was some kind of garnet, at least.

“Ah! You must be Murakumo.” Was he expecting them? Had they taken so long that Emille just sent another messenger? Possibly someone who could just go directly to Portal Loco? But in that case, what was the point in sending them over sea to begin with? “I have been told that you are the warriors who saved the east.”

Technically, Kingsblade deserved a good amount of credit for Kazan, but there was no denying that, if they hadn’t come around, nothing would have been done about Eclipse. There was, of course, no reason to think about Dreadnought. Possibly no one outside Marlleaire even knew that they existed.

Bailey nodded. “We were sent here by Chief Scholar Emille of Pleroma. She seeks alliance.”

“The Chief Scholar…” The king did not finish his observation out loud. “...Before we speak of agreements, you should know those in the immediate succession.”

The prince brushed off his robes, though no dust had settled on it. “You know, even people all the way out here have heard of you. I’m Jake. Anyone around could tell you I’m the strongest warrior here!”

His sister’s ears twitched, and she looked away from him. “...Sierra.”

“...Is that all you’re gonna say?” Jake asked. “See, this is why no one talks to you. You need to up your charms more!”

“I upgraded my charms just yesterday.” She pulled a number of small trinkets out of her pocket, each marked with a different symbol in shimmering gold thread. “See?”

“You know that isn’t what I meant…”

“Do you… talk about these things often?” If Bailey hadn’t said it, Kana would. But they were glad it was her who did. Speaking in a place like this would draw attention.

The attention of the royal family was something they were wholly uninterested in.

Jake shrugged, an action foreign to many a throne room, but apparently not this one. “I guess it doesn’t matter. Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing what you can do! What about you, Sierra?”

The princess did not answer.

“A strange pair…” Hanoi mused, so quietly Kana had to prick their ears to hear it despite being right next to him. “And the future of the Lucier…”

“These two command our military,” The king said. “They may be relied upon to fulfill their duties. But. That is for a later date. First, I would like you to prove your strength. There is no point in an alliance where one side cannot be relied upon.”

Kana’s ears flattened, and they took a deep breath. “What would you have us do?” When it came to battle, surely there was no task they couldn’t fulfill. They just had to keep reminding themself of that.

If they could remember that in Aizhen, they could remember it here.

“Go south,” the king said, “and travel to the Devo Desert. Come back after you have challenged the Imperial Dragon that rests there.”

“The Flame Eater.” Tricia probably hadn’t meant for her voice to echo in the way that it did. But it cut through the silence like a sword through cheese.

Her hair was damp with melted snow, but her eyes were clear, a spark of gold hiding just behind the purple that vanished when she blinked.

“You know it?” Mark asked. She nodded.

“I do. And I can take you there.”

There are many things about the Lucier that have never been written down, but passed on orally. Now, as the Dragons fill the land with their toxic flowers, I start to realize the folly of this. When there is no one left to tell these stories, they will be gone.

If the information I have gathered is correct, many of those stories are soon to disappear. Perhaps that is the intention.

I knew from the beginning what the Chief Scholar would ask of me. What she will ask very soon, if events progress how I believe they will. It was not a hard conclusion to come to, when you keep a close eye on history.

It is an easy thing to understand, when you realize that Pleroma has never had a Chief Scholar except Emille.

With this information, her competence is hard to doubt. Her intentions, however, are more uncertain. Her own people cannot name the beginning of her reign, but they do not doubt she means well. And perhaps she can be trusted to do what is best for her people.

But that is not necessarily what is best for my people.

Yet I do not know what the best thing for my people would be. I have led them for so long, but when something believed to be just a story repeated itself, we were unprepared. Many details of prior occurrences have been lost, aside from that they occurred to begin with, and we were victorious enough to rebuild after.

So, in this, I fear I must place my faith in the being calling herself Emille.

The guild of Hunters Murakumo arrived at my palace today, saying that she sent them. It was hard to tell who the leader was, but they appeared to be powerful enough warriors for the stories of their power not to be exaggerated. One of their number was a Lucier, and it makes me proud to say that one of my people is contributing to solving this crisis in a way that doesn’t involve the task set before us.

To be sure my faith is not misplaced, I have given them a task.

I sent them to defeat Flame Eater, so the desert mines may potentially be reclaimed. Perhaps I should have sent them to clear the Bloom around Melluride instead. It would have bought time to seek another solution.

But we have had three years already.

The Imperial Dragons must be defeated. Just as they have been every time before, and will be every time after this one. Because, after this long, I do not believe they will ever give up on harvesting this planet.

Specifically, I do not believe the One-Winged Beast to be capable of giving up on it. It will not stop until Lucier and humanity alike have been devoured. For the sake of that not happening, the future must be entrusted to my children, and to Murakumo.

I only wish it would not require the knowledge of what it is they fight to be consigned further to history.

-An excerpt from the journal of the 163rd king of Nevanplace

Chapter Text

A dark sky, glistening with jewellike stars. That was the sky Tricia grew up underneath. The land she grew up on, smooth rocks and desert sand. The roof she grew up under, a sturdy cave ceiling.

It was everything she knew.

“Hey, are you gonna come out tonight?” Her roommate, a girl with skin browned by the desert sun, bounded up to her. “Everyone says the stars are gonna be amazing!”

She cracked an eye open. “Are you sure, Hatch? Don’t they say the same thing every night?”

“Are they ever wrong, though?” Hatch slid a drawer open and retrieved a sharp dagger made of mellurite. “Besides… I don’t think it’s just the stars.”

That got her attention. She sat up, her feather quilt falling to her lap. “Not just the… what do you mean?” When people went out at night, they went to stargaze. To breathe in the fresh air outside of the caves, even the ones not used for mining.

“Well, Yac and Eustis were whispering to each other about something. And they don’t care about the stars. Or… you know… anything that’s aboveground.”

And that probably wasn’t related to the night sky. Except that, if something strange was going on in the caves, maybe it would be best not to be underground for it. “Did you ask the foreman about it?”

“He said he’d tell me when I was older. Watch if I hunt any more meat for him this week.”

“You can’t tell the head chef who to serve, Hatch.” Tricia knew this, not because she’d tried it, but because it had been covered in orientation. A community like theirs had rules, to make sure they supported each other.

There was no other way to survive, in a place like the Devo Desert.

“I know, I know… Look, Tricia. Just come with me tonight, and I promise I’ll never bother you about it again. Not for the rest of time. I promise!”

It was a promise that wouldn’t, couldn’t last into the new year, let alone for the rest of time. That just wasn’t the kind of person Hatch was. But, for once, Tricia felt the urge to humor her.

What was the worst that could happen?

“All right, fine. But I’m holding you to that, got it? And you have to watch me on my next hunt. I’ll bring back the biggest maneater you’ve ever seen.” In emphasis, she tapped on the bow hanging by her bed.

Hatch’s eyes glimmered. “You’ve got yourself a deal!”

Keeping up with Tricia was difficult. She only ever stopped long enough to rub ointment on her skin that was damaged from the Bloom, otherwise taking the straightest possible path no matter what obstacles it took her through.

Like a giant snowdrift. Or a bird nest. Or a murderbear den.

To say the least, Mark was slightly irritated by all the things it might have been safer, or even faster, to go around. “You want to do this quickly, don’t you?”

Tricia kicked through a snowdrift, and her sandal flew off. She hopped forward on one foot to grab it. “It’s an Imperial Dragon. It needs to go.”

And there wasn’t really any denying that. The Imperial Dragons were a threat to the world, and needed to be obliterated, in the words of Emille. But it couldn’t be worth having bare feet in a field of snow.

“We can’t do anything if we’re exhausted before we get there,” He reminded her. “If you pace yourself, you’ll have more energy to fight the Dragons.”

He wasn’t going to pretend, even to himself, that she had any reason to be there except fighting Dragons.

“I think the Devo Desert’s supposed to be pretty far from here,” Kana agreed. “Maybe. There’s a lot of deserts.”

“The Devo Desert is home to the largest cave system on the western continent.” Tricia punctuated the sentence by shoving her sandal onto her foot. “It’s a good source of metal, even if it isn’t mellurite. If someone has a metal cooking pot, it probably came from around there.”

“I see why the king wanted it freed, then,” Bailey observed. “It would be bad to be unable to get new pots. They must sell well.”

“I wouldn’t know. I know where the metal and stuff goes, but not how much money people get for it.” She adjusted her bow string. “Enough to buy bread and vegetables, at least.”

“You make it sound like people live there.” Mark said.

“That’s because they do. Or, at least, they did before Flame Eater showed up. I haven’t checked back on them since. They might have moved. Or, more likely…”

Mark hadn’t seen much of Basho. By the time he arrived, it was already in ruin, and swarmed by the walking dead. It was the only completely destroyed settlement he’d seen that didn’t have an Imperial Dragon nesting there.

The Devo Desert was the nesting ground of an Imperial Dragon. From what he’d seen, that would not make it a suitable habitat for human life. Or Lucier life, come to that.

“We’ll find out,” He said, and he meant it as a promise.

Even if he hadn’t, it felt inevitable.

When they crossed the dunes, they would see what it was the Imperial Dragon had made of them.

A controversial topic, for the people of the Devo Desert, was the best places to see the stars. Some claimed it was at the desert’s heart, surrounded by the wildlife. Others believed that the safety of the immediate cave entrance was the important thing.

Hatch’s favorite spot for stargazing was on a high cliff that could only be reached through a certain tunnel. She held a lantern out in front of her, and Tricia followed her closely, unwilling to be left behind in the darkness. They both knew these tunnels well, but there was no reason to take risks.

At one turning, slightly before they began their ascent to the surface, Hatch stopped. “Do you smell that?” She asked.

“Smell what?”

“Down that tunnel, I think. It… might be blood.”

Well. Blood wasn’t exactly an unusual thing to encounter in the caves. There were plenty of cave creatures, some of which would eventually be unlucky, and slip and fall onto sharp stones. Or be caught by someone or something seeking out their next meal.

And then the blood would pool, and whatever section of the cave it was would be red for a few months, until the day came to clean the caves. And things would go back to normal again.

“Well, it’s not anyone we know about. Everyone else was heading out when we left.” To find a wider area to sit together, and maybe roast whatever spare meat they had on hand, and that would go bad otherwise. “I think a maneater just fell in or something.”

“It… kind of smells like smoke, too.”

“That’s because you have the lantern, Hatch.” Strange smells in the caves were something to be worried about, certainly, but none of this was anything that couldn’t be explained normally.

Hatch held up the lantern to examine it. The candle inside flickered innocently. “...You might be right.”

She proceeded up the slope to their destination, only hesitating for a moment to peer down the tunnel she was suspicious of.

Tricia didn’t afford it even that bit of attention, discarding all thoughts of that conversation before they’d even fully left the crossroads. There was absolutely nothing important that it could be. They’d simply have to send someone the next day to clean up a dead animal.

And, in the very depths of the caverns, a new ring of flowers bloomed outwards.

Upon their arrival in the particular stretch of desert they were directed to, they were greeted by a Wolf Dragon- a blue wolf with draconic wings. It howled at them, and then Tricia shot its eye, and everything quickly resolved from there.
“Not bad,” A Lucier knight said, wearing heavier armor than the desert heat really should have permitted. “I wonder how you’d do against an Igorias.”

“Igorias?” Hanoi had never heard that Dragon name before. It felt like, every time he turned around, there was a new kind of them.

It would have been fascinating, if it wasn’t also the apocalypse.

“They’re red and have wings like birds.”

“Beaks for mouths and talons for claws?” He checked.

“Just the same.” So they’d effectively be fighting red Gryphonus. Well. He’d been practicing his magical shieldwork for exactly this kind of situation. “Have you seen them before?”

“Not exactly, but close enough.” If they were similar enough, they could be fought the same way.

Still, between them and the Wyverns, Dragonslaying was starting to feel almost nostalgic. Now all they needed was a return of the Serpentines and Triceratop.

Kana nodded. “I bet we can beat those easy. Just like the ones in Rorakka!” Their eyes almost seemed to glow with determination, but it was hard to tell. The green of their eyes, by default, was already very gold. It made it hard to tell how much power they were using at a given moment.

“What happened in-?” Tricia stopped herself and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. “ She turned to the knight. “The people who lived in this desert. Do you know what happened to them?”

“Well, the desert and most of the tunnels are full of Bloom. But I think there’s a number of survivors bundled into the last clear cave or so. We try to get shipments of food to them every so often so they don’t starve. Can’t take the mines back if there’s no one to work in them, after all.”

She took a deep breath. “So… people did survive.”

“Unless the cave’s collapsed on them since the last time I checked. The cave is-”

“I know where it is.” She cut him off, and brushed her ponytail back over her shoulder. “I know exactly which cave the flowers wouldn’t have grown into. It’s not connected to the tunnels, so it wouldn’t have been in the line of fire.”

And the Imperial Dragon was called Flame Eater. So maybe she was taking it literally. Hanoi wasn’t sure what an Imperial Dragon’s name had to do with its powers, if anything, but there were good odds that they’d be dealing with a lot of fire.

It felt like the sort of thing where he could do a lot of damage with just an icicle and a prayer. “Should we check in on them?” He suggested. “Mark can make sure there’s no one in immediate danger.”

“If there is, I can stay behind and look after them,” Mark agreed. “The four of you together should be more than enough, if you take some medicine with you.”

“I can’t ask you not to fight.” But the relief was clear on Tricia’s face regardless, and she took her first, shaky step to the southwest. “As a Hunter, your place is-”

“As a healer, my place is where people are sick or injured. As long as no one asks me to be a bouncer for their tavern, I can still do something good.” That felt like a really weird exception to make. But Hanoi could understand. He wasn’t really being applied to the purpose he’d initially hoped he would, either. That, it seemed, was something for after the Dragons.

“Let’s go, then,” Tricia said, five steps out from the rest of them already. “The Devon need our help.”

And if she shot down the Dragons more aggressively than the rest of them, nobody said anything about it.

At the start of the night, the stars were shiny and silent up in the sky. Tricia and Hatch sat down on some relatively flat rocks on top of the cliff, and from that height, it was possible to see the people spread out in the desert below by the light of their lanterns.

These nights were spontaneous, but nobody could say they didn’t go all out for it.

Hatch took two pouches from her belt. “Here. You should eat something.”

Tricia opened the offering. Inside was a lump of bread, a slightly smaller ball of cheese, a boiled egg sliced in two, and half an apple. “How did you get this much?”

“Ellen. I think she gave me them just to make me go away.” She sounded immensely proud of this fact. “But I promise, it’s still good!”

And, more to the point, if she didn’t eat any of it, then that would be wasting food, and also she wouldn’t get to have any sort of dinner.

She did like eggs, at least, even if they were only ever boiled. “How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Just… imposing on people like that. How are you brave enough to do that? I’m sort of jealous.” If she had the courage to ask people for things that she didn’t deserve, she was sure that her life would have looked very different.

“Well, I mean…” Hatch took a bite of her apple. “If I ask, the worst that can happen is they say no, right? But if I don’t ask, not only do I not get the thing, but I don’t get to know if it’s possible I could have had it. I like knowing where I stand with people, even if it’s that they don’t like me very much. Don’t you wish you knew what people thought about you?”

“I hope they think that I’m responsible.” After all, between the two of them, one of them had to be. “And proficient in my work.”

She had, after all, practiced shooting since the day she learned where meat came from. Surely, she must have attained some sort of mastery by now?

“That’s all?” She broke off a bit of bread, wondering why Hatch was looking at her like that. “Is that everything you want people to know about you?”

And, in response, she said something that she was always going to regret.

“I think the fact that I talk to you tells them everything I don’t want them to know.”

“What’s that supposed to mean!?” And there wasn’t really an explanation she could give that would go over well. Or any time to give it.

Because, at that moment, she began to smell smoke and blood. “...Has something gone wrong below?”

“Don’t change the subject, Tricia.”

“No, really, it smells like there’s a fire somewhere.” And yet, when she looked to the sands, all of the spots of light were roughly the same size and shape as before. “Could it be coming from-?”

The cave. The tunnels where Hatch said she smelled something strange, just a bit earlier.

The cave entrance that was now barricaded by flowers that hadn’t been there a minute ago. “...Hatch? Do you see this?”

“They look really pretty,” Hatch said, like their only safe way down hadn’t just had a bunch of smelly plants grow to block it. She reached forward, and her hand brushed a petal. She jerked her hand back. “What is this!?” Her fingertips were bleeding.

“I guess it’s… something we shouldn’t touch.” She turned away from the cave entrance. Maybe, if she shouted loud enough, someone below could toss them some rope or a ladder.

“Yeah, I figured out that much, but… but…” Hatch trailed off, staring up at the sky. “Tricia?”

“Yes?”

“...Look up.” There were much fewer stars in the sky than there had been a few minutes ago.

Rather than stars, the sky was filled with Dragons.

The cave entrance looked more or less the same as it had when Tricia left, the evening that everything fell apart. The Bloom didn’t quite reach the entrance, though, and she had to shoot down a few more Dragons to get at it.

And then she was within the chilled walls of her childhood home. “Is that Tricia?” A Lucier with dark skin leaned against the wood of the kitchen counter. “You survived?”

“Eustis.” There was no sign of Yac, but that didn’t have to mean anything. It wasn’t like the two of them were attached at the hip. “It’s been a while. You were worried about me?”

“Yeah, when Hatch came back without you, we kinda figured you didn’t make it. That big Dragon’s not exactly a pushover.”

“Hatch?” She’d made it back? When the Flame Eater landed before them, Tricia had taken that as a sign that at least one of them wasn’t making it out alive. Especially after…

“She’s fine,” Eustis said. “You know, as much as any of us, we’re kinda trapped here if the knights haven’t been by recently… But she’s better than she was.”

It was easy to believe that. If only because, the last time she’d seen Hatch, her face was on fire. The only possible status updates one could get from that were ‘better’ or ‘dead.’ “She must be, if she’s alive.”

“Why don’t you see for yourself?” And before she could tell him that it was a terrible idea, he turned and yelled into the cavern. “Hey, everyone! Tricia’s back!”

And she wasn’t sure what would happen next. She’d sort of hoped she could check in and leave without anyone noticing she’d been here.

But then, it had only been three years. She should have expected someone would recognize her. After all, she could recognize all of them.

Even Hatch, who showed up wearing an eyepatch, the right side of her face almost unrecognizable as something that was part of a human person. Her left eye, still there, blinked. “It’s not a prank this time.”

“...This time?”

“It wasn’t a prank last time, either. Eating the Bloom just makes you hallucinate. You know, if you survive without it melting your throat.”

“...I didn’t actually want to know the answer to that…” Hanoi mumbled.

“Do you want me to display this on your wall?” Mark asked, holding up a piece of paper. On it was written ‘NEVER EAT THE BLOOM.’ Tricia had no idea where he’d gotten it, and she didn’t think she wanted to ask.

Eustis shook his head. “Yac might think we’re rubbing it in.”

“It’s called proper safety procedures.”

“It’s called not bothering someone who hasn’t been able to get into his tunnels in years.”

Hatch took a seat by the bar. “Why’ve you been gone for so long, anyway? It’s been really boring without you.”

“I couldn’t get back in. I tried leading Flame Eater away from everyone, but he just circled back again. And the Bloom was covering everywhere, so I had to find shelter somewhere else.” And now she couldn’t go back there, either, but on a more permanent basis.

She couldn’t return to a place that no longer existed, after all.

“Don’t disappear like that again.”

“I’m going to have to leave, though. I- there’s a lot of Dragons that I have to deal with. Not just the Flame Eater.” She could make sure her people were safe, and then she could avenge Basho. And all the Dragons who’d ever wronged her would be dead.

And Hatch wouldn’t have to worry about losing her other eye.

“You’ll help these people fight them?” Eustis asked, looking over the members of Murakumo. Thankfully, the paper of concerning warnings had been put away.

“They’ve done a lot already. I think it’s the best way to do it.” As long as they kept her around, she could do whatever she needed to.

“Well, you’d better do it fast!” Hatch declared. “You owe me a giant maneater.” Because, of course, she’d kept track of that after all this time.

“I promise. I’ll be home soon.”

Now who was it making promises she probably wouldn’t be able to keep?

The Flame Eater was visible from a distance. The way his wings stretched out behind him gave the impression they were literal flames, though closer observation showed that they were made out of leathery scales, like those of an Armanos. The rest of him could almost be mistaken for rocky crags except, of course, rocks didn’t move around. On top of his head was a quartet of pitch-black curved horns. Through those horns flowed an odd red light.

As far as Imperial Dragons went, Kana thought he didn’t look all that impressive. He wasn’t as hard to get a proper view of as Eclipse, or as disturbing to see or hear as Dreadnought. But his claws were long and sharp, and so were his teeth, and that made him an enemy to be wary of.

But not an enemy that could be avoided. “Hey! Flame Eater! Over here!”

The Dragon’s head rose, and he blinked at them. “This is interesting… I’m being challenged by mere humans?” He flexed his muscles, and a ripple of flame rolled across his body. “Do you really think you can defeat me?”

“We’ve beaten three like you already.”

His eyes somehow narrowed, despite how small they were already. “...Murakumo.”

Had their names, somehow, been passed along by the Dragons despite killing most of them? Were the living Imperial Dragons aware of the deaths of the others, including the ones who defeated them? “You know about us?”

He bared his fangs. “Jomaron told me.”

And then he attacked, before any of them could ask what, or who, Jomaron could possibly be. Kana narrowly avoided stabbing claws, slashed once, twice, and stumbled backwards.

“...My arrows aren’t doing anything.” Tricia fired another, and when it came into contact with the Dragon’s scales, flame washed over them and burned it away.

“Maybe if you actually had something on the tips?” This was why reinforced arrowheads existed, wasn’t it?

Tricia turned yet another arrow over in her hand. “I don’t think I can do anything about that right now.”

She probably couldn’t. Not in this desert filled with fire and toxic flowers and molten sand.

Not for the first time, Kana was glad for their boots. They didn’t want to think about what this fight would look like in sandals. “Me and Hanoi can do something pretty strong together. I bet it’ll work really well on this one. I’ll go see if he wants to do it right now.”

After all, if this was a creature of fire, then there was an obvious solution. Ice. The more the better.

There was, probably, gold behind Tricia’s violet eyes at some point. No one lacking that kind of power could slay as many Wolf Dragons and Igorias as had crossed their paths earlier. But it wasn’t there now. “Do that, then. He needs to go.”

An Imperial Dragon was something not meant to be defeated. Tricia had known that long before she knew the name to put to them, since a claw cloaked in flames had torn out her friend’s eye. It wasn’t something people were meant to surpass.

Something she was sure she’d never be able to do anything against.

And maybe that was just because she was limited to the power of a bow made in a place without trees, and arrows that she’d constructed herself.

But as large chunks of ice landed on the Flame Eater, she couldn’t help but wonder what it was she was doing here. Sometimes, she could get an arrow into his wing, and he wouldn’t immediately burn it away, but compared to that, what could she do?

Still, unwilling to stand by, she fired another arrow. She wasn’t sure what it did that Kana’s iced-over sword couldn’t, but it made her feel better. Like she’d actually contributed something to doing the impossible.

And it was the impossible they were doing. The Flame Eater lashed out, and Mark healed the wounds that were left. Bailey lashed out with a whip, and the Dragon recoiled.

And then, another wave of ice. The Imperial Dragon spread his wings and flapped, and everyone was knocked to the ground. Tricia slid partway down the dune, crushing a large amount of Bloom under herself. She wasn’t looking forward to what her skin would look like after this.

But even with the pain, she did not take her eyes away from the Dragon. His wings were still spread, but his body was trembling.

Just a few good hits, and he was sure to fall.

But he wasn’t going to fall yet. He looked over them with just one eye- apparently, her arrows had done something to him after all. “Perhaps… this harvest… has dragged out… a bit too long.”

He flapped his wings, and lifted off the ground, and flew away.

“G-get back here!” Tricia cried, but the Imperial Dragon didn’t turn around.

“Coward!” Kana joined in, waving their sword more wildly than was safe. “Come back and fight me!”

But the Dragon did not return.

The one good thing about that was that the Bloom left along with him. One moment, Tricia was surrounded by the flowers, and the next, nothing but the same sands she grew up on.

The same sands she would have to leave again, to hunt down the thing that had been threatening them.

At least she knew she could count on her allies to help kill him.

Chapter Text

“I see… so the Flame Eater escaped.” The Lucier king didn’t sound as displeased as Bailey had feared. “You must be truly fearsome warriors, to send an Imperial Dragon running in fear.”

“We don’t know where it went, though,” Mark pointed out. “It could cause a lot of damage while we search for it.”

“More than the Dragons as a whole have done these past three years?” And there wasn’t really anything they could say to that.

Hanoi adjusted his glasses. “So does that mean you’ll accept Lady Emille’s offer?”

He nodded. “We will soon gather in Pleroma with the rest of the world’s nations to discuss what it is we’ll do next, as suggested.”

“All of them?” Hanoi asked. “The last time all the nations gathered was…”

Bailey nodded. “I will represent Marlleaire. Women go there to hide, but a land can’t exist on hiding alone. It must speak, and I have qualif- qualit- quala-” Okay, maybe that word was a bit too long for right after fighting an Imperial Dragon. “I’m allowed to do so.”

The reason for that, of course, being that one day she would be queen. And that she was willing to travel outside Marlleaire. Most of the women who lived there weren’t, at least not who would later return.

Leaving the island wasn’t exactly a death sentence for social status, or she would have never done it. But it was regarded as very strange, for a Marero to be willing to enter the presence of men. It made attending diplomatic meetings difficult.

“So we’ll have the Lucier, Marlleaire, and Pleroma.” Kana counted them off on their fingers. “And Menas will probably show up if we ask him nicely. Aizhen and Miross…”

Bailey didn’t like Aizhen. The standard of living was poor, and the king was insufferable. The first most likely because of the second.

And Miross was a strange place. The people of Kazan had lived there for three years, but few had made friends they wanted to keep in touch with, and none had stories they were willing to tell. The second made sense under the circumstance. The first was odd.

But whatever she thought of those places, they deserved a seat to speak about the world’s future. Just as much as the people of Marlleaire.

“I’m sure the Chief Scholar has already sent them a message,” Hanoi assured her. “And then, if they wish, they can send representatives of their own. For now, we should return and tell her our mission was a success.”

“We can head back through Portal Loco.” Kana looked intensely relieved to be leaving this place, though there hadn’t been much chance to look around. “I know the way, it’s to the east of here. We could even stop in Kazan for a bit, and have an actual kitchen.”

“That is not the only thing my house is for,” Mark reminded them. “But it’s always nice to sleep in my own bed.”

So. Back to Kazan. A hot meal. Sleep. And then whatever happened when a bunch of world leaders got in a room together.

This was what Bailey had been planning for, ever since Queen Setis announced the auditions to become heir. The chance to have these kinds of opportunities. She hadn’t expected it to come so soon, but she could work with that. It could be a way to prove herself, even more than recovering the Cages.

But that was for later. For now, food and sleep.

Mark’s house in Kazan was the sort of place that was too large for a single person. He said he’d lived alone before joining Murakumo, and Tricia believed him.

But when she compared it to the rocky halls of her childhood, surrounded by people, the imagination of what it was like before felt incredibly lonely. Even in Basho, she’d lived with another person. “Why did you have…?”

“It was my grandmother’s house.” The two of them were washing dishes together, since Bailey had to speak the next day, Hanoi was exhausted, and Kana couldn’t be trusted not to break a plate. “I was the only grandchild, so naturally I inherited it.”

“And you just moved in by yourself?”

“I have a cat.” He pointed to a gray tabby curled up on a chair with a toy mouse. “And I never spent that much time here, anyway. I worked at the inn next door, and dealing with those people was enough to tire out anyone. So I’d fall asleep a bit after I got home.”

It didn’t sound like the kind of life that could produce a seasoned Hunter. Even if this was a town known for them.

But Tricia wasn’t sure what that kind of life would have looked like in the first place. Maybe it was this. Maybe most good Hunters came from a decently-sized inheritance and a job at the local inn. “So why join Murakumo?”

“I thought it was time for a change.” He dropped the forks into the sink, and they made a loud splash. “And if I didn’t, my knowledge of poison would have gone to waste. There wasn’t a lot of opportunity to use it around Kazan, or any town.”

And, apparently, being able to use his knowledge of toxins was important to him. Just like Tricia’s archery skills were important to her. The abilities that she’d once used simply to bring maneater corpses home for dinner, she could now knock Dragons out of the sky with.

Except, of course, for the Dragon she wanted to defeat the most.

“Do you think you could poison the Flame Eater?”

He took a moment to think about it, and to get the forks back out of the water. “It’s theoretically possible. Even likely, if Bailey uses the same power she did in our fight against Dreadnought. And I don’t see why she wouldn’t- we won’t want him to escape again.” Not that it mattered, at the moment, when they had no idea where he was, or when he would show up again.

Uncertainty was something Tricia understood, at least. For the past three years, there’d been nothing she was sure about at all.

There still wasn’t much. Just that the Dragons needed to die. Just that they could be killed.

Just that they weren’t guaranteed to revive the moment her back was turned, so there was a reason to keep trying. That she could have been doing that right now, if not for the need for food and sleep.

And at least some of the world’s nations would support her in that. She’d find out which ones once the meeting happened. She couldn’t wait.

On the day of the long-planned summit, the skies were clear. Invisible was up there, of course, just as she always was. But, no matter how hard he tried, Mark couldn’t see her from the balcony.

She was probably off terrorizing another part of Eden. One that hadn’t gathered together all of the area’s Hunters, as well as several other people.

The meeting room for the summit was on the second floor. It was, apparently, the only meeting room in all of Pleroma, specifically made that way so Emille would have to go downstairs every now and again. Mark didn’t know the Chief Scholar well enough to decide if he believed it or not.

But the delegations were gathering. From Nevanplace, there were the three members of the royal family. From Pleroma, there were Emille, Faro, and Nowari. From Kazan, Menas and the members of Murakumo who didn’t have loyalty to anywhere else, because that was technically where they operated out of.

Not everywhere was quite so well-represented, however. From Marlleaire, there was just Bailey. From Miross, only one of Queen Emerald’s advisors. And, from Aizhen, Duke Rikken.

“Did the king not want to come himself?” With everything that had been narrated to him, he couldn’t say he found it at all surprising.

Rikken shook his head. “It took a great deal of convincing for him to agree to even send me. After all, Aizhen City is currently clear of Dragons.”

And, apparently, King Sougen only cared about Aizhen City. And even then, only part of it.

But Mark knew just enough geography to understand that there were parts of the empire that Murakumo had yet to travel to. Parts reachable only by sea. “And the rest of Aizhen?”

“Mainland Aizhen has reported no further difficulties. Particularly since the reclamation of Zenma Thicket.” Ricken gave a heavy sigh. “The king is, of course, fond of his Zenma bamboo.”

Most people were. Along with Yoba cactus, it was considered one of the three culinary wonders of the world, and one of the two that was still legal to acquire. Black llama meat was the third, and they’d been hunted nearly to extinction. A curry of all three was unlikely to exist again within Mark’s lifetime. “If he liked it that much, you’d think he would have sent people to clear Gouga Thicket so it could be harvested.”

“King Sougen is… unlikely to send most of his warriors after the Dragons,” Rikken admitted. “Only the most renowned. That is what he has told me.”

Was that before or after the king sent him to kill an Imperial Dragon with only one other person for backup? Was Duke Rikken considered a powerful Aizo warrior? Or was he sent for another reason?

Could he have been sent for the opposite purpose entirely?

Mark decided, for the sake of his peace of mind, not to ask about that. “I’m glad to hear things are going better for you.” They’d more or less won peace for the eastern continent, and were now working on the west. It was more good than he’d ever expected to be able to do for the world.

“There are still things to be discussed, of course. But that can happen during the meeting.” As if on cue, the meeting room doors opened, and people began trailing in.

It was time to see if they could all work together.

The hazard of meeting on a floor under a large number of fountains was that, sometimes, the ceiling leaked. Kana probably should have been paying more attention to what everyone was saying to each other, but their attention was taken up by a small puddle on the corner of the largest table in Pleroma. Occasionally, a new drop would fall, and send water tumbling over the edge.

Still, nothing had landed on their ears as of yet. That could only be a good sign.

At the moment, it seemed that the subject was on Imperial Dragons. “The Imperial Dragon Warcry nested in Kazan for three years,” Menas said. “Once he was no longer there, though, it was simple to rebuild. The hardest part was redrawing the maps of the local area.”

“I’m believe it was the presence of the Dragons that caused the surrounding forest to change so much,” Hanoi interjected. “There’s a certain feel to them, if you know what to look for. I think the failure rate of exporters has increased for similar reasons?”

No one was able to give a satisfactory answer, because no one there actually used exporters. They were mining safety equipment, not anything that saw casual use.

Queen Emerald’s advisor, Grif, didn’t seem to notice the occasional water droplets falling down onto his hat. “I suppose even the transition of power wasn’t such an issue, then?”

“We’d prepared for the eventuality. And there were three years to make plans for something more official. I still haven’t gotten around to moving my office.” Did he not realize he could hire someone to do the paperwork for him, now?

…Well, they were sure he’d figure it out eventually, if that was something he wanted to do.

“There wasn’t an attack on Aizhen City directly,” Duke Rikken stated, continuing the discussion in the way it was presumably supposed to be going. “But when Eclipse nested nearby, she blocked off most of the water supply. By the time she was defeated, people had already begun to die of thirst.”

“I’m surprised your king is willing to admit to that,” Nowari said.

“...What King Sougen doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” Of course not. Not when he ignored the things that he did know until it became personally inconvenient to him.

“...Either way. Has the water returned?”

“If it had not, I would be far too busy to make time for this.” Because, unlike King Sougen, he actually cared what happened to the people.

Or maybe it was just that the High District would have been running out of water by now. That might have gotten even the king as he was to take action. Only partially because, by then, his jilted subjects might have decided to sacrifice him to the spring to try and bring back the water.

Honestly, that sounded like a much more interesting outcome than what had actually happened.

“I suppose you would,” Grif agreed. “Supply shortages do not make for a peaceful people.”

“A peaceful people… I thought that was your kingdom’s priority.”

“It is. Queen Emerald has wondered if peace with the Dragons might be possible.”

“Of course it isn’t!” Emille declared. “Show me a Dragon, and I’ll show you a mindless monster.”

“The Imperial Dragons can talk,” Mark pointed out. “They don’t seem to be interested in peace, though.”

Grif shrugged stiffly. “It doesn’t much matter. There aren’t any Dragons remaining near Miross to attempt communication with. We should be fine as long as no new Dragons appear.”

“Marlleaire is also fine,” Bailey said. “The barrier was recently refreshed, and it will hold against most attacks.”

“Can you be certain?” Menas asked.

“I refreshed it myself. It should keep any Dragons from getting in- after all, I used a similar Song to prevent the Imperial Dragon Dreadnought from getting out.”

“When did you have time to fight the Imperial Dragon Dreadnought?” Emille sounded distinctly unimpressed. That didn’t have to mean anything, though. Kana was under the impression that this was her usual state.

“The barrier needed to be refreshed. I was the only one who could do it and defend myself against Dragons. Unless you’d rather that didn’t happen?”

“...I suppose I can forgive a delay if it means the death of an Imperial Dragon. With those three defeated, it means there are only four left to fight.”

And that, to Kana, meant the conversation was finally more interesting than watching the leaks in the ceiling. “Four of them? Are you sure?”

“Dragons exist in sets of seven,” The Chief Scholar explained. “The foot soldiers can come in any number, but true power comes in sevens.”

Kana hadn’t seen anything that really went against that. It… was a bit strange that Emille knew this, though. “That’s something you keep track of?”

“The more we know about the enemy, the easier it is to destroy them.” Well, they couldn’t argue with that. The most important part of fighting things was knowing where to stab them. “And then we can eradicate them to the point the knowledge is no longer necessary.”

They didn’t think that was how it worked.

But they knew better than to argue with the Chief Scholar of Pleroma in her own towers.

“There’s probably something in the Basho area,” Jake said. “I mean, a village doesn’t just get overtaken overnight.”

“...They said there were a lot of smaller Dragons,” Sierra reminded him.

“Yeah, but I can send them to their graves, too. It’s like they’re racing to see who runs into my sword first!”

“The Flame Eater also nested in the kingdom for a while,” The Lucier king said, paying no heed to his excitable children. “But it recently left, and we’re not sure where it went.”

“...It might have gone to an island off Aizhen’s east coast,” Rikken suggested. “We saw something heading in that direction on our way to Portal Paco, and there is an active volcano in that direction.”

A volcano… that did sound like someplace a fiery creature would feel at home.

“It could have been Invisible,” Nowari pointed out. “She’s held dominion over the skies for long enough.”

“She… could have let another Dragon through, couldn’t she?” Faro asked. “They don’t… turn on each other.”

“Speaking of Invisible,” Emille said before anyone could answer, “How are the preparations going?”

“We’re running all the calculations at the Starry Site. Our plan should work so long as we can acquire a few needed components. I… don’t suppose Murakumo would be willing to help gather them?” She looked at Kana with wide eyes.

“I don’t see why not.” They’d get a Dragon fight, possibly a cool one, Invisible would be out of the air, and they were in the area to begin with. “We’re here already, so we might as well.” And they did sort of want payback for their first trip to Pleroma. Crashing out of the sky wasn’t fun.

Murakumo’s course of action decided, the subject turned to each nation’s individual efforts, which some were willing to contribute more to than others. And Kana’s attention fell back to the water falling from the ceiling and dripping onto Grif’s hat.

It would probably be rude to tell him about it in the middle of the meeting.

If anyone asked, they’d pretend they hadn’t noticed.

Considering that it had been her first time acting in official capacity, Bailey thought she’d handled the whole thing pretty well. She’d said everything that she meant to without running into any language barriers. She’d made it clear that contributions from Marlleaire were up to the individual people, most of whom had no love for anyone outside of their community. And she hadn’t embarrassed herself in front of the other representatives.

It wouldn’t have been the end of the world if she did. She knew these people already. But when she returned home, she would claim this as a major accomplishment.

“You represented Marlleaire.” Grif of Miross’ hat was completely soaked through- apparently, he’d been seated under the leakiest part of the ceiling- and now he was hanging it up to dry on one of Pleroma’s numerous balconies. “I didn’t expect that of you.”

“No one else was going to do it. And I did sign up for this.” Literally. It involved audition sheets.

But she wasn’t really in the mood to discuss how the succession was decided at the moment, so she left that part out for now.

He nodded, which felt weird without his hat. This whole thing felt weird without his hat. Every time she’d seen him before, it was while he was wearing a hat.

And maybe that was why he wasn’t looking directly at her. Maybe he felt weird about it, too. “There’s something I must ask you. In that capacity.”

“I’m not sure what I can do for you.”

“I serve as knight and advisor to Queen Emerald. The advisor senior to me is Volg. Or… he was the senior advisor. He was dismissed from his post after an incident shortly after the people of Kazan returned to their homes.”

Bailey still wasn’t sure what any of this had to do with her. “An… incident?”

“Miross is a town of no conflict,” Grif recited, words that had appeared in books and on maps many times. She’d always assumed them to be exaggerations. “It is not this way by nature, but because conflicting with others, even over simple things like toys, is considered a crime punishable by jail time. But it is not written anywhere official. Rather, it is treated that way because Volg decided it would be so.”

“The queen didn’t sign off on it?” She… would definitely have thought less of her if she had.

“Until it all came out, she didn’t even realize her own palace had dungeons. This, Volg said he arranged so she wouldn’t have to understand the cruelties of the world.”

“...He sounds like he was a terrible advisor.” She wasn’t sure it would be possible to be worse outside of maybe attempted assassination. “And he may have made her into a worse ruler than she would be otherwise.”

He blinked at her, like he’d never considered the possibility. “What do you mean?”

“You said she didn’t know about the dungeons. Does she understand what the penalty is for committing any sort of crime?”

“I… never asked.” He inspected his hat, which was still not yet dry. “Is that important?”

All she could do was nod, because she’d fully expected, when she woke up this morning, the only highly dysfunctional government she’d have to deal with would be Aizhen’s. Apparently, though, the skeletons had decided today was a good day to dig themselves out of Miross’ collective closet. “Protecting her too much… might be the worst thing he could have done.”

“Why is that?” And the answer came to her immediately.

“Because a ruler who does not know the conditions her subjects live under is one who is not fit to rule.”

“Queen Emerald is a wonderful ruler!” Grif insisted. “She just-”

“Does she know that disagreements are a natural part of life?”

“I… don’t think so.”

“Does she know the conditions of the dungeons she’s just discovered exist?”

“She insisted on paying a visit immediately. So yes.” So at least there was that much.

“Has anyone in Miross been able to work through their arguments in a natural way, rather than forcing something they were both unhappy with out of fear?”

“She had nothing to do with that.”

“No. She didn’t.” Because she couldn’t do anything about something she didn’t know about. “You’re going to need to teach her these things. And help the rest of Miross remember how to resolve their differences normally. If they can’t do that, they will revolt. If she doesn’t learn, she won’t know how to handle people with different opinions from hers. And it will end badly.”

At the end of the contest that crowned her heir, at least three separate girls had broken down in tears, because their mothers had given them everything they wanted, and they wanted to be heir. This was… possibly the same principle?

Hereditary governments were weird.

Grif retrieved his hat, turned it over, and hung it up again. “You have… very strong opinions about this.”

“You don’t become Raalai melai by luck. It’s something you have to work for. You don’t do that without a reason.” Not and succeed, anyway. There was certainly no shortage of failed attempts.

“And what reason would that be?” Did he really want to know? About what it was to grow up on that island? About what she’d heard her friends’ mothers say, when she listened through the cracks on the door?

About how her mother had bragged to her, one day, about what she would have done to her had she been born male? How that had completely destroyed their relationship, because every time she looked at her she thought about that conversation?

No. She didn’t think he needed to know about that at all. “That’s a secret. Don’t worry about it. Fix your nation first.”

To Grif’s credit, he left shortly after. She liked to think it was so he could do just that.

Duke Rikken had arrived at the summit early, and he was also one of the last to leave. He was one of the few who hadn’t effectively been sitting in a puddle, but if Kana had to go back to a mess like Aizhen City, they’d be stalling, too.

“Do you think you’ll come by the city before you challenge the Flame Eater?” He asked them.

They shrugged. They hadn’t thought about it. “That feels like something to think about when we actually want to fight him.”

“I suppose it is.”

“Is there something you wanted us to be there for?” If there was a festival or something, they could make time for that. King Sougen didn’t seem like the type to cancel festivals just because there was a war going on.

Rikken paled. He was a pale person as it was, so it was hard to notice. “The king was opposed to this alliance.”

“Then why did you come here?” He didn’t seem like that type, unless- “Are you upset that he tried to get you killed?” Because, in hindsight, that whole thing felt like those people had been left to die.

“He didn’t try to- never mind. He let me come here because I told him I thought it was necessary.” And that was the most sensible decision they knew of the king making. “I think it’s possible to get through to him. To make him see what’s best for Aizhen as a nation.”

And if he wanted to try that, more power to him. “I guess we can stop by and check if you’ve gotten anywhere.” They weren’t feeling hopeful.

They knew better than to tell him that part.

“If I’m right about this, Aizhen can recover without any major upheavals.”

“What if you’re wrong?” Kana thought people could stand to be asked that more often. It kept them from placing all their hopes on one thing. Or one person. “What will you do then?”

“...I don’t know,” Rikken admitted. “In the absolute worst case, I have more claim to the throne than most nobles. But I would rather not go that route. Not just because of my honor, but because I do not know if I would be a fit king.”

He would probably be more fit to rule than Sougen. But this wasn’t saying much. A soggy corlia roll would be more fit to rule than Sougen as he was now.

But if he didn’t want the job, then there was no point in giving it to him. Ruling a country sounded like it’d be a lot of work.

“Do… people want you to be king?” If he didn’t want it, it’d be fine if no one else wanted him to have it, either, right?

“I know at least one person who does. I’m not sure how to tell him I want a different solution.”

“Why not just say it?” They couldn’t have been the first person to think of that, right? “Not wanting to do treason is kinda default, right?” They’d never seen anything to suggest otherwise, and they’d been all over the world!

“You’ll probably understand when you meet him for yourself. Shion can be…”

…Wait. “Shion? Like, from Simon Village?” Maybe they should have kept track of him after getting him to the city. “I guess we will have to stop by. Just to see how this works.”

He didn’t reply.

By the time they went to gather the others for their journey to the Starry Site with Faro, Rikken still hadn’t left that spot.

Chapter Text

The Starry Site was a research outpost on one of Pleroma’s southern islands. In times of peace, its powerful observational equipment was used to view the stars. Hanoi had been brought there once, as a child, and the thought of using magic to get a better look at it had started him down a long path to his current course of study.

These days, though, there wasn’t much looking beyond Eden. The equipment had instead been repurposed to track the movements of Invisible. At the moment, she was bouncing harmlessly off of Marlleaire’s barrier.

“We are building a device that should make fighting her possible,” Faro explained. Presumably, that was the purpose of the blueprints on the table. “But we are missing some key components.”

“Do you know where we can find them?” He… wasn’t actually sure that Murakumo was built for the carrying of heavy objects, but somebody had to.

“It should be possible to find the components in… Northern Pesta.”

“Northern Pesta?” Mark repeated. “The place no one’s seen for hundreds of years?”

Faro opened a drawer on the table. Inside was a small, thin metal tablet. “This should open a door in the Rorakka Caverns. It- it’ll lead north.”

Since when had they had a key to the lands north of Rorakka? But then, with the airships, it made sense that it would have been forgotten about.

“I think I know what door it is.” Mark took the tablet. “People have been wondering about it for as long as I can remember. Kana almost walked right into it when we went to retake Kazan, remember?”

“I wouldn’t have run into it!” They insisted, their ears pressed flat. “I knew there was a wall there. I just wanted to see if there was anything else.”

Except it couldn’t be found. The way there had been nowhere near the republic’s territory. “How long has this been here?” Hanoi asked.

“We found it in the warehouses last week. It was next to the Portal Key.”

“...How long has it been since the last time anyone cleaned those?” He already knew the answer. Too long.

“We did find the Portal Key.”

“It shouldn’t have been lost to begin with.” And that was as much as he could say. He needed to show some manners, after all. It wasn’t like Faro knew what was stored away in those warehouses more than the rest of them did, unless Emille had told her something.

And that would be coming a bit too close to accusing the Chief Scholar of being a hoarder. That didn’t feel like a good idea if he wanted to have his research published there.

“Northern Pesta…” Tricia leaned over the papers. “I haven’t heard of it.”

“It’s something of a local legend in Kazan,” Mark explained. “It’s meant to be the ruins of an ancient civilization. Of course, no one’s been able to find it. So we all thought it was just a story. I can’t believe it’s real.”

“North of Rorakka, it’s very cold,” Faro said, which probably wasn’t helping. “You should dress warm.” That wouldn’t be hard. They’d been to Nevanplace recently. “Our chances of success are uncertain. We should… we must all do our best.”

And that, apparently, meant uncovering Northern Pesta.

Hanoi wondered if the key would ever have been uncovered if Invisible hadn’t appeared and made it necessary to travel ways other than by air. Maybe it would have. More likely, it would have gathered dust for the rest of time.

And no one would have known or cared about it.

But that world didn’t matter. With the Dragons around, this was the only one that could have existed.

They stopped back in Kazan, of course.

Their task wasn’t entirely urgent. Invisible had ruled the skies for years already, having her around a few days more wouldn’t make much difference. Emille might have disagreed, but she had no say in this.

The one who did have a say was Kana. And they wanted to stop for corlia rolls.

“I’m sure I could make these myself,” Hanoi said. “The hardest part would be getting the ingredients. You can’t exactly import a lot of things anymore.”

“I’d like to try it.” They weren’t sure he could make anything quite this good, but Lucy was a seasoned chef. So it would be hard to match up to that. They still trusted him to make something they’d like to eat.

It would probably cost less than eating at a cafe, too.

“I’d like to have a few practice runs before serving it to someone else, actually. That way, I can prioritize making it something I will eat. And then I can worry about if others like it.” He sat down his fork. “It’s like with spacial spells. You practice with just yourself before involving others.”

Kana supposed that made sense. They wouldn’t want to be teleported by someone who had no practice with it. That felt like a good way to suffocate in a wall.

They did not, however, continue the conversation along those lines. That would be weird. They needed something to change the subject away from that.

And the perfect opportunity arose, in the form of Erin carrying a plate of curry and fries. “Oh. I didn’t know you were in town.”

“Hey, Erin!” It was nice to see her outside the Guild Office- aside from Menas, she might have had the most paperwork to deal with of anyone in Kazan. “We’re heading out somewhere later, but this was on the way.” And they would never turn down a good corlia roll.

“Really? Doesn’t Miross have its own portal?”

“It actually involves the Rorakka Caverns,” Hanoi explained. “We think we may have found a path north to the Pesta region. Someone we know found the key to it.”

No mention was had of how said key had been buried somewhere in Pleroma. It probably wasn’t important. They had it now, that was what mattered.

“Northern Pesta…” Until now, Kana had never heard of the place. Since Erin and Mark both recognized it, it must have been a story specific to Kazan. And Pleroma. Who didn’t normally have to worry about the mountains, because they had airships.

“Is it somewhere important?”

“No one knows. It’s been simply a story for as long as anyone can remember. But if half of them are true, then those people made some very interesting constructions. And dangerous ones.” Erin dipped a fry into her curry. “If Kingsblade weren’t busy keeping things peaceful around here, I’d worry about them running off there.”

“How are Kingsblade doing?” They hadn’t seen any of them since the reconstruction was completed. Yuuri was nice, Genbu was quiet, and Nestor could occasionally speak civilly with Bailey.

Erin sighed. “I’m worried about them. Especially Nestor. A bit after you left for Aizhen, they went and cleared all the Hammerheads out of the Nameless Cave.”

By itself, that didn’t sound concerning. Someone would have had to do that eventually. It might as well have been them. “So… they fought a bunch of Dragons?”

“It just felt really sudden. I guess they were waiting three years for their chance to fight. Sort of like how Menas hasn’t officially taken his position yet. But we need them here in town. I don’t think the Dragons will try coming back, but someone has to stomp out the Bloom whenever it pops up again.”

And that might as well have been the people who could afford good boots. “So… we shouldn’t tell them we’re going to Northern Pesta. Got it.”

If they didn’t know the door was there, they couldn’t go through it. And then nothing bad would happen. Maybe they could go exploring once things were better.

And things would get better. That was the point of going there.

The door blocking off the other side of the Rorakka mountain range was easy to overlook. It was behind a side passage that had clearly seen its fair share of landslides, and getting in there required clambering over a few rocks. The passage itself was unlit, so seeing that there was a door and not just a wall required excellent vision, or maybe walking directly into it.

Finding it the second time was easier. It was a bit past the cave that the Triceratop had lived in, an area that had not been overrun by Gryphonus. It was the most visibly run-down area in that section of the caverns.

Mark slipped the key into a slot on the door. Finding that slot was the hardest part of this. “I wonder why it was sealed off.”

“It could have been an accident,” Hanoi said. “You heard Faro. The key was buried in a warehouse.”

“But if this is the only key, why was it in Pleroma?” The Pesta civilization had never reached across the ocean. At least, not that anyone knew of. “And why does the door only have one key? It would have made trading with other civilizations difficult.” Aizhen hadn’t existed back then, but maybe the Lucier had? He’d never studied history that closely, but he was pretty sure Nevanplace was older than anywhere on the eastern continent still in use.

Before anyone could submit a theory, the cavern rumbled, and the door slid open. It did not close again. Beyond it, the stone floor was well lit, and a cold breeze blew into the passage, carrying tiny snowflakes.

“Maybe there will be an answer here,” Bailey suggested. “Where better to look?”

And so they stepped into a land of ice and snow. Faro had marked on a map the projected location of the ruins, but it was still a bit of a walk. “Probably the actual ruins.”

“Will we know what it is when we find it?” Tricia asked.

Kana shrugged, walking directly through a Bloom-covered snowdrift. “I mean, there’s this thing by Melluride. No one knows what it does, or how old it is. It’s just… there.”

“Really? You don’t know anything?”

“Well, we think it might partly be made of orichalcum. But that doesn’t really narrow it down.”

“Faro said we should be able to find the ingredients there.” Bailey’s foot went through a snowdrift, but she managed to avoid overbalancing. “But did she describe them?”
“She drew a picture,” Hanoi offered, holding up a light blue notebook with a pink flower pattern. “But I think anything that’s about the right size could be reworked for it. She said it’s the material she’s really after.”

And this explained nothing. Pleroman technology was so far out of Mark’s area of expertise, even medical advice was hard to understand. He’d just have to trust that Hanoi knew what he was doing.

And why wouldn’t he? He knew multiple kinds of magic, as well as the names of the Dragons. Because he was from Pleroma, and they knew all sorts of things no one else did.

…Where did that knowledge come from, anyway?

Outside of the ruins they’d been sent to, two Dragons stood guard. They looked like Wolf Dragons, but they were more orange. Hanoi mentally classified them as Coyote Dragons. Out of all the canids he could think of, that made the most sense.

They must have been the only two Dragons in the area, because when Kana stabbed the second one through the heart, the Bloom disappeared from the ruins entirely.

“That’s all?” Kana asked, as they wiped their sword off with some snow. “There’s usually more of them than that.”

“They might not have been able to get inside.” There was a door, but it was closed. “I’m not even sure the Bloom could get in there.”

It had gotten into the buildings in Kazan, because they’d left their doors open while evacuating. It might have gotten into the buildings in Basho, but he hadn’t cared to check at the time. Nowhere else did the Bloom successfully infiltrate the city limits.

“So why were they here?”

“Is there a reason for Dragons to be anywhere?” Tricia asked. “I think they just showed up one day to start causing problems.”

That wasn’t inaccurate. Hanoi didn’t think they’d ever know the full reasoning behind the invasion. Just that the Dragons appeared one day, and never left.

And, apparently, they couldn’t get into old ruins. “There might also be defenses of some sort inside. That space has been sealed off for a very long time.”

“The Pesta supposedly had advanced technology,” Mark agreed. “Their settlements were supposed to be impossible to breach. Until whatever breached them and made the civilization fall, of course. We don’t know what it was, but it must have been bad.” And yet, the entrance to the ruin was left untouched.

Even the door opened without so much as a creak.

The inside was almost as cold as the outside, though it was free from Bloom, and out of the wind. For a moment, it was so dark that nothing could be made out but silhouettes.

And then Mark reached the center of the room. Suddenly, the area was illuminated by harsh white lights built into the edges of the ceiling.

“Is this one of their defenses?” Tricia’s bow was drawn, but nothing emerged from the shadows.

It was just the five of them, and a room filled with artificial light.

“It must be one of their mechanisms. It’s more convenient than torches, even if some places do have everlasting ones.” It was a very strong light. He couldn’t make out any real shadows, except for directly underneath their feet. “I’m surprised they’re still in working condition.”

It was like nothing had moved since there were still people living there. Like, when the last Pesta died, everything had been frozen in time.

It felt almost more wrong than the changed pathways around Kazan.

“There won’t be any monsters here, then.” Tricia lowered her bow. “They would have ruined it by now.” She wasn’t wrong. The birds alone would have destroyed the lighting purely by accident.

They also wouldn’t have been able to acquire food. Which was a more obvious limitation on where monsters could be hiding.

Kana’s ears twitched. “Are you sure? This whole place makes weird noises.”

Mark sighed. “Don’t touch anything, then.”

“I… think we might have to.” Bailey inspected a device with green lights on the side that was attached to the wall. “If there are defenses, we need to get past them. And find out what they are in the first place. We may need to break things.”

This was one of those sentences Hanoi had never expected to hear from royalty. Admittedly, the list was pretty long. For a good portion of his life, he hadn’t believed that he’d ever meet royalty. But this felt like a weird thing to hear from someone who was technically a princess. Even if it was Bailey.

“Only one of us should inspect them at a time,” Mark decided. “The rest of us should keep a safe distance. I won’t be doing it, because someone should be able to heal you if things go wrong.”

“I know some healing,” Bailey pointed out. “Enough for an emergencies, at least.”

“And I taught you those things. So I should be the-”

Kana pressed a lever, and a nearby door swung open. “...I figured it out.”
“How did you do that?” Tricia asked.

They shrugged. “It was the biggest thing in the room that wasn’t making weird noises. It was the safest thing to do.” And then they turned and walked into the corridor they opened.

For a moment, it was dark, but when they crossed the threshold, new lights turned on.

Hanoi was already starting to see where this was going. He didn’t think he liked it.

This didn’t feel like a ruin.

Admittedly, Tricia didn’t know a lot of ruins to compare this one to. The only place she’d been to that was this badly off was Basho, and she hadn’t stuck around for long after confirming the lack of survivors.

But Northern Pesta felt so different, they couldn’t be the same kind of place.

Basho was broken, overrun by Dragons and the undead, with the Bloom choking out the sunlight. Northern Pesta was empty, unnaturally lit, and completely immaculate.

“What happened to the people here?” She asked. “You’d think there would be bodies.”

“Bodies decay, eventually,” Mark pointed out. “Particularly on this timescale. And many cultures bury their dead.”

“There might be skeletons under the floor paneling,” Kana suggested.

“But someone would need to be there to bury them.” Eventually, there would have been at most a single person left. Either that person left after everyone else was gone, or their body would be rotting somewhere inside. “What happened to that person?”

That person would be her, eventually, when there was finally time to do something about Basho. She was just lucky enough to have regained her original home to return to.

“It’s a large ruin,” Bailey said. “Parts of it may have fallen on itself. If anything stays, it could be somewhere we can’t reach. Or it’s too far from where we’re going.”

So they probably wouldn’t find it, even if it was there. And the place was so empty, it might not have been.

Tricia grabbed a nearby lever, the cold metal biting into her fingers. “Maybe, when this is over, people can come look.” This was something worth knowing about, right? It felt important. It was too empty, too quiet, and opening one door would close another, but was there a point in leaving it to be forgotten?

“I’m sure people will want to compare it to the stories,” Mark said. “It comes up in the tavern all the time. I’m sure some of you know other stories like that.”

Kana shrugged. “I think Nevanplace is kind of the opposite.”

“There are collections of stories in Pleroma.” Hanoi leaned over some of the machinery, as far as he could without falling over. “Strangely enough, we had stories about the Dragons. But they never really focused on them. Just the people who fought them.”

Would Murakumo be added to that list of stories? Would it be by name, or under the guild banner? Did it matter, if they wouldn’t be around to see it?

Maybe, once this was over, Tricia would write about it. Fame made as much money as precious metals, right?

The ruin had several floors to it, each one looking mostly the same as the next. Bits of exposed machinery poked out of the stairs, but that mostly just meant not touching it. It didn’t make noise the way the machines above did, but Mark and Hanoi both said there was no point in risking it. So nobody did.

It wasn’t that way on every stairway. For how long the place had been abandoned, it was a lot less decrepit than it should have been. It was sort of like the structure northwest of Melluride, which sat unchanged no matter how much time had passed.

But this was a bit less so. With that odd structure, even the layers of snow never seemed to change. Here, lights would turn on. If everyone stood still for long enough, or left a room, they would turn off again. The machinery sometimes made noise. The structure was silent.

Both were from times before what anyone could remember.

It was impossible to tell if the floor they stood on now was the final one. Kana wanted to say that it was, because then it would be over quickly, and they could all go back to Kazan. Maybe they could eat some hot soup, made with meat cubes from the birds outside. They didn’t think they were bad at cutting them.

The others seemed a bit uncertain about the meat, but they weren’t that different from the birds around Nevanplace. A lot faster, so maybe the meat would be leaner, and maybe a bit harder to chew, but it was almost definitely safe to eat.

What sat in the room in front of them, though, was definitely not safe to eat. They liked trying new foods, but at no point in their life had Kana considered eating metal. It shone under the artificial lights as brightly as if it had been polished the day before.

For the most part, at least. From this distance, they couldn't tell if the brown parts were rust, or just another type of metal.

They weren’t even sure what metal it could possibly be. Or what it could be making up.

Was it some kind of machine, like everything else in the ruin? Or just a pile of scrap? Only one way to find out.

They took a step forward. And, for the first time, something moved in the ruins that wasn’t Murakumo.

It started with a pair of bright green lights on top of the pile. They powered on, just like the overhead lights that had been activating and deactivating all this while. The rectangular shape made Kana think of eyes, like a woodland creature that had been cornered by a predator.

After the lights turned on, the pile started to shudder. “Is there something under there?” Bailey asked.

“No!” Hanoi stepped back, a bubble of magical light forming around him. “It must be one of the defenses!”

Slowly, with a sound similar to an old door with rusty hinges, the pile stood. It probably had limbs- the structures holding it up almost certainly qualified- but it was hard to tell if that mattered. Were the body parts from living beings something that applied to moving machines?

Even if Kana had been the type to wonder about that, they wouldn’t have cared once the machine was at its full height. Partly because they had to remind themself that the thing on the torso wasn’t an actual mouth unless the Pesta had intentionally decided to create an affront against nature.

But mostly because the machine was firing laser cannons. It was very important not to get hit by the laser cannons. That would hurt.

A laser narrowly missed them and vaporised part of the stone. “What if we just led it outside?” Tricia suggested. “We could set it on all the Dragons!”

“I don’t think it can tell the difference between Dragons and people!” They wanted to stab it. They hadn’t wanted to kill anything quite this badly since they got a close look at Dreadnought.

Unfortunately, metal was not an easy thing to stab. Or slice through. And they’d probably have to carve whatever Faro wanted off of it, but doing it while it was moving would probably break it. They’d learned that lesson after ruining one too many dodo drumsticks.

Still, the thought of taking the machine up a cliff and pointing it at Invisible was pretty funny.

It probably wasn’t what Faro wanted, though.

They’d have to settle for Hanoi making the floor beneath it so slippery that it collapsed under its own weight, and then letting Mark poison it away into nothing.

They weren’t going to ask how it was possible for a machine to be poisoned. After today, it would never matter again.

When the machine fell, they all took a few moments to make sure it wouldn’t get up again. Hanoi pried the machinery open with an icicle, and began taking the whole thing apart.

“Did Faro know about this?” Bailey asked.

“I don’t see how she could have.” Except she’d known that whatever this was made of was important. She’d known that there were materials to be found in Northern Pesta. “It’s too far in to discover by accident.”

Leaving would be simple. He could twist the space around them, think about the outside and how he wanted to feel the wind stinging his eyes and fogging up his glasses. Getting inside, to a place he’d never seen before, or only seen once… that would be tricky.

“You said Emille’s been the same forever, though,” Kana said. “Maybe she knew?”

The unaging state of Emille was something no one thought closely about. There were the betting pools, of course, there always were, but that was based on ‘why,’ not ‘if.’ It just was.

“I’m not sure I can see that,” He admitted. “If only because of how old she would have to be for that. She’d be older than any civilization we have today.” Maybe not the Lucier. But once it got that far, they might as well throw out any limits entirely.

“I mean, if you’re not aging, you can live to be as old as you like,” Mark pointed out. “And that assumes she’s alive in the first place.”

Hanoi had never joined any of the betting pools. This felt less rude, but still uncomfortable. “Well, if you want to ask her about it, go ahead. You’ve poisoned a machine- I’m pretty sure you don’t have to worry too much about her retribution.”

“Well, in this case, it was less poison and more acid…”

“It had the same effect. That means it’s basically the same thing, right?” Kana’s part in the disassembly was using their sword as a lever. This might not have been good for the sword.

“As far as intimidation tactics go. And I know Lady Emille understands those.” She certainly used them enough for that. “I think the pair of advisors before Scholars Nowari and Faro were scared of her because of that.” They were the ones, after all, who encouraged the regular scholars to be wary of Emille. And that state of affairs continued into the present day.

“Maybe that’s why she’s so… something… about the Dragons,” Bailey suggested.

“Tense?”

“I’m not sure that word quite conveys it, but I suppose it’s close enough.” He couldn’t think of a better word to describe it, either. “How old are your Dragon tales?”

“I’m not sure.” He’d never had reason to think about it. He wasn’t sure there was anyone who’d know. If there was, it was no one he’d ever talked to. “But if that was the case, I’m sure she would have said something about it. If we want to save the world, we’ll need all the information we can get.” And that was the point of Pleroma. To gather and share information.

So Emille couldn’t have known that much. Surely, she wouldn’t do anything to risk the people she was responsible for. And Hanoi was one of them, so she’d warn him about danger, right?

He thought about the key that had been left forgotten in a warehouse. And suddenly, he wasn’t sure how confident he was about that.

Chapter Text

They probably looked ridiculous, carrying heavy machinery through the streets of Kazan. But no one knew how the machinery would react to space magic, so it was a worthwhile sacrifice.

According to Hanoi, who probably knew what he was doing. Mark, meanwhile, was mentally going over all the remedies he knew for muscle strain. Kana was the only person here remotely near being built for this, and they were… fifteen? Sixteen?

…Something like that.

“I think I know why this technology was lost…” He sighed, as they dropped it for a break near the statue of Remus. “It’s not exactly easy to carry around.”

“It can move itself,” Kana pointed out.

“Yes, but in that form, it tried to kill us.” If he hadn’t been able to poison it, things could have gone very badly. And he still wasn’t sure how he was able to poison it. “It may have been explicitly designed for that purpose, but the lack of any way to stop it makes it incredibly impractical.”

Bailey ran a hand along the edges, across text that none of them knew how to translate. “I think… it was not meant to be stopped. It was built to revenge.”

Hanoi sat down next to the hunk of metal. “You think they prioritized avenging themselves over not dying in the first place?”

“All we know about ancient people is that they are old. We do not know they were smart.”

Having met people in the modern day, Mark was inclined to agree. “That would explain how they made something of metal that can be poisoned.” Even accounting for the fact that things rusted, his Bloom-based concoctions shouldn’t have had that sort of effect on a nonorganic being.

Kana’s ears drooped. “I don’t think anyone could have that much of a death wish.”

“You haven’t seen some people in the desert, then,” Tricia stated. She turned around. “Do you know that person?”

Walking down the street was Nestor of Kingsblade. “He’s one of a local group of Hunters. They assisted us in defeating our first Imperial Dragon.”

“They did not take the initial attack well,” Bailey added. “Very few did. But Nestor is… committed. For good reason. He waited three years.”

Mark couldn’t remember if the leader of Kingsblade had been such a serious person before the invasion. He wanted to say he hadn’t been. The times he boasted of his adventures with Doris in the tavern under the inn… that had been real, right? He hadn’t dreamed it up during those three years? There was no sign of that in the man who approached them now.

“I see you’ve been keeping yourselves busy.” Okay, so maybe five people sitting on or around a piece of machinery wasn’t any more subtle than carrying it. “Where is that?”

“We think it’s an ancient machine made to kill Dragons,” Tricia explained. “Please don’t go looking for more. They’d be good at it, but they’d likely kill you first while you tried to get them to the Dragons.”

Nestor knocked on the side of the metal. “Where would I even find one of those? They aren’t anywhere around Kazan, and someone needs to make sure the Dragons don’t come back.”

That probably wasn’t directed at anyone in particular.

And yet… “I don’t think it would be more than a few days away, if you found the right caverns…” It all depended on the weather, and how well they could travel.

“The caverns… so you got there through Rorakka?”

Kana and Hanoi looked at each other, but didn’t say anything.

“North of Rorakka, yes.” Bailey nodded, and pointed north. “There is a door now.”

“I see. I suppose I’ll have to see for myself, one of these days…” And then he left.

Kana watched him go. “...Erin didn’t want us to tell him about that.”

“It should be fine.” Mark wasn’t worried about him. Before the Dragons, Kingsblade had been the best guild in Kazan. For that, their names would be remembered in the same pages of history as Murakumo. “Nestor is a seasoned fighter. He used to hunt with Doris.” A man who had caused massive lasting damage to an Imperial Dragon.

Besides, Northern Pesta had only had two Dragons in it. And there weren’t many signs of other machines. As long as they didn’t get lost in a maze of levers, they’d be fine.

It wasn’t his job to worry about it, anyway. His job was to worry about keeping his friends alive. And also carrying a giant piece of machinery.

Hopefully Faro would be happy with what they’d discovered.

As soon as the machinery shimmered into existence at Portal Fel, a horde of scholars descended upon it and began taking it apart. This was probably a good thing, in that they wouldn’t have to worry about transporting it to the Starry Site.

“You came all the way out here?” Hanoi wasn’t sure what Faro’s research team usually did, but surely they didn’t have time to be standing around a portal all day.

What if the people they were waiting for approached by seaship?

Faro had a notebook out, and was already writing in it. “It’s more convenient. What we are building… it is an amplifier to the powers of Portal Fel.”

Could the portals be amplified? They were easily the most sophisticated workings of space magic currently in existence. A lot of the currently-known principles of such magic had been reverse-engineered from their workings.

And they just… had blueprints that could apparently change that. “Amplified? In what way?”

“The device is going to act as a Portal Key,” Faro explained, “with a registered destination over the ocean, at roughly five times the height of Mt. Jomaron.”

Hanoi had never studied much geography, but he knew that Jomaron was probably the tallest mountain in Eden, not that anyone had gone to get an exact measurement. “And how will this defeat Invisible?” It felt like there were just a few missing steps.

“She’s very protective of her airspace. It will almost certainly draw her attention. A skyship would be too dangerous, and we’d have to clear up the wreckage later, but people we could send out and draw back at any time…” He wasn’t even going to ask how she planned on drawing them back. “Though, if we can’t keep her in one place… it may take multiple trips…”

“That may be the easy part.” Bailey handed a piece of scrap metal to one of the scholars, who ran off to fit it into the new device. “I have Song. Hanoi, you remember Dreadnought?”

He nodded. “You… kept him from flying away. I thought it was because of the towers.”

It made sense. The Ronam were made to amplify music. And the Tower of the Gods had the largest Ronam of all.

“They are why I made such a large Cage. But if we must only contain Invisible… The Song has that power. I will not be able to do much more than that, however.”

Could her voice, unamplified, be enough to restrain an Imperial Dragon? And could she do so while falling from a great height? He wasn’t sure, but at least it wasn’t anything that made his entire life choices up to this point feel obsolete.

For that reason alone, he was willing to risk it. There was only one reservation remaining. “Scholar Faro, are you sure we can return safely?” One of the things he definitely understood well enough to talk about was how gravity worked. In humans and Lucier alike, terminal velocity had that name for a reason.

“Your return trip will be powered by the energy accumulated in your fall. If my calculations are correct, it should have the same end result as transporting from a standing position.”

He was going to have to take her word for it. He didn’t have the background to be able to say otherwise. His own attempts at study on the Portal Trees had been put to the side in favor of saving the world.

What would it be like if the two of them were to trade places?

He wasn’t sure he really wanted to know the answer to that.

Bailey had been practicing the Cages.

Specifically, she practiced the Angel Cage. While she was sure there was a time when the magical suppression of the Demon Cage would be useful, she was currently traveling with a mage. Magic amplification was the obviously correct path to take.

“You can do that?” Tricia leaned against one of the trees in the grove, her bow sitting at her feet. “Just… stop something from getting away?”

“If it goes well. I’ve only done it once before.” And that was with the Ronam’s power.

She knew it wasn’t just the Ronam. At least some of it had come from herself, or else nothing would have happened. But how large of a part had it played?

Tricia nodded, and didn’t look directly at her. “So how does it work?”

Song wasn’t something easily explained. She had words for it, but none that the others would understand. Song was only taught to the Marero. Other languages had no need for it.

And the Cages were even more complicated. “Songs shape the air.” Was air the right word for it? She thought it might have been something longer, but this felt like a bad time to ask if she wanted her explanation to remain credible. “The most common ones change the listener directly. The air just carries the magic. The Cages do not work like this.”

The exact theory behind the Cages was something unknown. When they were lost- or sealed, as the case may have been- the knowledge disappeared. And there wasn’t much knowledge of Song in general. That would require doing experiments like in Pleroma. And that would mean giving knowledge of those powers to the outside world. So it wasn’t going to happen.

But it was known they didn’t work like normal Songs, because normal Songs never created anything tangible. You only knew there was one in effect because of the sound.

Nothing like those bars of white light.

“...You don’t know how they work, do you?” She wanted to protest, but it was completely true.

But there were a few things she did understand. She just had to hope it was enough to convince her.

“I know that the Imperial Dragon Dreadnought could not escape them. I know the performance will exhaust me like no other. I trust you will understand when you see it.”

“Don’t you mean when I hear it?” Tricia knelt down and picked up her bow.

“No.”

Before she could be questioned as to what she meant by that, a hum filled the air. Bailey wondered if that was the type of sound Kana heard when they went to retrieve the machine.

The pile of metal had been reassembled into something that looked completely different. There were lights on it, but it was impossible to tell what they meant. The whole thing was unlabeled.

“Is it done?” Hanoi adjusted his glasses for perhaps the fifth time that minute.

Faro nodded. “It should be. If we had time, we’d run some tests, but… that won’t happen. Anything that’s big enough to collect enough energy… is big enough Invisible would notice it.”

And if she noticed, that made everything more complicated.

“I… think I’d rather stay on the ground,” Tricia admitted. “As much as I’d like to see Bailey’s plan, I don’t think this is a place for archers. I’d exhaust myself just trying to make one arrow land.”

“Oh, good! That’ll make the energy calculations for the return easier!”

“Yes, let’s not have arrows randomly flying over the area,” Mark agreed. “Hitting the wrong thing might be worse than missing entirely.”

Was there something so dangerous to hit over the open ocean? There were stories of sea monsters, but even if they weren’t exaggerated, surely they’d been choked out by the Bloom by now. But then, the land creatures were still doing pretty okay…

Either way, as soon as her absence was accepted, Tricia sat down against the roots of her tree. That was fine. There was no point in dragging someone into the stratosphere who didn’t want to be there.

…Was stratosphere the word she was looking for earlier?

…Couldn’t be. She was sure she would have remembered that.

“Is everyone else ready to go?” Kana asked.

Hanoi and Mark nodded. Bailey took a deep breath. “Go ahead. I will… start now.”

There was no Ronam here. Nothing to give more power to her lyrics. But she’d been told there was a power deep within her, and she was going to believe that.

She closed her eyes, and no one could tell her if they started to glow. “~Traces of the voices that came here before and crumbled~”

The ground disappeared beneath her feet.

Kana couldn’t hear if Bailey was still singing. The wind was too loud, blowing through their ears in a way more painful than the buzz of a Dragonfly. They couldn’t hear anything else.

Except for one thing.

“Are you learning to fly now? You couldn’t intrude on my domain with your big ships, so you go out with nothing but your little selves?” The first thing they saw of Invisible was her skull. Her face was large and flat like a knight’s shield, and white as bone, and her eyes glowed as blue as a Wyvern’s scales.

Beyond that, the shape of her body was hard to make out under all the feathers. Mostly green, or maybe red, or maybe the red was hair, or tentacles- taking a long look was painful with all the wind rushing past their eyes. The most certain bits were the horns, red and gold in the same way as the Bloom. And bits of blue throughout, which might have been the main body, except it was impossible to really tell.

And then it got harder, as the white bars of light summoned by Bailey’s power slammed into existence around her and gave Kana one more thing to have to blink past.

“Wh-what is this?” Kana couldn’t reply, because that would require opening their mouth. They really weren’t sure how Bailey was still singing. “Never mind that! I am still the queen of the winds!”

As she said that, the winds changed. Rather than simply letting them fall in accordance with gravity, it pushed them around, until they were orbiting the cage of light like it was a very small sun.

Given that Kana’s entire plan was to poke their sword through the bars until something died, this was fairly inconvenient. It wouldn’t be a problem for Hanoi’s magic, or Mark’s poison, but they weren’t really equipped to stab or cut things while spinning around it like a particularly unlucky maple seed.

All they could do was squint at the ice coating her feathers as they were pushed past it.

Maybe Tricia would have been a better choice for this fight after all.

A bright blue eye met theirs. “...Oh! You’re one of those.” They’d never heard an Imperial Dragon sound surprised before.

They also weren’t sure what she was referring to. They opened their mouth to ask, only for the intense winds to slam it shut again.

“I didn’t think I’d see those ears again,” Invisible continued. “Especially not in that color! I was sure the last harvest had wiped you all out!”

The last harvest… They knew Dragons had been in Eden in the past. The existence of the Triceratop in the Rorakka Cavers, of the Pteranosaurus up Mt. Todowa, of the Tyrannosauruses that roamed the Tower of the Gods, all confirmed it. Otherwise, there wouldn’t have been fossils of them scattered about. And there wouldn’t have been weapons made solely to fight them.

But it had never been put in those terms before. And never directly in relation to them being a Lucier.

They had no idea what their hair color had to do with it, even if they’d never seen another person with pink hair before, but they didn’t need to. Not when a story from when they were a child was reading itself over and over inside their head.

They forced their mouth open. “The One-Winged Beast-”

Maybe the Lucier did have their stories of Dragons. Maybe they just called them something different.

Because if this was a harvest, then was there any reason this couldn’t be related to the Lucier’s ancient enemy, spoken of in only the quietest of whispers?

The winds blew stronger. They forced their eyes shut, so they wouldn’t get too dizzy. It didn’t help much. “Is that what you call him? I can’t say it doesn’t fit, after what your ancestors did to him. And they did survive to tell about it, after all. Unless the Fourth told them?”

It didn’t actually change anything, that the One-Winged Beast was a Dragon. That would have required the One-Winged Beast to be something in Kana’s life beyond a scary bedtime story that the kids liked hearing more than the adults liked telling.

They reached out a hand, and grabbed for one of the bars of Invisible’s cage. Again, they stared the Dragon directly in one of her too-bright eyes.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” They stabbed forward, driving their sword into that eye. “Don’t talk about my people- or my hair- ever again.” Why did she even care about their hair? It was just hair!

“If that’s what the pri-” A series of icicles pierced her skull, until there was nothing left. Her horns stopped glowing, the cage of light vanished, and her body fell into the sea, dragging the sword with her.

And then Kana wasn’t in the air anymore, but standing on the ground in front of Portal Fel, like nothing had happened, with no way of knowing how that sentence would have ended.

“Is it done?” Faro asked. They nodded, and didn’t say anything else, out of fear that the dizziness would cause them to throw up now that there was solid ground to do so on.

They sat down, and decided not to move until the world stopped spinning again.

Tricia had no idea what had happened while the others were in the sky.

She knew Invisible was dead. Even if Kana hadn’t confirmed it, there was a very loud splash just a few minutes later. Some of the scholars offered to go out with a ship to recover part of the body. Apparently, the body parts of Imperial Dragons were something not to be left lying around.

She knew Kana collected those kinds of things. But they hadn’t said anything about gathering part of Invisible.

They just sat in the clearing at the base of the portal. “Are you all right?”

“...I dropped my sword.” They adjusted the edge of their gloves, their ears drooping. “I liked that sword.”

Their weapon hadn’t looked like much, but Tricia would freely admit she didn’t know that much about bladed weapons. That had always been Hatch’s thing. “Is it that important?”

They shook their head. “I was just supposed to use it until I could make my own. But I never got that far. So I kept it.”

That seemed like a perfectly reasonable way to obtain a weapon. First weapons in Devo tended to be old weapons passed down from parent to child when a replacement was made for the parent. In Basho, there wasn’t much of a weapons market at all, but maybe that was just the Bloom cutting off all trade. She’d never know.

Her own bow was starting to get a bit worn out, but it wasn’t like she knew anywhere good to replace it. “If you left it in the Dragon, it might still be there when the scholars retrieve the body.” It probably depended on how it was that Invisible fell.

Retrieving a sword was probably harder than retrieving an arrow, but saying that out loud wouldn’t help anyone.

Kana slowly pushed themself to their feet. “It’s fine. I can buy a new sword. We… might have enough money to pick up something in Nevanplace.”

Nevanplace. Melluride was where the finest swords were made, but Nevanplace was where those swords were sold to all except those willing to make the trek further north to where the smiths lived. “I guess if you lost one sword, they’re not giving you another for free.” It could sometimes be that way in the desert and the caves, but it wasn’t like people could move away very easily, either. So everyone needed to do their best to keep everyone else alive.

Maybe, if it had been that way in Basho, there might have been survivors.

They shook their head, lost their balance, and dropped to the ground. “I don’t know if I was supposed to keep that one. I don’t think they missed it, though. It wasn’t a very good sword.”

They said that, but that sword had meant the deaths of four Imperial Dragons. It had one of the most impressive careers as a sword in all of Eden.

“You said you liked it.”

“That doesn’t mean it was good.” Their eyes had been almost pure gold when they returned from the battle. Now, they were back to their regular green, but they were no less piercing. “I don’t need something like what Gaion makes, but even Bernard has to be able to make better than that by now. And he’s a human.”

“Does that matter?” She knew the Melluride Workshop was staffed entirely by Lucier, but she’d always just assumed that was because the area’s population was almost entirely Lucier.

They blinked, and then quickly looked away from Tricia. “Not really. There’s a few things he won’t be able to do, but not all the Lucier can do them, either. It’s just… they talk about those things a lot.”

Whatever those things were, Tricia wondered if Kana was able to do them.

She thought she might have known the answer already.

Kana’s sword was returned, still lodged within Invisible’s skull. They figured they’d hang the skull up in the ship somewhere, along with various other parts of Imperial Dragons they’d collected.

This was a worry for later, however.

First, they had to make a report to Emille. Invisible had mostly been a problem for her people, after all.

“So one more Imperial Dragon has disappeared from this world. Only three remain.” Flame Eater was one of them, of course. Presumably, whatever had happened in Basho was connected to the second. There was no evidence to what or where the third could be, and that was mildly concerning. “Well done.”

“She said some very strange things while we were fighting her,” Hanoi said. “I didn’t understand any of it.”

“Why concern yourself with what a Dragon says?” Emille asked, gripping the edge of her throne with white knuckles. “They want nothing more than to devour all life on this planet. Nothing they say can be trusted.”

That should have made Kana feel better. It didn’t matter if they didn’t understand things, if there wasn’t any truth to Invisible’s words. And why should there have been? The other Imperial Dragons hadn’t cared much for small talk.

But maybe that was why it mattered. Even if all of her words were a lie, why had she bothered to speak them? And why was it all directed at them in particular?

The smart thing to do would have been to target Bailey, wouldn’t it? To get her to stop singing?

She’d said she knew the One-Winged Beast. But that was a tale Emille wouldn’t have been told, and they weren’t sure how relevant it would be anyway, if Invisible wasn’t a trustworthy source of information. The One-Winged Beast didn’t have to be part of this.

Kana’s hair didn’t have to mean anything special.

The Dragons didn’t have to have anything to do with the Lucier’s lost history.

None of it had to matter. “We’re going to fight Flame Eater next.” They knew where he was, he was probably still injured from their last battle, it was generally a bad idea to let anything mess with a volcano for an extended period of time.

And they could stop by Aizhen, and see if Rikken’s ideas had any merit. If that country could actually fix itself without devolving into violence.

“I suppose it would be good to finish what you’ve started,” Emille agreed. “Though, before that, there’s something else you should do.”

“What is it?” For all they knew, she could have asked them to sort through the entire storage system of Pleroma. Apparently, the warehouses weren’t cleaned out very often.

She looked them over. They could feel their ears start pressing down. “Are you aware of Melluride?”

They nodded, and said nothing about having lived there once. “That’s where all the mellurite stuff comes from.” The best metalworks. The best metalsmiths.

Some of them didn’t even need to use fire.

But that was a secret.

“Those mines are probably overflowing with Dragons by now. If you go there, the best equipment will surely be made available.” Why was she staring at them so much? Maybe it was time to hide behind Hanoi? No, then it would be obvious there was something wrong.

“I- I guess it wouldn’t hurt to visit…” See who was still alive. If there were any hard feelings after they’d run away. If maybe someone would finally be willing to explain what their expectations had been of them.

“Melluride is farther north than the main city of Nevanplace,” Tricia remarked. “And caves are colder than the outside. We should… try to dress warm.” Did she even have any warm clothes? Kana had never seen her in them. And she’d lived her whole life in the desert, apparently, so that implied a general lack of good coats.

“I think it’ll be fine as long as you don’t lick the walls.” People had tried that before. It never ended well. At least one of them had been left mute after their tongue was cut off. “Or touch the walls. Or have bare feet. We should… probably pick up some gloves on the way in.” They had gloves, but the fingertips had been wearing out since before the Bloom was a concern. It was about time to replace them. The others weren’t exactly better off.

“You seem prepared,” Emille remarked.

They didn’t answer her.

Chapter Text

Five months before the world would change forever, a cold wind blew through a snowy settlement. Moonlight reflected off of pristine snow, piled up at the side of the buildings. Smoke puffed heavily through tall chimneys.

On a night like that, no one should have been outside. Everyone should have been safely indoors, curled up under soft feather quilts or sitting next to the smithy fires.

And yet, out in the cold, a pink-haired Lucier child sat next to a human on a snow-covered pile of firewood.

“I think you’d be good at this.” The Lucier brushed some snow off the end of a log. “And if you came all the way out here… you must really want to do it.”

The human turned his hat over in his hands. “That doesn’t matter if no one will accept me as an apprentice. If I have no teacher, how will I learn?”

Their ears drooped. “They just don’t want you around because you’re human. It’s weird. If there’s something they think needs to be secret, they can just not tell you that part. You’d never notice. I still can’t figure out what they do different to make things actually work.”

The human put his hat back on. “...How long have you been learning here?”

They shrugged. “At least five years? Gaion sort of made a big deal about it, but I don’t remember how long ago that was. We don’t have a lot of ways of keeping track of time around here.”

He gave them a very long look. “...How old are you, again?”

“Well, I spent a while just carrying ore and firewood around. It was easier than sending someone who could actually use a hammer without dropping it.” They patted the log. “Maybe you could try doing that? I don’t think they’d tell you no.”

“I don’t think that’s something that normally leads to an apprenticeship.”

“Well, what else are you going to do? Give up and go home?” They peered up at him, a glint of gold in their green eyes. “After you came all the way here?”

“Kana. I can’t force them to teach me if they don’t want to.”

“I wish you could. Maybe then they’d-” A cold wind blew through the area, and a pile of snow fell off of the roof onto Kana’s head. “Ah! Where did that come from!?”

The human didn’t answer.

Melluride looked the same as ever, if Kana didn’t count the Bloom that stopped right at the edges of the fence. One of the broken fenceposts had been replaced, and the woodpiles were much taller, to the point where sitting on them felt immeasurably dangerous, but nothing else had changed.

The stone path was visible mostly by the footprints of people who had passed by earlier that day. A bucket sat nearby that was meant to be used in the well, except they had enough snow to not need to rely on groundwater. Smoke rose from the chimneys, contrasted against as bright blue a sky as a place filled with Bloom could have.

If they closed their eyes, and ignored the smell of blood, they could almost pretend they’d never left.

“So this is the Melluride Workshops.” Mark picked up some snow from a fence post, and it melted in his hand. “Even in Kazan, their craftsmanship is well known… as well as the prices.”

They probably could have been proud of that. They’d lived there since they were little, after all. But it wasn’t like they’d had much to do with any successful projects.

They stepped through the gate, the snow crunching softly under their boots. “If we want to go to the mines, we’ll have to talk with Gaion. He’s in charge here. If I remember right…” If nothing had moved aside from the firewood. If things really were still the same.

“Kana?” They were proud to say they did not turn quickly enough to fall back into the snowdrift. “What are you doing back here?”

Not even a hello, how are you, it’s nice to see you’re alive?

To be fair, they hadn’t really expected one. “Namuna! How has everything been?”

The golden-haired Lucier shrugged and narrowed her eyes. “Just, you know, the usual. Death flowers right outside the gate, soaking up all the sunlight… not having any new material because the mines are overrun with Dragons… Normal things like that. Which you’d know if you were here.”

“Yeah, but if I was here, I couldn’t fight the Dragons!” Not that they’d known Dragons were a thing when they left. They were just going to hope she didn’t realize that part.

If she did, she didn’t say anything about it. She just flicked the bell on her necklace, which didn’t actually make any sound. “...Why are you here, Kana?”

“We need to talk to Gaion.” Four years ago, they would have been able to just march there without being questioned. No one would think twice about it. “We’re going to clear out the Dragons from the mines.”

The look Namuna gave them told them she didn’t believe them. “And how will do you that?”

It took all of their self-control not to wave their sword at her.

“I can shoot them,” Tricia offered, running her hand along the edge of her bow. “It’ll be dark, but I know how to handle myself in darkness.”

“We all have experience fighting Dragons,” Hanoi added. “In all of their forms, from the traditional to the saurian, to… How would you describe the Enshentas and their followers?”

Mark shrugged. “Fish?”

“...You aren’t wrong. I was just wondering if there was a more refined term.”

“You’ve fought dinosaurs?” Namuna wasn’t looking at Kana anymore. That was relieving. The two of them had never seen eye to eye, despite beginning their studies at about the same time. “...Maybe you’d be able to help us, after all.”

“We’ve battled more impressive Dragons than that,” Bailey said, but Namuna wasn’t listening.

“Come on.” She turned around, not overbalancing on the icy path even a little bit. “The master of the forge, Gaion, is this way.”

She didn’t need to lead them. Kana already knew exactly which direction they’d go in. The most important building was the least likely one to be repurposed.

They followed Namuna down a path they’d once walked everyday.

“So, Kana. What do you think of the human?” Gaion didn’t look away from where he was hammering on some kind of bladed weapon. This wasn’t an unusual sight, aside from how he normally preferred to act as an armorsmith.

“You mean Bernard?” They looked out the window, at a human man sitting on a log with a bowl of llama stew. “He’s nice. I think- I think he should be allowed to work here.” Instead of saying anything more, they leaned down to inspect one of the buckets where snow was melting. It wasn’t entirely liquid yet, so it would have to wait for a while longer.

“We don’t have any specific rules against humans.” The hammer struck the mellurite once, twice, three times. “But if no one wants to take him as an apprentice, there’s nothing I can do, no matter how much potential he holds. Trying to force it would only make things worse. We don’t need high tempers while we’re surrounded by fire and sharp objects.”

They nodded along, though he wasn’t looking at them to see it. He was too busy putting the blade together. Until he needed the meltwater, he wouldn’t look directly at them.

That was just how things worked.

“...He’d be at least as good as me, though.”

Gaion put his hammer down, reaching for the metal with nothing but his hands. “Kana, while alchemy alone doesn’t make a smith, you still have experience that he does not. The person who recommended you to me was convinced of your potential.”

“But we don’t know who they were. They could have been wrong.” They turned back to the window, where Bernard was still enjoying his meal.

“...Do I need to have a word with Namuna?”

“N-no, I actually haven’t been talking to her lately.” Checking that the snow in the bucket had melted to their satisfaction, they picked it up with one hand and walked over to the forge, careful not to splash ice-cold water all over their gloves. “What do you think about Bernard? You think he’d be good at this, right?”

“He would. If I didn’t already have you, I’d be tempted to take him on, myself.” He accepted the bucket. “Still, no use worrying about things that aren’t going to happen.”

Kana’s ears drooped. “...Right. Of course.”

Gaion’s workshop looked about the same, too. With one exception- the piles of ore he kept around were gone.

This made sense, if the mines were out of service. Every scrap of material that could be used would be, no matter how poor, for as long as they could possibly get by.

The tools were hanging on the walls, none of them in use. They almost wanted to inspect them for dust. But it wouldn’t matter.

What mattered was that Bernard was in a corner, having a hushed conversation with another smith, wearing the same work clothes as everyone else. Even if he wasn’t working at the moment.

It wasn’t like anyone else was, either.

“Master Gaion!” Namuna strode forward to where Gaion was inspecting the handle of an axe. “We have visitors. They say they can kill the Dragons, but…” She looked back at Kana.

Kana didn’t respond to her. They knew better than that.

Gaion looked up from the axe. He didn’t look much older than he had when they left, but he’d already been really old. Maybe, past a certain point, there was nothing left to change. “...Kana.” They’d never been able to tell what he was thinking. Today, that felt worse than it ever had before.

“Did you know you can eat Dragons roasted with herbs and spices?” They weren’t sure why they said it. It was true, and sometimes the resulting meals even tasted good, but it wasn’t exactly relevant to anything.

Maybe that was why they said it.

Namuna’s ears flattened. “How do you know this? Why would you do that!?” The expected reaction. Most people’s tastes in meat were profoundly unadventurous. They never ate anything more interesting than fish, rabi, or llama. Those people were boring.

“I was hungry. And there was a Dragon right there.”

“Right. Of course you couldn’t eat anything civilized…” They’d probably still get in trouble for punching her in the face.

“Settle down, the both of you.” They both fell silent. To disobey the master of the forge was a dangerous act. Something only to be done with great consideration.

Even if the stakes in this matter weren’t that high, this was an entirely different sort of danger from the kind Kana liked.

Gaion set the axe down. He turned to Kana’s companions. “What do you have to say? If I just asked those two about it, I’d never get a good answer.”

“Chief Scholar Emille sent us,” Hanoi explained. “She says that you can make useful weapons for driving the Dragons away from our planet.”

“...Even if the mines were running, I doubt we could make anything like she speaks of. That knowledge was lost to us a long time ago.” Orichalcum. A material spoken of in legends, proven to exist from trace amounts found in ruins. Everyone knew the stories. Nobody talked about why it wasn’t found anywhere else. “But I suppose just having quality materials is more than you would have found in anything made these past few years.”

“Wooden bows do tend to burn under fire,” Tricia agreed.

As for the rest of them… they still carried the same weapons as when they fought the First Dragon. Kana had wanted to save up for a better sword, but by the time that was feasible, there were no better swords to be bought.

It wasn’t the worst weapon they could have been stuck with. But it might have been nice to have something made with materials that had never been on anyone’s scrap pile that they were aware of.

“It’s a good thing to do, anyway,” Bailey said. “It’s good to have less Dragons around.” It was probably for the best that she worded it in a calmer way than Emille.

“I suppose it would be.” He turned back to Kana. “You remember the way?”

“Of course I do!” They’d only been there a few times, but ‘just go north and look for a big hole’ wasn’t exactly a difficult concept. “We’ll be done before you know it!”

And it could have been left like that, in a different world. One where they didn’t have this history.

But they did. So Gaion kept looking at them, even as his hand reached back for his project. “Once you’ve finished, I’d like you to come back here for a bit. There’s a lot we need to talk about.”

There was. Because, apparently, there was no such thing as turning away and never looking back. Not when the world still needed to be saved. “Yeah. I understand.”

“I think I can get you an apprenticeship.” Kana turned a sword over in their hands. It had been made with scraps leftover from other projects, in case of emergencies.

“Really?” Bernard sat the remains of his dinner to the side, where it balanced precariously on the edge of the woodpile. “With who?”

They sheathed the sword. “Gaion said that… he might be willing to take you, if he didn’t already have an apprentice.”

He blinked at them. “But… you’re Gaion’s apprentice.”

“That makes it easy.” They fastened a charm into their hair, a pair of small white balls. “I just have to leave.”

Bernard gently adjusted his hat. “I can’t ask you to do that for me.”

“It’s not an offer. It’s a promise.” They stood up, tugging on the edges of their gloves. “Maybe, out there, I can find something I’m better at.”

“...Weren’t you the one who kept telling me not to give up?”

“Coming here was your idea.” They took a deep breath. “When I was younger, a woman brought me here and said I had potential. I wanted to trust her, but… I don’t even remember what she looked like. Or why I thought I should follow her. I just did.”

“Just a woman? Not a parent?”

“We’re all pretty sure she was human. So I don’t think we were closely related.” They checked their sword again. “Look. This’ll get you what you want, and I can see if there’s anything else I want to do. It’s a big world. There should be something, right?”

Their grin wasn’t quite wide enough for their fangs to be visible. “...Besides, having to compete with a human would make Namuna so upset. It’d be great.”

“...You two really don’t like each other, do you?”

Kana started walking towards the exit of the camp, their footfalls sinking heavily into the snow. “She’s right about me not being cut out for this. But I was never going to give her the satisfaction of leaving until I could find a way to make her unhappy with it.”

Neither of them knew if that was true or not.

Five months before the end of the world, Kana walked out of their old life, knowing things would never be the same.

Mellurite was mined in a large cave that was usually well-lit with lanterns. The metal was a very similar color to the stone that made up the cave, so extraction was something to be done by only the most observant.

All Lucier, because that was apparently the way things worked out.

When Murakumo entered the cave, there were no lights. Even if the Bloom hadn’t choked them out, they would have burned out a long time ago.

To make up for the darkness, Mark carried a lantern. The light reached just far enough that no one was likely to fall into a pre-existing hole, but wouldn’t save them if the ground was simply unsteady. Tricia thought she might have been able to detect those flaws herself. Assuming, of course, that the Bloom didn’t grow over any of the evidence.

“We could try relighting the lanterns on the way,” Kana suggested. “I know where they are.”

“You’ve been down here before?” It shouldn’t have surprised her. They were from the area.

They kicked a pebble. It bounced off a wall, and a single flower vanished. “...I know where they are.”

“...Do you really?” As someone who had lived most of her life in a cave, she’d be the first to admit they weren’t always safe. She’d known the rules for traversing them before she could walk.

Kana took a deep breath out. The air in the cave was slightly warmer than the air outside, but she could still see their breath. “...I don’t think I’m allowed to say. It’s one of the secrets of the Lucier.”

Hanoi adjusted his cloak. Out of all of them, he seemed the least bothered by the cold. “These secrets are that important?”

“I don’t know. It’s not something humans could use even if you knew about it. Even- there’s even Lucier that can’t use it. Not as an active thing, at least.” They stopped walking, and their ears twitched. “...And we can’t talk about it now, anyway. There’s something here.”

Was there? Or were they just looking for a distraction?

And then she heard it, too. The thud of footsteps against stone. Heavier than a human could ever hope to produce.

It took a moment longer to see it- movement, against the far wall. “It’s a Dragon.” Because what else could be found in an active mine, but the things that had torn apart whole villages? To them, the activities of intelligent beings could be nothing but an obstacle.

A silvery-blue body stepped into the lantern light. Its head was already tucked into attack. “...A Hammerhead of ice…” Bailey’s voice was barely above a whisper.

Tricia drew an arrow. “A Hammerhead? Is that what you call them?”

Kana nodded. “People in Kazan make hammers from them. I bet everyone back in camp would like this.” Because the parts of Dragons could have a use.

“Would they?” Bailey asked. “They send us to kill them.”

“Well, they’ll like the hammers.” And everything they talked about before- the lanterns, and how to discover them- completely faded from everyone’s minds.

The other kind of Dragon they encountered was significantly more interesting to the members of Murakumo who had liberated Kazan.

“Megamouth,” Kana declared upon seeing the creature that was more jaw than torso. “Its name is Megamouth.” No one disagreed with them.

The Megamouth cracked open an eye and lunged at them, leaping clear over the mines’ spring in the process. At least the water might still be safe to drink. Even if it already felt like nothing could possibly contaminate it. It could still happen.

As soon as it reached them, though, the Dragon realized a fundamental truth of the world- when a creature’s body was almost entirely mouth, a broken jaw was something easy to achieve.

Somehow, Tricia managed to shoot it in the tongue, and pin said tongue to the roof of its mouth. Kana wished they could do something like that- it would be really cool, if impractical. But they were more comfortable fighting close up, anyway- all the better to detach the bottom of the mouth from the jaw with.

Within less than a minute, the snapping creature had been completely disassembled.

“I wonder how such a thing could exist.” Mark picked up a long, sharp tooth. “Nothing needs a mouth larger than its stomach capacity.”

“I’m not even sure what they eat,” Tricia said. “Does anything live here?”

Kana dipped their hand into the spring. “There used to be.” Not much, nothing larger than a shoe, but they had been there. “I don’t think they were big enough for this to chew.” They made good meat pies, but nothing more.

“I don’t know anything would be,” Mark agreed.

They could think of one thing. “Maybe a murderbear. That’d give… like… one bite.” Still one bite more than the rest of the native wildlife.

Also, murderbears weren’t allowed in the mines. That would be dangerous. Perhaps more dangerous than sending people in without light or Lucier.

Hanoi bent down, and refilled his flask in the spring. “I don’t know that the Dragons as a whole need to eat. Perhaps they and the Bloom simply sustain each other in an infinite cycle.”

And yet, the hunger of the Imperial Dragons was palpable. What was it that separated them from the rest?

Bailey shook her head. “If that were the case, they would not have need to attack our world.”

“Who said they did it because of need? We don’t know their motives. Just that they’re trying to destroy us.”

Finding a simple Tyrannosaurus at the end was almost disappointing. They dove into Eden’s deepest caves, fighting monstrosities of hard head and sharp tooth, and in the end the only battle to be had was against something they’d slain many of in Marlleaire.

But maybe it was a good thing. It was easy to fell, and when it did, the caves were clear of poisonous flowers.

People could enter the caves for materials again. From the metal, items useful to everyday life could be forged, from cookware to weaponry. It was everything that the people of Nevanplace could ask for.

Everything they’d need.

They’d just have to report it.

And then, Kana would need to face everything they’d left behind.

Kana, Bernard, and Gaion sat in a room, all of them uncomfortable in their own ways. Kana was on a stool with the bottom part of one of the legs missing, so it wobbled treacherously whenever they tried readjusting themself. Bernard’s stool technically had a back, but no one could lean back on it without falling out. Gaion was in the rocking chair that was weighted so badly it fell over when there was no one sitting in it.

Melluride simply didn’t have good chairs. The whole encampment only had about five cushions.

And that was only the physical discomfort.

Kana forced their ears to stay in position. Everyone already knew this was an awkward situation. No need to put it on full display. “I’m not coming back.” It was important to say this from the beginning, to not get anyone’s hopes up. To make sure everyone knew that they felt more alive with a sword in hand than a hammer.

Maybe they could already tell. It was the way of things that those with power would never know they had it, but it could still be seen from outside. But if there was something in their eyes at that moment, they were never told of it.

“We don’t expect you to,” Gaion said, and it didn’t lift any weight off their shoulders. “If you were happy here, you would not have left.”

And maybe it had been noticeable back then, when they avoided touching any metal they didn’t have to, and took steps to avoid being in the same room as Namuna whenever possible. But, if that had been the case, no one ever said or did anything about it.

Maybe things would have been different if they had.

But they couldn’t say that.

“There might not be room for you, anyway.” Were Bernard’s words a joke, or an apology? “It’s- your idea worked.”

Of course it had. Kana knew potential when they saw it. Even when others refused to acknowledge it. Compared to them, Bernard was much more suitable for this place.

But this acknowledgement brought up another question. “So why did you want to talk to me?”

Gaion affixed his gaze on the both of them. “I would like the two of you to know that you have been excellent students. You know, of course, of the structure in the northwest.”

They both nodded. It was, after all, one of the area’s largest landmarks. “The one made of orichalcum.” The tone in Bernard’s voice was enough to tell Kana that he knew exactly how special that was, and why.

“The king has asked me to assist him with a project there.” It wouldn’t be the first time such a commission had been made, but something felt strange about it. Maybe it was that he was sitting down and telling them about it, instead of just leaving them with a list of instructions.

But then, what instructions would he leave? They didn’t work there anymore.

“I… do not expect to return here for some time.” If ever. The words remained unsaid, but Kana was sure everyone was thinking it. Why else would they meet like this?

Why else would they have to be there?

“I-I hope you get back soon.” Because that was how things should have been. Bernard deserved to learn everything Gaion knew. Gaion deserved to be able to teach everything he knew to an apprentice. Kana didn’t really have a place there, but… “After the Dragons. I want to see what’s changed.”

There wasn’t really anything that could bring them back to it.

But it would be nice to confirm they’d made the right choice.

Chapter Text

The five members of Murakumo exited the clearing of Portal Paco. The forest began to thin out, which would eventually lead to the cleared out path from Aizhen to the north.

“Tricia, you’ve never been here before, right?” Kana asked. “What do you think?”

Tricia peered through a gap in the trees. “...Flame Eater’s been here.”

That would explain the stretch of Bloom cutting across the area in a straight line from west to east. The last time they’d visited, the area had been fully clear of the toxic flowers. Now, it was so red it was hard to look at.

Apparently, in the time since the Imperial Dragon had passed by, no one had come to clear the path again. Bailey couldn’t say she was surprised. Efficiency was a thing reserved for functioning governments.

And if she knew anything, it was that Aizhen’s government didn’t function.

She carefully stepped over a large bamboo shoot. “We were told something to that effect.” That was part of why they’d traveled to Portal Paco in the first place.

Still, following the Imperial Dragon wouldn’t be that hard, if he’d left this sort of trail. It would just be a matter of following the flowers of death.

“I guess I’m surprised the flowers are still here. When we drove him away the first time, everyone started working to clear the desert right away.”

“Well, your land isn’t this land.” Bailey stepped into the sunlight. The scent of the Bloom grew even stronger. “Aizhen… does things in a different way.”

Diplomatically, it would be a very bad thing for Marlleaire’s Heir to declare King Sougen incompetent. She didn’t think anyone was around to hear them, but it was something she needed to think about when in other nations. The barrier worked on monsters, not people who got a navy together and decided to declare war. With how their population was sustained, their diplomatic situation was already precarious.

Kana, thankfully, had no such restrictions. “I don’t think they’re very good at it.”

“That’s not entirely fair,” Hanoi said. “Most of the people of Aizhen are perfectly reasonable individuals. There simply isn’t much they can do about their king. Even if they were to overthrow him, they’d need some sort of replacement.”

And the one person Bailey knew had a claim to the throne wasn’t enthused about the idea of being king. So the obvious option wasn’t much of an option at all.

It would be hard to explain that much to Tricia. She was sure she knew the words required, but at the moment, they just wouldn’t come to her. Still, it would become clear enough if she spoke with the people involved.

Which was likely, because a trail of Bloom alone said nothing about where Flame Eater was. Going to Aizhen for information was the most obvious next step.

Well before they would have reached the palace, a guard confirmed their identites, and then quietly handed them a letter. The parchment it was written on had clearly seen better days- the edges were tattered in a way that could only have come from being taken in and out of drawers repeatedly.

And yet, the first section was written in what was clearly some very nice ink, in neat handwriting, with no smudges whatsoever.

It also was not addressed to them.

Shion,

King Sougen was recently invited to attend a summit in Pleroma. All of the other nations had already agreed to send a ruler or a delegate, even the isolated island of Marlleaire. The messenger said it was so all nations could work together against the Dragons, and to finally drive them away from Eden altogether.

You know what our king’s attitude towards the Dragons is. That there is no need to fight them, because they have yet to inconvenience him personally. That the other nations’ rulers are weak for having been so inconvenienced. That he believes this to the point of denying Murakumo’s involvement in the slaying of Eclipse, even to people who know otherwise.

Knowing this about him, it should not surprise you that he refused to attend the summit, or even to send a delegate. Were it not for Pleroma’s stated neutrality in all things, as well as their focus on the current crisis, the exact words he used would have me worried it would trigger a war.

What you may not know is that, shortly before the messenger arrived, a large Dragon flew across our nation, crashing on one of the volcanic isles to the east. From the description, it can only have been an Imperial Dragon.

Our king sees no need to inform anyone of this Dragon’s existence. Even the other nobles, the ones most likely to visit those islands, have been left unaware.

Keeping this secret jeopardizes the safety of our people. Perhaps even the world.

I cannot in good conscience allow it.

I will attend the summit in Pleroma. Doubtless, our king will be very angry with me for doing so once he realizes. But this is something more important than my position.

I have considered your proposals. Once I’ve returned, we can discuss the best course of action moving forward.

The second section was much less neat and tidy. The handwriting was fine, but dirt and ink smudged together in a way that took effort to comprehend.

Murakumo,

Duke Rikken sent me this letter some time ago. It’s the most recent communication I’ve received from him. They say he has returned to the palace, but nobody’s seen him since. There are rumors that he is being confined, as punishment for insubordination.

I remember our journey to this city. Besides having the power to kill Dragons, you’re good people. I know that, seeing the dire state of Aizhen’s people, you will be open to my plea.

King Sougen is not a good man. And yet, he has unrestricted power over the people. He believes our kingdom is the best in the world, and that the peasants should be grateful to live in squalor beneath him. That anyone who is suffering should be left to rot, and those who wish to help them should share that fate.

I cannot serve such a king. The people of Aizhen’s Low District agree.

Please, lend us your aid.

Hanoi folded up the parchment. “In short, we’ve been asked to participate in some form of rebellion.”

“Part of me thinks I should be surprised,” Mark admitted. “I’m not sure if it’s surprise that it happened, or that it didn’t happen sooner.”

Kana shrugged. “I guess we should see what he has to say in person. It’s not like the king’s going to tell us anything.”

Kana wasn’t sure what they were expecting from a group that had decided they didn’t like their king because of how he treated others. There were all sorts of possibilities. As this was the sort of thing best kept secret, they knew they couldn’t expect anything grandiose.

…Still, they might have been more impressed if it hadn’t just been a long table set up in someone’s basement. There were just enough candles to see by, though the flickering made it hard to see anyone’s face. From a secrecy perspective, that might also have been a good thing.

Shion was still noticeable, if only because his outfit was a lot fancier than those of the people around him.

“It’s good to see you again.” Maybe he was smiling. Maybe he wasn’t. His voice gave no clues. “What did you think of my message?”

“Your words have merits,” Bailey admitted. “If King Sougen remains as he is, the Aizo will remain suffering. Duke Rikken’s letter… he said you have ideas about it.”

“Yes… I was hoping to discuss them with him personally, but it’s looking like that won’t be an option.”

Bread was passed around the room. It was hard and tough to chew, but Kana could honestly say they’d had worse. “So what’s your plan?” They wondered if now would be a bad time to go rummaging through their bags for water.

It probably would be, etiquette-wise. They just weren’t just how much a rebel group would care for etiquette. Aizo culture was something they hadn’t wondered about until they got there. Now, it was more than a little too late to ask.

“What do you know of our history?” None of them answered. “Aizhen is the oldest living civilization on the eastern continent. Some say oldest in the world, and among human civilizations, that just might be the case. We haven’t been doing comparisons with the Lucier.”

He didn’t say why. They were all aware enough of history.

Enough that it was hard to see the point in bringing it up. “So how does that relate to dealing with having a bad king?” The king was the issue here.

“That part comes later.” So why had he brought it up now? “For a bit of modern context, King Sougen and Duke Rikken were both related to the previous king. The relationship was basically equidistant, in fact. But Sougen was older, so it was Sougen who took the throne. If we could find a way to make the duke’s claim stronger…”

“...Does your duke want to be ruler?” Bailey asked. It was a very good question, with a very uncertain answer.

“I'm sure he’ll take the throne if circumstances demand it.” Kana really wasn’t sure Shion had thought this through. “Of course, the first step of that is clearing the way so it can be possible. An artifact traced from a distant part of the lineage, perhaps…” He’d put a lot of thought into it for someone who hadn’t actually cleared it with the person he was trying to install as king.

Mark brought out some water. Apparently, Kana hadn’t been the only one struggling with the consistency of the bread. “Where would you find something like that? You’d think, by now, they’d all be claimed.”

“Not if the civilization is old enough,” Hanoi stated. “Get any two history books from Pleroma’s libraries, and they’re bound to contradict. And that’s just information. Physical objects are even easier to misplace.”

So it was just a matter of finding something the Aizo royal family’s great-great-whatever ancestors lost a long time ago. Assuming any of the lost objects hadn’t been destroyed in all that time.

That sounded like an adventure. “Do you know what to look for?” That was step one, right? They couldn’t just dig up every rumored spot in Aizhen and hope it contained the right valuables.

…Okay, so they could, but that would take time away from fighting the Dragons.

Shion nodded. “I’ve been reading texts on the founding of Aizhen.” He really was too ambitious for his own good. That would be like if Kana decided to make a play for the throne of Nevanplace by reinventing orichalcum. They could theoretically do it, if they had those sorts of abilities, but in practice it could never be that simple! “They detail a great battle. At the end, the winning general broke his sword, and refashioned it into a pickaxe. Now that peace had come to the land, there was no need for weapons of war. With that pick, he struck a rock, and that became the cornerstone for his palace.”

Was that story meant to be taken literally? It was hard to tell, because apparently leaders did that kind of symbolic thing sometimes. Kazan had a statue to honor a fallen horse. And there was that whole ritual in Marlleaire…

It probably couldn’t hurt to go along with it for a bit. “You want the pickaxe? Wouldn’t something like that be kept in the family already?” They didn’t know much about inheritance, especially among royals, but the hammers in Melluride were often passed down from mentor to apprentice, and this felt like a similar level of importance.

“There are no records of such a pick in the royal family’s possession. I believe that, during that time, the tradition was to bury their dead, and encase their tools in the memorial stone.”

There was a soft thud as Mark placed a flask of water on the table. “...Did you just say you want us to destroy a tombstone?”

“You can generally chisel away the back of one of those stones without damaging the front,” Another rebel remarked. Kana wasn’t going to ask how they knew this. “It’s usually made of softer stone than the rest of the memorial. I think it’s how they used to be put together.”

Bailey sighed. “Do you even know the location of this burial?”

“The texts say he was buried in the same location he won his final battle. Based on descriptions of the area, I believe it would be somewhere in the Todowa Mountain Range, possibly on Mt. Todowa itself. ‘Todowa’ itself is an old Aizo word, so it must have been important if the name hasn’t changed since then.”

Was that how history worked?

Still… they’d been given a sort of location, so maybe they could spend a bit of time looking. The Dragons were gone from the area, so it was as safe as it’d ever be.

…Apparently, the Dragons had not been entirely gone from Mt. Todowa, at least on their first visit, because as soon as they’d left the paths they’d traveled before, they found a large corpse slumped at the foot of a cliff. It was a long, spindly green thing with fins, attached to a tattered stretch of light blue skin larger than it was long.

Mark was pretty sure the state of that skin was how it had died, but it was old enough it was hard to be sure. “We never fought something like this, did we?”

Kana shook their head. “Someone else must have come through and handled it. A lot of people have to use this mountain.” That made a lot of sense, given that they’d mostly stuck to the main path.

Still… it made no sense that the corpse would be left there. Even if Dragon meat was a thing most people hadn’t acquired a taste for, surely the local scavengers would have been by by now. That corpse did not look fresh.

It didn’t smell fresh, either. “Whoever it was didn’t do a good job of cleaning up. This is…” Unsanitary felt like too tame of a word.

“They must have been busy,” Tricia declared, pointing down the path. On different parts around the trail, there were patches of green of blue, each just as unmoving as the rest. “This isn’t something that happens naturally.”

“To be fair, we don’t know if there were any long-term effects from removing the Bloom,” Hanoi pointed out. “It might have weakened them enough for the wolves to start fighting back.”

There weren’t any wolf bodies around that could support such a claim. It still wasn’t any less likely than the other possibilities.

It had been too long to remember the exact details of their first pass through this mountain. Mark thought the Dragons remaining after the Pteranosaurus had been weaker, but it could just be that they’d gotten better at fighting them.

As it was, there wasn’t really a way of finding out. “There isn’t much point in speculating. These bodies are too old to know for sure.” Maybe a Pleroman scholar who specialized in Dragon research could figure it out, but they didn’t have one of those available. Even the idea of asking one about it felt like an impossibility.

It wasn’t. They had a Portal Key, and some amount of respect from the Chief Scholar. The days he’d been a simple inn doctor who’d never dream of any of that were getting farther and farther away by the minute.

He just couldn’t bring himself to fully believe it.

The bodies were irrelevant, anyway. It wasn’t what they were searching for.

He prepared some acid to speed up the decomposition of the corpses, and they all continued on their way.

Compared to the pile of bodies, the actual gravestone felt insignificant.

It came to mind that getting a culturally-significant artifact to someone who was on house arrest was a lot easier said than done.

And it was a culturally-significant artifact. They’d gotten it appraised and everything.

They’d also paid a lot of money to bribe the appraiser not to say anything about it, but it wasn’t like that was anywhere near the most corrupt thing to happen under this government.

Hanoi peered up at the window. It was probably the right window. Elaborate as the palace might have been, he couldn’t think of anyone who’d be bothered to install fake windows. It was the right general part of the building, at least. He understood the floor plan.

It was too high up to just pass anything through. That was probably the point. “Is this a kind of window that opens?” Some windows were built for that, others were not. The higher off the ground a room was, the less likely the windows would be designed to open.

And that was just in Pleroma. Likely, the nobility had their own reasons to keep their windows shut.

“I don’t know that it matters,” Shion admitted. He was wearing a thick cloak that covered his face- apparently, his sentiments toward the king were known by the general population. “For him to open it, we would first need to attract his attention.” And that wouldn’t be possible, partially because they were standing here in broad daylight.

Night wouldn’t have been much better. There were guards stationed there at night.

Tricia fingered her bow. “I could break it with an arrow…”

“I think that would just attract more attention.” Still, maybe they could attach a note to it, or something. They couldn’t do that with an icicle.

Maybe if he’d had time to study space magic like he’d wanted to… but there was no point in wondering. That was a dream that couldn’t be fulfilled until the Dragons were gone.

“What about the guards?” Kana suggested. “Maybe they could…”

Shion shook his head. “The palace guards were selected from those most loyal to the royal family- the direct royal family. If they knew of our plans…”

“Direct royal family…” Bailey sounded out the words as if she’d never heard them before. “Could you say what you mean by that?”

“King Sougen and his queens. It would include his chosen heir as well, if he had one. At the moment, however, he does not have any children. If he did, it would make this much more complicated.”

So at least they could say this was relatively unlikely to trigger a succession crisis. Hanoi wasn’t sure how any of that was decided, it hadn’t come up while he was learning the language, but he knew it wasn’t something they had the time to deal with. They still had to track down Flame Eater, as well as whatever other Imperial Dragons might have been hiding in their world. According to Emille, there’d be at least two.

How much he trusted her word on that was still to be decided.

Kana’s brow furrowed. “His queens… Didn’t you say you met one of them? She gave you that weird orb?” And that orb had allowed them to defeat Eclipse. Yes, now that they’d reminded him, Hanoi remembered her. She’d been a nice woman, her simple but beautiful outfit completely out of place in the palace’s sheer ostentatiousness.

She’d also seemed concerned about her husband’s capacity to rule. “We did. Apparently, she believed the king wouldn’t notice her giving it away.” It had probably found its way back to her by now. “Her sentiment could easily be translated to ‘what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.’ Possibly due to his lack of compassion.”

“She said… she wanted him to be kinder to his people, and understand their problems,” Bailey reminisced. “But did she mean it for his sake, or for Aizhen’s…?”

“Does it matter?” Kana asked. “It’d be a good thing either way, wouldn’t it?”

“Reason is important. If she wants it because she is loyal to him, she cannot be trusted. But if she wants it for the people…” Then they’d have something to work with.

Hanoi understood the concept. “Shion, what do you know about the queens?” He had to know something, right? Surely, he’d been in the area long enough to have heard at least some gossip.

“Well… I know there are three of them. None of them are particularly public figures, though there was a bit of a scandal when the third was introduced to the court. I can’t quite remember what it was about…”

There were a few options, just based on what Aizhen’s nobility tended to be like. They were the judgemental sort.

But there was a one-third chance that Hanoi already knew the right answer. “She didn’t come from nobility, did she?” Every other noble they’d encountered spoke excellent Pleron as part of their education. She was the one exception. Even in her native language, she defaulted to a different register than everyone else.

“...Now I remember. She originally came from the Low District. That’s why people put up a fuss about it. Of course, the king wanted to marry her, and his word goes, so there wasn’t much of anything they could do about it.”

“So… she’s lived under the conditions in the Low District,” Tricia stated. “Do you think that would encourage her to be more loyal to her king, or her country?”

Bailey shrugged. “Would it encourage loyalty to either, really?”

He wasn’t sure. He just couldn’t imagine being in that position. But, when he’d spoken to her, she’d seemed like a perfectly normal person. Like someone who genuinely cared for others.

When he thought about it, that made the choice of what to do next easier than he’d thought it’d be.

Duke Rikken turned the pickaxe over in his hand. Observed it closely, and then looked up at the gathered people. Bailey, Shion, and Aizhen’s Third Queen. Everyone else had stayed outside, because even with the presence of royalty to excuse it, that many people walking through a single hallway was bound to attract attention. “Why have you brought this to me?”

“It is… an option.” Bailey wasn’t going to describe it as his duty. There were multiple ways the situation could be resolved. This was just one of them. “If there is no other way that this can be resolved…” She wanted to believe that wasn’t the case.

It just wasn’t up to her to decide that.

The pickaxe was turned over. And over. And over. “I don’t know that I would make for a good king.”

“King Sougen is a… very confident man,” Shion noted, which was probably the most diplomatic way to put it. “You could argue that not being that way is a qualification!”

Was their profile of the ideal ruler really ‘whatever Sougen isn’t?’

Was it wrong of them to think that way?

“That… is true.” The queen was remarkably serene, given that this was a conversation about potentially overthrowing her husband. “His… confidentness… I’ve never seen it shaken. I ask… what if it was?”

Bailey blinked. “As in… blackmail?”

“If that is the word you’d use.”

She took a moment to think about it. “...The worst thing is, it could work.” They were looking at her now, so she’d have to explain. “Queen Emerald of Miross… has not held true power for some time. One of her advisors conspired to keep her ignorant of the world, and… I suppose that left him in charge by default.” It wasn’t like anyone else would be in a position to do it.

“I’m not sure how well that would work in this situation,” Shion admitted. “It sounds like a good way to handle things without violence, but… the king knows what it’s like to actually hold power. He’d notice if he didn’t have that anymore.”

“We can’t do it subtly,” Rikken corrected. “It is… still a possibility. Sougen doesn’t care for much so long as his pride and quality of life are intact. As long as he can tell the people that he has everything perfectly under control…”

…This was the sort of thing that Bailey wasn’t supposed to get involved in, wasn’t it? This was Aizhen’s problem, for Aizhen’s people. “I… suppose you can work out what to do next yourselves?” She was not here to cause a diplomatic incident. She was not here to cause a diplomatic incident.

What she was here to do was track down the location of Flame Eater, and help to slay him in glorious combat. To do that, she needed to be anywhere but here.

…Still, it made her wonder. Come the next diplomatic meeting… who was it that she would encounter?

Chapter Text

Doma Island. Supposedly a popular tourist destination. Definitely the home of a volcano that shared its name, as well as Portal Goff.

If the trail of flowers across the world was any indication, probably the current lair of Flame Eater.

“Does anyone know much about this place?” Tricia asked. “With everything that happened in Aizhen, I’m not sure we gathered any information.”

They… really hadn’t done much asking around, had they? Not that Kana wanted to talk to the Aizo nobles much. Actually, they were more than willing to go with less information if that was what it took to avoid them.

Hanoi dug a small pamphlet out of his pocket. “Well, I found a travel brochure for Nigirio Inn. Supposedly, there are hot springs in the area.”

Hot springs… under better circumstances, that might have been worth considering. “Oh, because of the volcano?” They were… pretty sure it was the giant red mountain in the distance. It was covered by either lava or Bloom.

And despite the fragility of those flowers to people touching them, they couldn’t even be sure the answer wasn’t both.

“That would make it easy to heat a bath,” Bailey agreed. “I assume business is currently suffering.”

She was probably right. A blanket of petals spread out before them, completely undisturbed. Most people wouldn’t even consider walking on them.

Kana stepped forward, and a flower crunched away. The sound was satisfying. “So, Flame Eater is absolutely somewhere around the volcano, right?”

Tricia nodded. “He gets power from heat. That’s why he was in a desert before.”

“...So, to recover from his injuries, he sought out the hottest location in Eden,” Mark finished. “One too dangerous for anyone to casually approach.”

He underestimated how determined they all were to live in a world without Dragons.

Kana took a deep breath. They couldn't smell anything but Bloom. They took a step forward. The area looked mostly flat, but… “Do you guys hear anything moving?” It was really faint, but it sounded like… crunching grass? Or maybe Bloom?

“...None of us have ears as good as yours,” Bailey reminded them. “Is it coming from a certain direction?”

Was it? They paused to listen more closely, letting their ears twitch to get a better idea of the angle. “...It’s this way.” They took a step in that direction, and became even more sure. There was something there.

They needed to get to it as soon as possible.

It didn’t matter that there were no paths that didn’t go through the sea of flowers. It had been that way for a long time. Their boots were more than good enough for it.

Which was more than they could say for the person they found. She was laying face first in a patch of red, her fluffy green ears not twitching at all as they approached. If they lifted her up, Kana was sure there’d be a perfectly Lucier-shaped patch of flowerless grass beneath her.

Mark knelt down next to her. “She’s still breathing.” They could have told him that. She’d been well enough to whimper until they reached her. The pain or the scent must have just knocked her out.

When he turned her over, her face was burned by the Bloom she’d crushed in her collapse. Kana couldn’t remember the last time they’d been burned so badly by the flowers. Perhaps they’d just gotten used to it.

But wouldn’t this girl have had longer for that?

“She’s wearing some kind of uniform,” Bailey observed. “Perhaps it’s for her employment location?”

“We won’t know until she wakes up.” Mark had faint sparkles of healing magic in one hand, and a more mundane balm in the other. “I suppose that should be what we do next.”

Smoke was rising on the horizon. Tricia supposed that, since there was a volcano in that direction, it shouldn’t have been surprising.

It was concerning, because she wasn’t sure if volcanoes were supposed to smoke when they weren’t actively in the process of erupting. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was still safe. Maybe it was Flame Eater’s fault.

She really wanted it just to be Flame Eater’s fault.

Maybe it wouldn’t even matter. They had to wait for the Lucier they’d found to recover. It could die down before then.

No point thinking about it until they got there.

“Maybe we shouldn’t all descend on her at once when she wakes up,” she suggested instead of letting herself further dwell on the mountain. “Maybe Kana? She might be relieved to see a fellow Lucier.”

“I- I’m not really sure about that. I’m not really good at… at talking to other Lucier.”

Now that they mentioned it… Tricia didn’t usually see them take the lead in conversation with one of their people. She’d always just figured that someone else got there first. There hadn’t been any reason to suspect it was intentional.

Now might not have been the time to ask. “I don’t think you need to be. She’ll be in a lot of pain from spending so much time in the flowers. I know I wasn’t much for conversation when…”

It was different, she knew. She’d been newly driven away from her home, and unsure if anyone she’d known had survived. That would have kept her quiet even without the Bloom scars covering her legs.

She still wanted to think the scars had contributed, just a little.

“Or I could handle it. I am a medical professional,” Mark pointed out. That was probably a better idea. He was certainly competent, even if he spent more time making poisons than cures.

Small talk was awkward enough when it was just the five of them.

“Yeah, you should do that,” Kana agreed. “You’ve probably got more important stuff to say to them.”

And that was that. Mark would talk to the Lucier once she woke up.

Distraction completely played out, Tricia sat back and watched the smoke on the horizon drift up into the sky.

The girl woke up about fifteen minutes later.

It took a few moments to notice, because she didn’t say anything right away. She just looked between the members of Murakumo, ears twitching, eyes darting from side to side. She held herself stiffly, fingers curling in the grass that had been covered in Bloom until very recently.

When they did notice, Mark offered her a small package of dried paro fruits. They didn’t particularly need trail rations for this distance, but they were always good to have.

She dropped the cloth on the flowers in her desperation to get at the contents. He’d have to remember to wash it before reusing it. “I take it you haven’t eaten in a while.”

She nodded. “I don’t… really remember when. I wanted to eat before leaving, but… I couldn’t get the key to the pantry.”

“Why not?” The Lucier flinched. Mark took a deep breath, and tried another angle. “I’m a certified Healer. I’m not allowed to let anything you say harm you further.” If that weren’t the rule, there were bargoers he would have punched out long ago. As it was, his violence was legally reserved for monsters and Dragons.

Her ears flattened. “It’s really not like that… I just wanted to move somewhere else. If the flowers hadn’t grown so suddenly, I’d be at port by now, and then no one would…”

She was clearly trying to say as little as possible. What she did say was still more than enough to serve as a warning.

Whether to Nevanplace or Marlleaire or even Kazan, this girl was fleeing something, or someone. This being a Lucier in Aizhen… Mark wanted to say he believed better of people, but Soughen’s government had been corrupt enough, and Aizhen’s history towards the Lucier so brutal, that some of the possibilities were incredibly disturbing.

Part of him didn’t want to know if they were true. They were about to challenge Flame Eater on the local residents’ behalf, and he could best appreciate the necessity of it by not knowing everyone’s worst sides until it was over.

But there was an injured patient in front of him, and that took priority. “If you need a safe place to stay, I have a house in Kazan. It’s mostly been gathering dust since I fixed it up after the first attack.” His grandmother would be ashamed of how little he’d done with the place. “I don’t think anyone would look for you there.”

“Wh-what makes you think anyone’s looking for me!?” The fur on her ears stood on end, basically confirming that people would be looking for her. Or she suffered from a concerning amount of paranoia.

“I assume people don’t pass out in fields of Bloom for the fun of it.” He poked at a nearby flower, letting it dissolve at his touch. His fingertip burned, a little, but he’d long gotten used to that. “I may be getting ahead of myself. My name’s Mark. What’s yours?”

“...Arietta.” It wasn’t an Aizo name. “You’d really allow me to stay in your home? Is there nothing you want in return?”

There was a rumbling in the distance, and more smoke billowed out of the mountain. “I suppose, if you want to, you could tell us what it is you know about that mountain.”

Doma Volcano was even larger close up. Hotter, too, which Tricia had thought she was prepared for. But it was a heat that was nothing like any desert. Even taking a breath felt like she was scorching her own lungs.

Hanoi passed her a damp cloth wrapped around a large, cold block. “This should make things easier.”

“...Ice?”

“We can’t trust our bodies not to overheat while we’re here. If it gets to be too much, hold this to your face and breathe in.”

She wasn’t sure how necessary it would be. She could already see the opening to a chamber nearby, glowing with heat, but moving in a way which suggested the shape of wings. Bloom practically covered the entire opening, making it impossible to tell where the rock stopped and the flowers began.

That had to be Flame Eater’s hideaway.

“Did he come in through this way?” She asked Arietta. The Lucier shrugged. “If he did… he has no chance of escape.”

“He would not escape either way,” Bailey corrected. “This time, I will Cage him properly.”

“Besides, where would he run to?” Kana started moving towards the opening. “If this is the hottest place in Eden, and we beat him here…” They pulled up just short of the cave. “...I don’t know what I expected.”

“Well, if it isn’t the little Lucier princess.” The Dragon’s laugh was sharp, bouncing off the rocks as well as if there were no flowers to soften them. “And the rest of Murakumo, of course.”

Tricia glanced at Kana. “Princess?”

“Don’t ask me. I have no idea what he’s talking about. Bailey’s the princess here.”

“The specific title is ‘raalai melai.’” This would be useful information if Tricia had any intention of visiting Marlleaire.

“Either way, I’m not a princess.” With a swipe of their gloved hand, a bouquet of Bloom burst out of existence. “So why are you calling me one?”

Flame Eater laughed again, somehow more mocking than before. “What does it matter? You will be dead soon enough.” He spread out his wings, and molten rock flowed down over them, shining a bright red. “As long as I channel the mountain’s power, nothing can slay me!”

He sounded very confident for someone who, last time they encountered him, had fled while dripping blood and petals.

“So we can kill you if we can block off the mountain’s power?” Hanoi checked, staring intently at the viscous stone.

“And how do you intend on doing that, little morsel?”

“...The space here is twisting. This isn’t natural volcanic activity- this heat is being provided by other Dragons.” Did he just know everything about this place? Maybe they should just have left Arietta outside? Except she was too scared to just be left alone like that… “Mark and I are best suited to survive this volcano. If you can hold off Flame Eater until then…”

It wasn’t a promise, exactly. They all knew better than to make those.

It was an idea. A strategy. Something that sounded plausible, even to someone who hadn’t studied all that complicated science.

It was an opportunity for Tricia to claim her revenge.

She held the ice block up to her face and took a deep breath. “I think we can handle that.”

Figuring out where Dragons existed, in general, was as simple as following the trail of flowers. Finding a specific Dragon, on the other hand, meant needing to look for something a bit more unique.

Mark and Hanoi split off into the lower chambers, both searching for Dragons that space twisted itself around the same way it did around Flame Eater.

Hanoi had the advantage for this, of course. He was trained to identify distortions in space. The world subtly warped itself around all the Dragons, but in different ways, so he just had to look for something he recognized, and kill the source.

And everything else, too.

His ice magic gave him an advantage at this, as well. He could trip up the lumbering Marshasaurus, and shoot down the lunging Micro Dragons, which were smaller than the Little Dragons had been, but no less quick and fierce.

It was tiring, and he needed to drink a lot of water to keep himself going. If he stopped for long, the heat would overpower him, and so would the Dragons.

The Bloom was completely dry as it crunched under his feet.

“Now, where is it…” The heat shimmer caught his glasses in odd ways. “It must be near the molten sea… there you are.” The way space twisted wasn’t visible, really. But there was heat to it, and a sucking hole draining molten rock into nothingness.

What was harder to see was the Dragon itself. It blended in almost fully with the rocks it lay on top of, glowing like magma, or perhaps petals of Bloom. It lay there, either uncaring of the world around it, or preparing an ambush.

Hanoi wasn’t sure what he wanted to call it. Magmaroth, maybe. That felt impressive enough for something directly connected to the Imperial Dragon.

Not that it mattered, much, when it didn’t have long to live.

The Magmaroth was a creature of heat. All Dragons were, to an extent, with most fleeing from the slightest conjured snowflake.

The Magmaroth, when struck by magic, stopped giving off light. Steam erupted from it as it flashed, but a few good icicles to the brain stopped that completely.

It fell, stopped moving, and the hole in the magma started filling itself in. Slowly, the twisting space started to correct itself.

Hanoi took advantage of that to power his own warp back.

Mark’s side of things was a bit more complicated.

Surviving was the easy part. He could simply heal any damage the volcano did to him, and the Dragons weren’t much better. He’d poison all of them, bit by bit, and scramble to a safe spot to watch them succumb.

The little ones were the most dangerous, but they went down the fastest. There was too much toxin coursing through their bloodstreams. The large ones were slower to fall, but stumbled about aimlessly even when their insides weren’t dissolving.

Progress was steady, but it was slow.

At least the Magmaroth was easy to identify. After all, it was the only Dragon of its kind in the chamber. All Mark needed to do was recognize that it was not a rock.

From there, it got simpler. Just one step at a time.

Approach the lazing Dragon from behind.

Insert the syringe. The unplated bits were glowing with heat, but that had never stopped him before.

Run away faster than the poisoned creature could crawl.

Remember that he injected the poison. Focus on the connection that action created.

Twist.

It wasn’t as impressive as when a Dragon was slain by Kana, or Tricia, or Hanoi. But the Dragon was slain nonetheless.

All of them were. The chamber was completely empty of life, aside from the Bloom perched on rocks in the magma sea. Once Flame Eater was dead, even those would disappear.

Perhaps then the monsters would return, and another part of the world would be set to rights.

But that wasn’t Mark’s job to worry about. His job was to return to the others. With the Dragons dead, it was as simple as taking the most direct safe path.

Hopefully, the others wouldn’t have accumulated too many wounds for him to heal.

Tricia couldn’t say when in that battle Flame Eater’s healing stopped. All she cared about was shooting him until he died. She couldn’t even say if he’d noticed. He might not have cared about anything but burning them all to a crisp.

At least they could say they understood each other.

There was nothing simpler than the fight. All she had to do was keep firing. One arrow after another.

For all the Devon that hadn’t survived his reign. For Hatch.

For herself, and the years she spent away from home.

And eventually, the Dragon started to flag. His wings hit the ground with more force than he flared them. The heat, while still blistering, began to disperse.

He was getting weaker.

Hanoi arriving in a burst of cold air, and Mark scrambling through the crevice some time later, as things started to wind down, only served as confirmation.

“So… you think you’ve won.” Flame Eater gathered fire between his wings, but too slowly. He simply did not have enough life left to unleash it. “You believe that you’ve achieved a victory.”

“Are you going to try to flee again?” Bailey asked. It was a silly question, really. The Cage strained while she paused to speak, but didn’t dissolve. There would be no escape. “You must have knowledge that… wherever you flee, we must find you. We will find you. You can not escape forever.”

He laughed again, as sharp and mocking as ever. “Perhaps you will slay me. To defeat a Dragon as advanced as myself is quite the feat. But is that victory?”

Why were they even listening to him? He was a threat to everything they had ever known. To everyone they had ever loved. Just the way new flowers bloomed on the cave ceiling as he flared his wings hammered that point home even further.

“It is.” Tricia notched an arrow. “Because it means we will be free of you.”

It didn’t quite strike him in the eye.

Perhaps that was why he kept laughing. Even if they won, it wouldn’t quite be skill that carried them through. Just stamina, and strength, and a helping of luck.

All good things to have, but none quite so valuable as skill. As a clear mind, and steady aim. Things she used to pride herself on having.

“You will,” he agreed. “For now. But there’s a secret to us Dragons, you see. Perhaps some of you are aware of it already. We will always return.”

Lies, a voice that sounded like Emille insisted inside Tricia’s head. Tricks. Trying to get inside their heads, so they wouldn’t feel their rightful satisfaction once he was gone from the world. Trying to worry Arietta, standing in the closest thing this volcano had to a safe spot, for nothing more than his own amusement.

But if it was a trick, the others did not catch on. “Return…” Hanoi was panting, but snowflakes still swirled around his fingers, chasing away some of the oppressive heat. “You mean… like the dinosaurs.”

He probably didn’t know what the word ‘dinosaur’ meant. He was a Dragon. It was impressive enough that he spoke any human language.

“They went extinct back then.” Kana’s sword was covered in an edge of frost, and their eyes glowed brighter than the fires around them. “You’ll go extinct now.” And with those words, they swung their sword.

“You really do think… that you can win by doing this… that you can save yourselves…” He didn’t die as quickly as other Dragons did, either. It was like he tried his hardest to cause them as much annoyance as physically possible. “But this is… only the beginning… already, he approaches…”

Flame Eater fell silent. The Bloom dissolved into nothing.

It didn’t matter what he tried to tell them. Murakumo had won.

Kana stared down at the corpse.

They knew exactly what trophy they wished to claim from it. His very heart, which had absorbed heat, pumped lava… it’d make a good talking point in their later years, if nothing else. A bit of a pain to retrieve, but butchery could be that way sometimes. It still resulted in good meat.

They’d just have to wash their gloves really well later.

But taking a body, carefully disassembling it to retrieve the parts they could make use of, was something that took time. Time where there was nothing to do but work, and to think.

And there was one thought that just wouldn’t leave them alone. “...Princess…”

“You know he was just trying to get to you, right?” Tricia checked. “I’m not sure how he knows what your deal is, but Dragons are our enemies. They’ll do stuff like that.”

Except most of them weren’t smart enough to do stuff like that. Except he said it more like a statement of fact than any sort of mockery.

Except… “Invisible called me that, too.” They hadn’t quite heard it, had killed her before she could speak the entire word, but they knew. She couldn’t have been trying to say anything else. ‘If that’s what the princess desires.’

If they were anywhere close to the throne of Nevanplace, they would have at least known who their parents were. That was sort of how inheritance worked. But they didn’t, so they couldn’t be.

“Because she was trying to get to you. You remember what the Chief Scholar said.”

But why ‘princess?’ Why did that keep coming up?

Why would the Dragons care enough about that sort of title to choose to use it for somebody?

Compared to those thoughts, identifying Flame Eater’s heart was simple. Cutting it out, even simpler. His blood splashed down onto the stone, staining the bottom of their nice boots.

It was hot, but that might have been all the molten rock he’d covered himself in. Kana was just glad they hadn’t had to cut through that. “I just think it’s weird they’d call me that when there’s an actual princess here. Maybe they got their info mixed up.”

Maybe it was something they needed to stop thinking about, before it made their head hurt.

Before they could start to dwell on the past they’d given up on knowing long before the woman in the blue cloak retrieved them from the orphanage.

“I… wouldn’t be surprised.” Arietta’s voice was soft, like she was scared of people actually hearing her. Kana’s ears picked up on it just fine. “We don’t know much about Dragons… or what they know about us. Just what they say they know.”

And when an Imperial Dragon started talking, it was well past time for that Dragon to die. It didn’t matter what they knew.

Not so long as none of them cared to know it.

The heart resting in Kana’s hands wasn’t going to give them any answers. “...We should get back to Kazan. Help you settle in, figure out where the last two Imperial Dragons are…” They weren’t sure which one they considered more important. They did know which one would be easier, though.

If things had gone as planned, it would have been a nice, peaceful diversion.

They left the cave. The air wasn’t much colder, but it flowed more, a soft breeze soothing their aching lungs. If they hadn’t met Arietta, so clearly fleeing from something, they might have suggested visiting some nearby springs, to turn the heat into something more relaxing than painful.

That, too, would have been a nice diversion if things had gone as planned.

Instead, the ground began to rumble beneath their feet. Bailey turned around. “Is the mountain-?”

“No, it doesn’t feel like that,” Arietta assured her. “This is something other than the mountain.”

This should have been reassuring. It meant they wouldn’t need to flee a wave of lava. But it wasn’t, specifically because of what happened next.

Because the rumbling continued, even as they ventured down to more solid ground. Because the world darkened to something similar to night, or standing in the middle of a flat stretch of Bloom, despite it being the middle of the day on a relatively clear patch of land.

Because Kana looked up, and once they did, they weren’t able to look away.

The sky was dark. Not dark like they were surrounded by Bloom. Darker than that.

Dark like it had been on that day, three years ago, when the skies filled with Dragons.

And in the center of the sky, a patch even darker than that.

The patch pulsed. Golden cracks appeared inside it, more and more light pouring out every second, until it was almost as bright as the sun. They spread, and the light in the center grew, until the center of the sky was nothing but a bright hole.

And from that hole emerged the One-Winged Beast.

“Hello,” He greeted the world, in a voice that echoed such that Kana knew, without thinking, it could be heard all over Eden. “My name is Niara.”

Chapter Text

Chief Scholar Emille has always said she has a plan to end the threat of the Dragons. For three years, she kept it close to her chest, saying only that all of us have a duty to the world, and that our world will end if we do not fulfill it.

After a recent summit, she took me aside. She told me that, as her right hand, it would be my job to ensure things proceeded if she were to be indisposed. She said that the time to enact her plan was drawing nearer.

So she told me what her plan was.

She told me what she believes the Lucier race’s duty to the world to be.

It was a callous plan. A reenactment of the fall of what she calls their original civilization. She says it had a name. She says she even knew it.

She refuses to tell me what it was.

By the time anyone reads this, it is likely they already know what it is I refer to, if lacking some of the details. After all, today was the day she’s been waiting for, all this time. I don’t know why she felt the need to tell me it was coming. Everything was put into motion so long ago, there is nothing I could have done to stop it.

It was an evil plan. I regret having ever known of it.

I regret all of the years I suspected what she was, and never forced the issue. Perhaps, if I had, she would have accepted that there could be another way. Perhaps she could have accepted that destroying Niara means little if it requires we destroy ourselves.

But then, someone as old as Emille is bound to be set in their ways. So maybe it was always going to end like this.

The king of Nevanplace is dead. Long live King Jake.

-An excerpt from the journal of Chief Scholar Nowari, written the day of Niara’s arrival.

Light poured from the hole in the sky, the golden beams coalescing into the shape of a tower. From the peak of it rained brilliant red petals, fluttering across Eden yet never quite coming into contact with the ground.

The light shimmered, and slowly faded, until the tower was all that remained. And there, floating between it and the stars, shining so bright as to be seen across Eden, was a Dragon made of gold.

Even from a distance, all could see that there were no scales or other markings on his jewel-encrusted body. He was pure, sculpted metal, shining into existence from the light he summoned. Every part of him molded into the pure ideal of what that body part should look like on a Dragon, accentuated by specks of cuprite, verdelite, and two large slabs of lapis lazuli.

The one flaw in his appearance was that he was missing his right wing.

His left wing, all could agree, was a thing of beauty, gold inlaid with luvulite. He spread it to its full length as he addressed the planet, seared into the minds of any who dared look up.

Even those who didn’t would still hear his voice. “I am one of the seven True Dragons. The third, if you care to be precise.”

In Pleroma, Emille stood at her window. “You still think they care for precision…” She shook her head. “...It was bold of you to show your face here, Niara. It’s been millenia… but you must know I never stopped waiting for this moment.”

Her words hung in the air, but if Niara heard them, he gave no response.

Not directly, at least. “There is only so long that a herd may live in blissful ignorance. It must have been billions of years ago when we first sowed life here. You’ve all sprouted so very well… and your harvest is very much overdue.”

He breathed in deeply, and then out again. The Bloom receded, and then advanced further than it had been. Not by much, only by a few flowers, but enough it would be noticeable if he repeated his action enough times.

If the people of Eden lived long enough to see it happen.

“Humanity has ripened, and thus, we will devour you.” Niara gestured with his wing across the land. “If there are leftovers mixed in… all the better. I do hate leaving a job unfinished.”

“...That is the one thing we can agree on.” Emille stepped back from the window, her eyes gleaming. “So. The day has finally come.”

“You can’t mean…” Nowari’s hands clenched into fists. “Please! You can’t just throw all those lives away!”

She glared at him. “What else would you have me do? Sit and wait to die? There has never been another choice. We will never have a better chance!”

“But… But.”

“It is too late, anyway. The Lucier king knows what he has to do. His people will commit to this fight with everything they have, just as they should have long ago.” She started adjusting the objects on her desk. “It is the only thing on this planet that will be able to scratch him.”

Nowari stared at her. Took a step back. Took a deep breath.

Looked towards the window. “Will you at least watch the destruction you’ve caused?”

“I would like nothing more.” She picked up her chair and carried it to the window. The smile on her face was the largest anyone in Pleroma had ever seen. “I’ve been waiting so long for this… this is what I’ve been living for all this time…!”

Faro leaned in close to Nowari’s ear. “Is… is the Chief Scholar…?”

“I don’t know,” he replied just as softly. “I think… we need to be prepared for the worst.”

She nodded in understanding. And then, she too turned to the window.

For good or for ill, what approached was something none of them dared to miss.

Kana stared up at the sky, at the ancient enemy of their people, perched on his throne. The Bloom was still far off, but they could smell it all the same.

“I was right,” they whispered, their voice catching in the suddenly-still air. “The One-Winged Beast… so, he is a Dragon.” A True Dragon, whatever that was supposed to mean.

It was probably meant to be something important, with the weight the term had when he used it. Like how Bloom was a simple term, but carried with it the danger of searing burns. Over time, it grew into something worth more than the strict definition of the word.

His other title was like that, as well. “One-Winged Beast?” Bailey repeated.

“A story from the beginning of history.” It had never been their favorite growing up, but they could never help but remember every word of it. They could have told it then and there, if they weren’t caught in the middle of the end of the world.

Because that was what the Beast’s- what Niara’s appearance always signified. The end of the world, or at least the way it was before.

That was why his story came from the beginning of history.

Arietta gasped. “Look- across the sea!”

It was hard for Kana to tear their gaze away from Niara, but somehow, they managed, if only because what they were directed to look at was another point of light. It was just a speck, smaller than even the furthest star, so far they had to strain to notice it, and yet- and yet-

…Kana knew that light. It was familiar, somehow, but they couldn’t place when they would have seen it before. It was a light spoken of in stories, and nothing more.

They did, however, know where it must have come from.

And they had a suspicion of what the cost of it would be. “...Nevanplace!”

The air was still, and the sky dark, as the Lucier king looked over his people for the last time. It was a large gathering, the largest mustered over his entire reign, a sea of fluffy and pointed ears stretching to the far horizon.

If one looked closely, they might have noticed that no one in the crowd was under the age of twenty.

“People of Nevanplace, above us you see our ancient enemy: Niara, the One-Winged Beast.” If one followed the way he pointed his finger they might have seen how he gestured at Niara’s one wing. “Long ago, when humanity was only just becoming civilized, he ravaged our ancient lands. Now, not even their name remains.”

The crowd stirred. The people murmured. They all knew this already. It was why they had agreed to gather there.

But it was different to hear it said out loud.

It made the finality of what they were about to do sink in.

“Our ancestors were the survivors of that massacre,” the king continued. “And they wounded the beast! When Niara fell, with the last of their strength, they settled this harsh land. With the last of their knowledge, they laid the foundation for this day.” He gestured at the archway before him, leading into the depths of a giant cannon. “Now we will follow in their footsteps, and pass the torch to our next generation.”

Gaion approached the king. There were bags under his eyes, but a faint glimmer of gold in his pupils. “...It’s ready.”

His words silenced the crowd.

The king nodded. “In that case… all those who are willing to give their lives for Eden, you know what you must do!” Without waiting for more direction, they all started filing into the cannon. Some of them shouted battle cries. Others silently marched on.

Not one of them backed down.

In the end, only the king and Gaion were left outside. “...They’re good kids,” Gaion stated. “They’ll do us proud.”

“If only we weren’t giving them this burden at such a heavy time,” the king agreed. “There are many things I should have said, rather than allow them to die with me. But that is the way of the beast. To drive it away, we must make sacrifices.”

“Some of it might be for the best, anyway.” Gaion took off his cap and placed it on the ground. “They’ve got enough to carry already. Yours and mine both.” He turned in the direction of Melluride, far beyond the horizon. “Bernard… I’ve taught you everything I can. And Kana… I hope you can forgive me for allowing you to remain a child all this time.”

He walked into the cannon. The king remained, just a little longer, eyes lingering on the shape of the city on the horizon. “Jake, Sierra… carry on fighting. As long as you do that, the beast will never truly win.”

He entered the cannon. The doorway sealed shut behind him.

The ground began to rumble. The barrel of the cannon lifted, pointing itself directly at the peak of the tower. Light gathered within it, as bright as any star. As bright as all of the lives that had been sacrificed to create it.

The weapon locked on to its target.

The cannon fired.

Niara peered down from his tower. “That light… So, some of you have chosen to try and resist? Go ahead. You can’t truly harm me, but I find some pointless struggle adds to the flavor.”

He sat back. Relaxed. Watched the beam of bright blue light get closer. And closer.

And closer.

…Oh, that was a very big beam, actually!

Instinctively, he moved to protect his remaining wing. The beam slammed into him, carrying him up, and up, and up into the sky. The ebbs and flows of the Bloom subsided.

And then the light faded, revealing Niara. Slightly singed, somewhat higher in the air than he might have liked to be without openly warping gravity, but very much alive.

“This energy…” He hissed, peering down at the source of the light. “...This power. I remember it well… Lucier. So you still live, even with Atlantis crumbled. With far more power than you should. Although, perhaps I shouldn’t be so surprised.” His gaze swiveled to somewhere else. To another tower entirely. “Hypnos, was this your idea?”

Emille met his gaze. “Niara- how did you-?”

“Relying on that power again and again… Most people would know better by your age. Although it is impressive how far you’re willing to go for just one planet.” He stretched out his wing, eyes glittering. “Even if you’re becoming dreadfully unoriginal. I suppose creativity must be solely within your sister’s jurisdiction.”

“Leave Aitelle out of this!” Emille snapped in a voice that could be heard by the entire world. “Lucier, on my order, fire again!”

“With what energy?” Nowari asked. “You told them to give up all that they had.”

“And if they had, he would be dead!” She gestured out the window, at the speck on the horizon that was slowly imposing himself on fewer and fewer people’s senses. “If we miss this chance, we’ll never get another!” Her eyes burned a deeper red than usual. “Allowing the refugees to escape Atlantis was a mistake! Do not make it again!”

Nowari and Faro exchanged glances, nodded, and grabbed Emille’s arms.

“...Nowari! Faro! Unhand me this instant!”

“I’m sorry, Lady Emille,” Nowari sighed. “But we cannot abide this madness any longer.”

Niara relaxed, but did not release his hold on Eden’s citizens. Not quite yet. He looked to the sky, which he would only ever see overcast by the power of his Bloom. Peered at something beyond the eyesight of any of Eden’s residents, except perhaps for Emille.

“You’ve bought time for yourselves…” he murmured. “I will have to rest and consider all of this. Haze!”

The figure he was looking at revealed itself to Eden. Another Dragon made of metal, this one forged out of deadly weaponry. His voice, too, sounded like a weapon, sharp and clear to the point. “Yes, Niara?”

“Get down here!”

And then Haze, too, was hovering around Niara’s tower. “What in blazes is this? Something managed to hurt you, Niara?”

“Haze…”

“Remind me again how long you’ve been harvesting this crop? I thought we’d all told you to stop playing with your food.”

“I did not summon you to make a mockery of me, Sixth!” Niara’s wing flared. Haze wisely stopped talking. “Can you really fault me for liking a spot of entertainment with my dinner? I know you’ve indulged from time to time. Savored your meal a bit longer than you needed to.”

“My meals haven’t cost me any limbs.” He waved the swords that were his arms around. “Once I end up like you, I’ll know I should cut back.”

Niara sighed. “I was going to offer you the chance to share this meal. But if you’re going to be this way… I should have called on Fomalhaut.”

“You wouldn’t. The flavors you like are too different.” Haze’s laugh was a metallic ring, echoing like two swords meeting in battle. “I’ll behave. If you’d like me to add a seasoning of fear to this world, who am I to say no?”

He drifted towards the edge of the tower. Niara never took his eyes off him. “Don’t give in to your gluttony too quickly, now. I do have something in mind. Something that will remind Hypnos just what it is they’re dealing with. Something that will erase Eden as thoroughly as the planet that birthed them.”

“Merciless. I like it. Let’s see if this world is worth all the hype.” With that, Haze jumped off the tower. He plummeted in a storm of petals, Bloom trailing in his wake, until he crash-landed in the middle of a dense forest. Flowers spread from the crater, rippling across the land, until they covered the entirety of southern Miross.

With that, the True Dragons stopped imposing themselves upon Eden’s senses.

“Insubordination!” Emille declared as Faro and Nowari walked her down the stairs. “Do you forget what it is you’re dealing with!?”

“A woman who went mad at the sight of a single Dragon?” Nowari suggested. “Who demanded the genocide of the Lucier in order to kill one person she did not like?”

“It would have worked!” She attempted to get away again, only to see the entire floor staring at her. In this moment, there could be no escape. “And it would have worked the first time, too, if they’d all just died like they were supposed to!”

Faro’s grip on her tightened. “Lady Emille… I don’t understand…”

“Of course you don’t understand. Mortals could never hope to understand what a plague Niara is upon this world. This was going to be my moment! I waited for so long! There is no sacrifice too great to rid us of his blight!”

The crowd on the floor grew larger. People who barely ever poked their heads out of their labs gathered to watch the Chief Scholar as she melted down.

To watch as the guards came to take her from her assistants. Their faces were lowered, unwilling to look their leader in the eye.

Nowari handed her off gently. “What then? Say Niara was defeated. What about Haze?”

Emille didn’t look him in the eye. “Haze was not yet born when Hypnos died. My quarrel is with Niara.”

If she wished to keep her power, this was not the right thing to say.

“I see… so your concern isn’t truly for Eden, is it?” He didn’t wait for her to answer. “In that case… Chief Scholar Emille, you are relieved of duty, effective immediately.”

At some point, Murakumo had reached the base of the volcano. Kana couldn’t remember climbing down, so it must have happened while the Dragons were talking.

Or maybe they were just numb.

After that light, they didn’t think they could feel any other way.

“That voice…” Hanoi kept blinking up at the sky, like he expected Niara to appear there again. From Doma, his tower wasn’t even visible. “Was that the Chief Scholar?”

“You would know best,” Mark murmured. He would. He’d grown up on the same landmass as her. Had the most chances to hear her voice enough to recognize it.

It was a bit ridiculous to expect Emille’s voice to be audible by all the world, but a lot of things had happened that day that weren’t quite in line with anyone’s expectations. The voice sounded just like her. Who else could it be?

Kana didn’t care who’d said it. They cared about what had been said. About what those words implied, when combined with that cold light. “...We need to go to Nevanplace.”

“Are you certain?” Bailey asked. “I do not have knowledge of what that light could have been. But it doesn’t feel like the results will be nice for you to see.”

That was why they had to see it. To know what it was Emille had done, because whatever happened could only have been on her order. Could only have been the result of the letter she sent them to deliver.

Besides, what was the alternative? Just never returning to their own country?

The One-Winged Beast had taken enough from the Lucier. They weren’t going to impose an extra loss upon themself. “I have to know. And- and there should still be an Imperial Dragon around there, shouldn’t there? The one who destroyed Basho.”

Just for that, they had to go. At minimum, Tricia would want to avenge her village. Beyond that, slaying Imperial Dragons was kind of their thing.

Hopefully, there would be someone left who knew where they had to go for that.

“I understand.” Did she? Her homeland was safe behind the barrier she’d constructed. “In that case, once Arietta is somewhere safe… I have a location to suggest. We should visit it before we go to see.”

“Is this going to be like the trip to Marlleaire?”

“It shouldn’t, unless another Imperial Dragon has appeared.” Left unsaid was that there weren’t enough of them left for that. Just two unknowns, neither of them anywhere people visited enough to recognize. “But there is something there we might use. A power. I believe we will need all of that to achieve winning this war.”

And if she was just now suggesting they seek it out, she must have really felt it was necessary. Otherwise, she would have said something sooner.

And… she was probably right. Whatever that light had been, it had merely singed Niara. So Murakumo would have to be stronger than that. It was good logic, if the kind Kana hated to admit to.

The first step to success was admitting when they weren’t ready. “If you think it won’t take that long… I guess it’s not that urgent.” The damage had already been done. Now, all they had to do was take in the aftermath. Whatever it might have been.

“Maybe you can tell us that story on the way,” Hanoi suggested. “The one about Niara.”

It was a good idea. It was a story all of them needed to know, so they understood what they were dealing with.

So they understood why it was the Lucier had chosen to do… what it was they had done. So they would know the meaning of the light as clearly as if they were there to witness it.

So the warning could be carried by more than just Lucier.

They took a step into the Bloom. “There’s a lot of stories about him. I don’t know how true any of them are. But they mostly go the same way. I’ll tell you what I heard the most of, growing up. The starting point for all the others.”

They wouldn’t even have to think about it. In Pleron and Lucien both, the words were seared directly into their brain. If they could speak Aizo or Marero, those words would come to them easily as well.

Speaking them would be no harder than walking through this field of flowers.

Once, in a time long, long ago, as the humans were learning how to speak, there was a glimmering ocean. It stretched from sky to sky to sky, and contained a bounty of all kinds of fish. On a clear day, you could stand on the surface and see all the way to the rocks below.

On that sea was a great city. Its spires reached to the sky, glittering with the most precious metals, reflecting the sun as clearly as the water around it.

It was the home of the Lucier, and it was good. There were no harsh winters, and no storms that would bury them inside their homes. The royal family was good, and kind, and saw to their people’s every need. They were more than able to do so, as they possessed a special power, far beyond that of any Lucier today.

They lived good lives. Happy lives. They saw humanity begin to grow on land, and looked forward to the day they could welcome them into the civilized world.

They never got the chance.

Some say it was a manifestation of their greed. Others, of the evil lurking in the hearts of every being. Still others say it was a wandering creature, who saw the glory of the Lucier and craved it for itself, who wished to destroy anything it could not have.

But all agree on one thing. A beast emerged from the sky on wings that glimmered gold, body encrusted with gemstone. The world twisted around it, so that all Lucier would know that it existed, and what it looked like, and what its intentions were.

“I have come to devour you,” it said, as simply as if you might ask someone to pass the salt. Its voice was as smooth as a lake on a clear day, and as sweet as rose honey, so none could ignore its words. “For your lives were born of me, and to me you must return.”

The king and his men emerged from the palace to slay the beast. In his time, he had been a great warrior, defeating many a great sea monster. But the beast was craftier and more powerful than any such monster, and they were all devoured.

All seemed lost. Their king was strong, and led them well, and few could remember a time he had not protected them. In this time, more than anything, they needed a leader.

Of the king’s many children, his daughter was the only one who accepted the crown. She was young, but gifted in her family’s power, and possessed a courage as great as any Hunter’s.

She only ever spoke to her people once, as the city was buffeted by waves larger than any it had seen before, stirred up by creatures at the beast’s command. “The beast came because he saw this great city,” she declared. “Any who wish to survive should scatter to the winds. If he can’t see the spires, he will not know where to find you.”

Many chose to take her advice. They fled to the human lands, to the places that would become Aizhen and Nevan. They became our ancestors.

Some stayed. “What about you?” they asked her.

“I will not abandon the seat of my ancestors, and neither will my family.” As she spoke, the city’s great spires began to glow. “Those of you who wish to die for our people, I will not deny you. Come with me, and we will ensure the beast has no chance to follow our countrymen.”

Nobody knows what happened next. It is a tale that only the dead could tell. But any who turned for a last look at their homeland could see the spires disappear into a brilliant light.

When the light faded, the city was gone. The seas were in turmoil, and would not be crossed again for centuries on centuries.

Above the desolation floated the beast, alive despite whatever effort the young queen had mustered. But the sacrifice of those Lucier was not for nothing. One of the beast’s wings fell to the ocean below, swallowed up by the very waves it summoned.

Enraged, the beast vowed vengeance on the Lucier, and any who would shelter them. It would need time to recover before returning to the hunt, but return it would, more and more determined to see its oath through. Though the Lucier might best it again and again, it would never truly die, simply returning when it thought the time was right.

Some stay it still lurks, plotting another attempt at revenge. And thus, all Lucier must keep their wits about them, and their swords sharp, in case the day comes when it makes its return.

Beware that day. Beware a world that seems too beautiful to be true. Beware the darkening of the skies at midday. Beware those golden scales, and the gems that glitter within.

Beware the One-Winged Beast.

Beware the True Dragon Niara.

-Lucier oral tradition, as told by Hunter Kana of Murakumo, as recalled by Queen Bailey Finch of Marlleaire.

Chapter Text

Murakumo’s next destination was a small, rocky island to the north of Marlleaire. It didn’t look like much from a distance, just a bunch of gray shapes endlessly under siege by the swirling waves.

Or, it would have looked that way, were the rocky spires not covered in patches of bright red Bloom.

Still, even with the flowers, it looked nice and unassuming.

This was good. The people who designed the place had wanted it to be that way.

Bailey took a deep breath. For once, in a place clearly suffering an infestation of Dragons, she could smell the sea more clearly than the flowers. “We should be capable of docking over there.” She pointed to a large spire of stone next to a shallow slope. “It is the most plast- plauda- most likely point of entrance.”

There wasn’t any sort of official landing point on the island. That sort of thing was reserved for places people were meant to visit.

Kana leaned over the side of the ship. “What is this place?”

“It is… the Heimel Sanctuary.” She was sure the name meant something in Pleron, but the word just wasn’t coming to her. “It was meant to be the resting place of the Marero’s great treasures. I suppose it was too much to hope the Dragons would have left it alone.” Why had no one told her it had been taken by the Bloom?

The waves intensified. This meant they were approaching the shore. The waters around the sanctuary were said to be much more turbulent than all but the inner seas. She’d always thought that was an exaggeration, but she couldn’t say she was all that surprised to have been wrong.

After all, if every source on a subject was untrustworthy, that would be worse than the thing never being written down at all.

“...Is it all right for us to be here?” Mark asked.

“As heir, it is my right to be here.” None ever went, content to leave the past where it was. They had no need of such power, at least that would be worth the effort of seeking it. None had pledged to themselves that they would see a True Dragon slain. “If anyone is here to ask, we will say you are part of my entourage.”

There wouldn’t be anyone there, even if there might have been at other times. If there were Dragons present, either they had chased the Amazons off, or the Amazons had decided the presence of Dragons was a strong enough deterrent to intrusion that they weren’t needed. Possibly one was used to justify the other.

Tricia balanced on the side of the ship, her eyes constantly darting between the railing she was perched on and the pebble-lined shore. “You think we could be questioned.”

“It shouldn’t be a problem.” There shouldn’t have been anyone there to make it one. Not when the island was so deeply cloaked in flowers. “This place is not as sacred as the Tower of the Gods.”

“That’s not reassuring,” Mark sighed.

Well, there wasn’t any time left for second thoughts. They were at the sanctuary. There were Dragons to kill. They were the only people there prepared to do so.

They had to do it, just like they had to be there in the first place.

The pebbles under Bailey’s feet crunched as if they were nothing but Bloom.

Kana felt like they shouldn’t have been there.

For one thing, the way Bailey worded things implied that the island was at least mildly sacred ground. And that it was the kind of place people were supposed to say they were going to ahead of time. And, of course, it was a Marero thing, with all that entailed, on a day when, if changing things around had been easier, they might have wanted to try being a boy for a bit.

And, even if they ignored all that, the fact remained that there was one place they really wanted to be instead. Just to see what the damage was.

But there were Dragons in Heimel Sanctuary. That changed things a little. Kana was always willing to fight Dragons.

The opening of the cave was small. This did not mean the Dragons inside would be small, but it did mean the tips of their ears brushed cold, damp stone. As they went inside, the path widened until that stopped happening, but in exchange, the scent of salt became even stronger.

So did the smell of the Bloom.

It was hard to tell which one was stronger.

Kana was pretty sure that, by the time this was over, their nose wasn’t going to work anymore. Their eyes weren’t happy, either, having to peer through a place that hadn’t seen any light in years.

…No light that was supposed to be there, at least. “What’s that?” Tricia asked, pointing at a small light in the distance. “Is it… moving?”

“It’s a Dragon.” It made just enough light to see that, at least, a flat face rimmed with spikes resting on top of a pool of water. “The light’s some kind of antenna, I think. Not like a bug has, more like… some kind of fishing pole?”

“...Like an overgrown anglerfish.” They had no idea what Bailey was talking about. “Or.. Angler Dragon, I suppose. It must use its light to lure prey.”

If Kana hadn’t been there, with their better night vision, would the others have been lured? They decided they didn’t want to know the answer.

Instead, they reached for their sword. “At least it’ll be easy to kill them. Do you think they taste like fish, too?” The Gryphonus and Igorias had both tasted sort of like birds. The Dragons in Hiyoron Grotto had looked like fish, too, but they hadn’t had the chance to try eating them. But it felt right that they should taste like the animals they resembled.

“Please do not eat a Dragon you killed in a sacred place.” So it was too sacred to hunt in, but not so sacred they didn’t need permission to be there? Wasn’t it usually the other way around? “We have plenty of food on the ship.”

But they could get that food at any time. Dragons were a limited resource. There only ever seemed to be a handful of each kind.

After Hiyoron Grotto, they’d never seen Faerie Dragons or Enshentas again. They suspected the same would be true of the Angler Dragons.

And, compared to them, the Angler Dragons were a lot more interesting.

“There are plenty of other reasons not to eat them,” Mark pointed out. “I don’t know what process is creating that glow, but it could well make them more inedible than usual.” And, he left unsaid, most people didn’t like eating Dragons, anyway.

This was good. This was a conversation Kana was used to. The sort of thing they could talk about anywhere, so it didn’t really matter where they were. It would go the same way no matter what.

If they focused on that, maybe where they were would stop feeling so important.

Maybe it’d be enough for them to stop thinking about where they weren’t.

It turned out that Angler Dragons weren’t the only things lurking in the waters.

“Dragonfish!” Kana called, and Hanoi flung up a barrier of compressed air in time to catch a… well… Dragonfish. Its jaw was strong, and its fins were razor sharp, and it was bigger than a person, and those were the only interesting things about it. It was just a Dragonfish.

He was pretty sure he’d eaten normal fish that looked like that, just smaller and in different colors.

He wasn’t going to say that out loud. If he did, Kana might have encouraged him to seek a more direct comparison.

There were many things about Dragons he was curious about. Their flavor was not one of them.

Tricia shot the fish through the eye. It fell, crushing a patch of Bloom beneath it. “How many do we think are left?”

“I think we’ll only know they are gone when the Bloom is,” Bailey admitted. “This place is meant to be deso- isolated. I haven’t been told enough about it to begin guessing.”

“Do you at least know what we’re looking for?” Hanoi asked.

“Yes. It should be behind a Ronam lock.” Okay. Good. Most of them had seen those before. If they were all made of the same material as the ones in the Tower of the Gods, they’d be easy to recognize.

Big, blue crystals. Just as smooth as the pebbles they’d stepped across on the beach. Nice and noticeable.

They even glowed, a little, so they’d also have light to work by. That might have been part of why the cave had no lanterns. Or maybe it was just that the seawater would make them useless too quickly. Or it was a cultural thing.

Instead of asking about it, he set to removing the Dragonfish’s bones. He was sure a bonecarver somewhere would enjoy working with the material. It wasn’t every day someone had the opportunity to make something from Dragon bones. The skeleton was even reasonably proportioned, which was more than he could say about, for example, the Tower Dragons.

He wasn’t going to say this out loud, either. It didn’t matter that bone carving and cooking were two incredibly different disciplines, Kana would definitely use it to try and justify their habit of eating Dragons.

For now, at least, they were focused on more immediate priorities. “Will they be the same material as the ones from the tower?” they asked.

“They should be.” Bailey started pacing, as if that would bring the instruments into view. With how little light was in the cavern, were it not for their natural glow, one could be right next to them and only Kana would have much chance of noticing. “Ronam construction has been the same for long enough for the purpose of it to be forgotten.”

Hanoi wondered if any of the tomes rotting in Pleroma’s warehouses would have the answer. He wasn’t about to suggest looking. It wouldn’t be useful right then.

Either the answers existed, and they didn’t have time to track them down, or they didn’t, and they definitely didn’t have the time to prove that. At best, it was a question for once the Dragons were banished from Eden. It was the only time they would have the time.

More than that, it would require him to decide how he felt about hearing Emille’s voice in the sky. “And you don’t want to change anything, because you might learn why it’s necessary the hard way?”

“Something like that.” Okay. Great. It was only a few degrees removed from being basic lab safety. He could understand that.

He didn’t understand why anything so valuable to be kept locked up like this would be in a place that clearly hadn’t seen maintenance in centuries, but it wasn’t his place to worry about that. His place was to assist in killing and disassembling the pest problem. Anything else was for Bailey alone to worry about.

And her people, once she had the power to make it their problem.

If she decided to.

Hanoi didn’t think it was his place to ask about that, either.

It was easy to tell when all the Dragons were gone, as the stench of the Bloom was almost immediately overpowered by the seawater flowing through the cave. Murakumo was left in almost complete darkness, like Eclipse was towering over them once again.

This, supposedly, was how Heimel Sanctuary was supposed to be.

Bailey’s education had never covered how it got to be this way. What it was now had always been the important thing.

Now, standing in the darkness, she wondered if there was anyone left who would know. “Now that’s been dealt with… it is time to see if we’ve found all the Ronam.” And to activate them, which would leave the treasure open for the taking.

That was the bit that had been part of her education. A contingency that no one really believed would ever be necessary. Technically, that entire lesson had been nothing but a formality.

On that same technicality, none of this was forbidden.

It just… wasn’t the expected thing.

But it was the thing she had to do. So none of those expectations mattered, really. Precedent stopped mattering once the situation became something new.

“Why are all of your treasures locked with musical instruments, anyway?” Tricia asked. “I understand that music is a large part of your culture, but I don’t know how that turns into…” Bailey didn’t quite understand the words she said next. Given how only Kana didn’t seem confused by them, it must have been a regional term, if not actual Lucien.

Either way, it was… probably a good question. She’d never seen these sorts of locks in the outside world, after all. Of course others would be confused by them. She wasn’t convinced that wasn’t the point.

It just… made answering harder, if she wanted people who hadn’t grown up in the same context to understand. Particularly when she was the heir, and was thus mildly obligated to care about the conclusions they came to about her country.

“It is said,” she began, hiding behind a tale told mostly to small girls to explain why they would never see their fathers or brothers again, “that Marlleaire is a nation built on Song, and that men can neither have nor understand the power of Song, so they have no place in Marlleaire. It is up to you how much belief you place in that. It shouldn’t surprise you to hear that those who become Marero as adults have… certain opinions about men.”

“We’ve noticed,” Kana and Hanoi chorused.

Given that those two were on the island for about four hours total, half of it spent walking between the palace, the market, and their ship, that really said all it needed to.

Bailey reached out to touch the first Ronam. The crystal was smooth, with no sign of cracks. “There has never been a time when every other nation’s military was only men, but they did not believe anyone but a man would be capable of wishing to raid their holy places. Therefore, they chose the option they believed would make it completely impossible to do so.”

She couldn’t say whether it had paid off or not. Or if there’d even been reason to find out. Marlleaire’s archives, at least, held no written records of that sort of attempted attack. If it had happened, no one had cared to remember it.

She could say, however, that for someone with the power of Song, it really was as simple as just walking in and taking what she wanted. If the sanctuary had operated on normal locks, requiring physical keys, she wouldn’t have been able to do that.

She would have had to return to Marlleaire. Plead her case. Explain why she wanted to take their treasures out into a world made half of people half the adults hated, and many of the children were taught to fear.

For her purposes, it was good that the security system had been built like this.

For her country… that was much less certain. And also harder to question. So no one ever did, and they hoped that would be good enough.

The rest of Murakumo said nothing about the practicality, or lack thereof, of the setup. But Mark took a step closer to her. “You don’t agree?”

“It’s hard to, when I know where those thoughts can lead.” First Ronam activated. On to the next. “...In Marlleaire, it’s only legally considered infanticide if the child is a girl. Supposedly, this hasn’t come up in a hundred years or so. On a related note, I haven’t spoken to my mother since becoming heir.”

She’d let them draw their own conclusions from that.

The darkness made Heimel Sanctuary’s hidden treasures impossible to see. Bailey placed her chosen objects in a soft cloth bag, and carried it gently to the entrance. In the daylight, she removed it, revealing circles of blue crystal.

They reflected the light strangely, as if they were part of the sea rather than a solid mass. The larger crystals might have been like that, too, but it was hard to tell. There hadn’t been a lot of chances to observe them under daylight.

Either way, in Bailey’s hands, it was impossible to deny that they very much looked like the precious treasure they’d been announced as.

“Together, these make one portable Ronam,” she explained.

Of course they did. Kana had never seen that crystal used for anything else. “How does it work?”

“They’re meant to harm-harv-” Her eyebrows furrowed.

“Harmonize?” Hanoi suggested.

“...Yes. They are made to harmonize with my voice.” She carefully placed the larger one, the tiara, on her head, and pressed a switch. As she spoke, the crystals now adorning her body lit up. “How does this sound?”

Different. Lighter. Something that more clearly had power behind it, because it wasn’t quite a sound a person could make alone.

Something about it reminded Kana of the war machine they’d fought. “It sounds… almost mechanical?” That didn’t feel quite right, but it was the best word they had for it.

The next closest word would probably be something to do with insects. Or Dragonflies. Neither felt like a good comparison for a friend’s voice.

“Mechanical?” Tricia repeated. “What do you mean like that?”

“Like… when you open a door with a lever. Or something.”

“Perhaps you’re hearing the Ronam’s inner workings?” Mark suggested. “Your ears would be more sensitive to this sort of thing.”

Was that it? Was this instrument simply tuned to appeal to human ears?

Kana wondered if Marlleaire had ever been ruled by a Lucier. Maybe, if it had been, it was after these treasures were put away. “That could be it. Or it could just be old. It doesn’t matter what it sounds like, as long as it works, right?”

“If only you can hear it, I’m sure my singing voice will be able to make up for it.” They couldn’t tell if Bailey actually believed what she was saying. Either way, she deactivated the instrument. “If it becomes a problem, there should be craftswomen who would know how to fix it.” She didn’t ask if they could go visit those people now.

Good. Kana wasn’t sure they could handle another detour. Already, their eyes kept flicking up, towards the distant shape of Mount Jomaron. Towards a land that they knew wouldn’t be the same as when they last saw it.

Their destination, or at least the closest they had to a marker of it. Something they’d always be able to point to, no matter what happened to the town. No matter if the town was still there or not.

The sooner they were there, the sooner they could understand what had happened to their people.

The sooner they’d know what, if anything, they could do about it.

The sooner they’d know if there was still a people to return to.

The sooner they could start getting revenge. By slaying the Imperial Dragon in that land, by scouring the place of other Dragons. By following their ancestors in battling Niara. Maybe by punching Emille in the face.

There were a lot of things they’d have to do.

Returning to the ship from the beach, the air felt lighter. It still smelled as salty and fishy as ever, but something about it was easier to breathe. Maybe it was just that they no longer felt they were intruding on something forbidden.

Or maybe it was that they were finally getting somewhere. “We have two options. We can sail up, or we can take a portal.” The continent wasn’t that far away, but it was a long walk. The nearest portal they could think of was in Pleroma.

Where Emille would be.

Neither option felt appealing.

Whatever choice they made, at least they wouldn’t be wet and covered in salt for much longer. And they could probably stop for food. As long as they had things like that, they were sure they could keep going.

They stopped on Pleroma’s island just long enough to go to the portal. The tree was the same as ever, crimson leaves and golden bark and odd piles of stone scattered around its roots, twisting into the dirt with no sign they weren’t part of it.

The only difference was that, once again, Faro was standing there. “Oh! Murakumo. I was hoping you would pass through.”

If things were different, Hanoi would have asked if she had a task for them. If there was a problem. Why she would care enough to be standing under the portal tree for an extended period of time, with no promise they would ever show up.

But all of them saw Niara. All of them heard Emille speaking with the same volume as the True Dragons. All of them saw the light that split the sky in two.

All of them heard what she had to say after.

There was no reason for him to pretend otherwise. “What did she do?”

For the same reason, there was no point for her to lie. So he couldn’t tell himself that what she said next was anything other than the truth. “There is a certain weapon in Nevan. It has the power to transform life energy into destructive force. When Niara appeared… it must have seemed like an opportunity.”

“So, when she said that…” Kana took a deep breath, fangs bared. He didn’t think he’d ever been scared of them before, but now, it felt very unwise not to be. “...That we shouldn’t have survived past Atlantis…”

“The Lucier walked to their fates willingly, but she was the one who told them to do it. And the one who insisted their willing sacrifice was not enough. For that reason… Lady Emille is no longer the Chief Scholar of Pleroma.”

Hanoi thought he should have had feelings about this. Emille had been in charge for as long as he could remember.

But he remembered how Kana had stared aimlessly into the sky, long after Haze and Niara stopped projecting themselves on it. Maybe that was just… the natural response to the world changing beneath them. He was only now noticing because it just now applied to him.

The appearance of the Dragons didn’t count. He’d been unconscious for most of that. “Who will be her replacement?”

“For now, Nowari has taken on her duties.” He wondered how long ‘for now’ would last. He’d never heard of this sort of thing happening before. “I don’t know… how long it will be until we have a better answer, or a path forward.”

If they would. Emille had the most knowledge of Dragons out of anyone.

Maybe it didn’t matter as much, with how little she’d cared to share it.

The grass crunched, along with a few fallen red leaves. Kana stepped into the place they’d stood before being whisked away to fight Invisible. “We’re going to Nevanplace.”

“I thought you might.” She stood up, and began walking away from the tree. “...I don’t know what you’ll see there. The king didn’t tell us how many volunteers he’d gathered. But… once you’ve done what you have to, come back here. We’ll need to decide a new battle plan. You should be part of that.”

She vanished into the distance, clearly satisfied that her message had been delivered.

That was how Faro was, when she had to announce things. There just long enough to be sure she’d been heard. This wasn’t anything new.

Hanoi couldn’t quite pull his eyes away from that spot. Like, if he watched long enough, she’d turn back and say it was a joke. That they’d heard someone else, back when Niara appeared.

That the person he’d been told to admire his whole life hadn’t done something like that. “...Kana. When we get there…”

“It’ll be bad. I know.” Their eyes faded to their normal yellow-green. “I told you the story. If we come out of this still having our civilization… that’s an improvement.”

If.

There was no time to confront Emille. They had an Imperial Dragon to track down.

Mark lifted the Portal Key, and Murakumo was transported to a land of snow and grief.