Chapter Fifteen

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

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The room Thean had led Jace into was adjacent to the main garganduant ball room, but it was still elegant and beautiful, immense windows jutted out of the building like a ship keel looking out on a courtyard full of happy people gathering on a courtyard with lanterns of every color. When he was a kid, he had once attended the Fairlawn City Harvest Festival, and that’s what it kind of reminded him of.
​Before the window, a wide plush bench stood, and Thean sat down on top of it.
​After a few moments of no progression Jace looked around, kind of stunned and clearly confused.
​“Umm … you’re not gonna … like kill me or anything are you?” He remembered playing the odds about a week ago when the golden rider was riding towards him, and now as the time went on, he found himself thinking of them again, and he hoped Darvin’s 70% estimate held true.
​“You were supposed to have a meeting with the Tear today, were you not? After your,” he smiled. “Carnival display?”
​“I was busy. I meant to, but I …”
​“Yes, sure you were. Well now, because you skipped that, it’s fallen on me to explain some things.”
​“Sir, that really isn’t …”
​“Sit down.”
​Jace walked over to a chair near him and sighed as he took a seat. Then he looked over and actually smiled at Thean.
​“You’re drunk, old man,” he said with a smile.
​“Yes,” Fenlow quickly answered. “You bet your ass, I am.” Now he looked down at his glass filled halfway with red liquid that almost had a strange glow to it, moved the glass in a circular motion, looking down into it, and then back up to Jace. “30 years ago,” he said, just jumping into it. There were reports of strange attacks happening out in the wilderness. Merchants told tales of being robbed by magic, explosions, men using bright colored gemstones and plants to create explosions and do things out of thin air. Then, when a high ranking dignitary and his family were attacked during one particular time to an old retreat home they had out on the plains, the Council contacted the Outrider Order, and asked Constable Farrell to send a point team to invesitage the strange occurrences by any means necessary.” He trailed off, reflecting. “Constable Farrell,” he said, with a half breath half grunt. “A real merciless son of a bitch, that one,” he said. A few minutes passed and then he remembered himself, looked down to his drink. “Right,” he said, looking back up to Jace. “It was called Operation Longstreet.”

***

​For years I wondered what you must have on him, knowing it must have been something, now I know.

And I also know who the golden riders are.

“Operation Longstreet?” one of the Senators asked and then there was some mumbling around the table. “What in blazes are you talking about, Praetor Ducheyne?”
​Katic’s eyes hadn’t left him and Aleister never wavered, still.
​“Senator Katic? Consul Leverette?” he asked while never taking his eyes off of the Senator. “Care to fill the rest of these fine gentlemen in?”
​“Everyone get out,” Katic said.
​Again mumbling.
​And for the first time, Katic took his eyes away from Ducheyene, but only just briefly to the rest of the men sitting around the table.
​“Out. Now,” he said with venom and this was beginning to cause a stir.
​“Okay, okay, now let’s calm down,” Leverette said, patting the air and sounding exceedingly nervous. “Please, gentlemen, let us have the room for a moment as we work this rather private matter out.”
​The rest of the Senators, while not at all happy about it followed out, and the servant followed them out. Katic watched them out and after the heavy door closed, Leverette, still standing, was the first to speak.
​“Alright, Preaetor Ducheyene, what exactly is the meaning of this?”
​“Who cares what he wants!” Katic yelled out with venom. “This is an outrage!”
​“What do I want, your Grace?” Aleister asked, he still looked very relaxed and tweaked some ash over the side of his armchair. “It’s quite simple, really. I want to talk about the Illumanar, the mysterious golden riders you’ve known about since the beginning. I want to talk about the compromise you made so that you might walk the halls of power.” Now he looked over to Katic. “I want to talk how you’re desperately trying to betray your country a second time to save yourself.”
​Katic stood up.
​“You don’t honestly expect to sit here and listen to this?!”
​Aleister nodded a little, flicking ash off of his cigar.
​“Well, yes, I do as a matter-of-fact,” he said with a smirk. “Otherwise how will you feign outrage in the upcoming moments? Not to say I don’t understand, however,” he said looking over to Katic. “If anyone has reason to make a deal with the devil, it’s you….”​
​Anger overtaking him he looked down and Katic was almost growling out his words.
​“I should have known … we all should have known. How you spent so much time with the wizardess during her time here. Conspiring with her, conjuring up these lies.”
​Artemus stayed cool, calm and colleted. Precisely the calm and always being in control that drove Katic mad. It was passed on to him by his father, the outrider blood in his veins.
​“What was the deal, anyway? Make it easy for the army to infiltrate Veil’driel and maybe you could head up whatever puppet government he put in place? Or maybe he just wouldn’t have his men cut you into pieces? Funny enough, you betrayed your country for nothing. Because the army on its way, from across the sea, are gonna cut you into pieces anyway. Artemus, you see, was merely counting on your cowardice. A cowardice he knows all too well because of your actions 30 years ago, isn’t that right?”
​“I don’t have to sit here and listen to this!” Katic started and then started to storm out of the room.
​“No, actually, you do,” Leverette said, staring at Aleister and holding up a single finger. “I’m through lying. I’m sick from all the lies. What do you wanna know, Aleister?”
​“You can’t honestly be entertaining this-”
​“Don’t make me call the Scarlet Guard, Neville.”
​For the first time, it appeared as if there was something other than rage in Katic’s eyes. Indeed, there was fear.
​“Sit,” Leverette said, in a way he hadn’t talked to Katic ever and he complied like a child. Then he looked back to the Praetor. “Okay, Aleister, you have what you wanted, where would you like to begin? Operation Cool Name, if I recall.”
​Aleister flicked some ash, nodding.
​“Operation Cool Name was during the administration of Consul Heywood, isn’t that right?” Artemus began. “There were mysterious magical attacks happening in the plains, and he assigned a politician, top secret, to act as liason to the High Council on the mission.”
​
***

​
“Political liason?”
​“To the High Council,” Thean was saying, drunk.
​Jace was suddenly struck with the memory of Tillian Bren being there during the Fairlawn campaign, but said nothing.
​“Who was it?”
​“Never knew,” Foy said. “It was kept anonymous. All communication was done through the liason through written communication.”
​“Is that normal?”
​“Hell no, it’s not normal. But nothing about this mission was normal. It’s all about politics, and this has been done before. That way if something goes wrong, they can pull the plug, deny everything, and there’s no way to trace it back to the First Consul or to the liason we were talking to.”
​“Nice,” Jace said sarcastically.
​Now Thean started to drift, scratching his chin.
​“For months there was no word. We looked everywhere, followed leads, we’d go to where the attacks were taking place and then there’d be nothing. Like ghosts. And some of the attacks. The attacks were beautiful. People with melted spines, entire families, butchered, often times for their possessions or sometimes there would have been nothing of value taken at all.”
​Jace was transfixed. Outside through the window he saw Malcolm. Too far away to see detail cuz he was above, but he could tell it was him.
​“Until one day, we caught up with them.”
​Jace was leaning back, like a child being told a story.
​“Where?”
​“We eventually followed their trail. We caught up with them,” he paused, appreciating the significance. “On the edge of Terrill Silva.”
​But Jace did not react.
​“We battled them but they had superhuman strength, manipulating precious stones to give them things like superhuman strength and all kinds of things. Agility, so fast you couldn’t even catch them. During the battle we were rescued when Jaden appeared and saved us, but Artemus had been severely injured. In fact, it didn’t seem like he was going to survive.”
​Jace sat back a little, already seeing the parallels.
​“For months he covalesced at Lornda Manor and we all hung out there. She told us about Ciridian, how we forgot the name and about how everything had become divided and cold over the long generations. Much of what you learned in the communion vault through the word of your cousin and Artemus, is what we learned over our stay there. To Ailmar and I, it was all very fascinating, but Gabriel became obsessed. Burying himself in the library there, always hungry for more information.”
​“Then what happened?”
​“When Artemus regained consciousness and made a full recovery physically, there was something different about him. He began having visions and things. Growing more distant, more focused, more single-minded. He and Jaden began to grow closer, she would tell him the complexities of things and we would just seem to naturally understand them. Shocking us all, and they started traveling the entire world together. And they…”
​“They what?”
​“Oh, you know,” Thean said, drunk.
​Jace didn’t.
​“Became a couple,” Jaden suggested, and she walked in.
​Foy followed her in and closed the door behind them both as Jaden went on.
​“Falling in love, whatever you wanna call it.”
​Jace raised his eyebrows, shocked by he words and sudden appearance.
​“Why do I get the feeling I’m being amushed?” he said.
​“Because you are,” Foy said.
Jace looked over to Thean with a frown.
​He squinted and remembered from his vision, though he wasn’t young anymore he saw the resemblance.
“Gabriel Foy,” he said.
​“Yes. Congraultations. Pay attention.”
“The attacks continued, started to get worse, and the Tears hidden throughout the land started reporting what was really happening. It wasn’t just Orinus and Valith, but they had a group of followers. Supernatural thugs, and they were starting to attack the villages on the plains. Orinus and Valith were of the belief that Tears should rule the world. An unfortunate position which has caused problems around the world since the beginning of time as you all know it, since the splitting of the Sun Kingdom and its merge into the existence as it is defined today. Most of which was never reported as while the Republic claims rule over the lands they don’t really control them.”
​“So what did you do?” Jace asked.
​“I told them we were going to have to go to Bryce Valley, home of the shamans, as they were hidden by the same illusion magic. They were the most powerful magical beings on the planet, tuned in to a point beyond any Tear, but they purposely stayed out of sight of the world and isolated and hidden in places all over the continent. Later, looking over their civilization, people in Veil’driel and Sindell would call them druids, and we needed their help before Valith and Orinus, those thugs could do any more damage. We went to the Valley, we used their help, they helped us beat Valith and Orinus but they all retreated into Sindell and started causing the same kinds and amount of problems.”
​“I went back to Fairlawn to alert our mysterious political liason, to drop a message of our project into the assigned box,” Thean said.

***

​“But you didn’t deliver the message of correct progress, did you?” Aleister was saying, and Katic was very still, seething. “You never relayed to the First Consul or High Council that these magical beings had retreated into Sindell, with the help of a wizardess called Jaden and our Outrider point team? You took Fenlow Thean’s report and you lied. Because you were afraid of the revelation of magical beings. You hated what they represented, you were scared..
​Leverette crossed his hands and put his elbows on the table and put his chin on top of it and sighed.
​“These magical beings, these sorcerors and heretics posed a threat to national security, to everything we believed in. They had to be slaughtered, not aided. You think you can coexist with them?”
​“So you sent word to Sindell. You sent word to bomb Bryce Valley because that was the headquarters of where the magical beings threatening our continent lived. You took the information provided by the outrider point team of this concentration, these powerful beings in Bryce Valley, and you told the King of Sindell, William Bryce’s father, that the only way to save his kingdom was to destror Bryce Valley, knowing that it was only a small part of the supernatural population on this continent that had done bad things led by two rogues called Orinus and Valith.”
​“Yes, two rogues,” Katic seethed. “With a group of followers, and thank god for that. No being should have supernatural powers on this earth except for the Gods in heaven. How long before there were more and more rogues? Before they all went bad? They could form an army at any time and wipe us all out!”
​“But they didn’t,” Aleister said. “See that’s the thing. They existed thousands of years before any governments on this continent, in secret, watched over by Jaden from her isolated place in Lornda Manor, the shamans staying in Bryce Valley. And yes, there were bad apples in Valith and Orinus who eventually made them known to this entire continent. If they had ill intentions towards us, the majority I’m talking about, they would have acted long ago and they didn’t. and when the time came, and those bad apples came out, they helped us. The shamans in Bryce Valley, Jaden from Lornda Manor, they helped us.” He leaned back looking at Katic. “But you had your classified top secret information. You knew their hideout, where they hid themselves for aeons by illusion magic, and this was your chance. You could use the Sindell Air Force.”
​“Yes, and I’m not ashamed of any of it. I would do it again!”
​“How did you do it?” Artemus asked.
​“Enough of your questions!” Katic shot back.
​“We sent a scout,” Leverette said. “In secret through back roads in Bryce Valley that would not draw attention. We sent him to Sindell City to tell them everything you just said. And the only way to save their Kingdom would be to bomb Bryce Valley.”
​“With the outriders still there!”
​“Collateral damage, to save our entire continent!” Katic said.
​For the frist time Aleister was angry and stood up, his chair falling to the ground behind him.
​“Shut your mouth!” he yelled down and Katic seemed startled. “There is an order on this continent far older than any nation. They lived in secret, passed down from father to son to daughters for aeons, the population on this continent. See, why the Tears, these magical beings lived on this continent were a secret to us, they were not a secret to the order or underheard of. This Order was called the Illumanar.”
​Leverette and Katic exchanged a glance.
​“What are you talking about now?” Katic asked.
​“Oh, well, it doesn’t surprise me that you’ve never heard of them,” Aleister said, still furious. “I myself didn’t know of them until last evening, when Artemus told me.
​“You can communicate with him?” Leverette asked, astonished, but simultaneously nervous.
​“I was in the communion vault last night and he contacted me.”
​“Haven’t you been preaching that he is a traitor for the last three months?”
​“I have,” Artemus said. “And he is. But he no longer has any reason to lie to me. He’s already accomplished his goal in luring our forces away from Veil’driel. His trap is already sprung. And so he has no reason to lie about this secret order I was telling you about. The Illumanar.”
​

***

“Golden riders to you,” Jaden said.
Jace scratched his chin, he was beginning to get a little angry.
“Go on,” he said.
​“They’re an ancient order, their sole purpose to protect the Tears, protect magical users in times of need. In times of great threat to the Tears they were called on to be defended.”
​“That time came thirty years ago,” Thean said, and he stared at Jace awhile after speaking to gauge the reaction. A reaction that barely registered as he was still looking at Jaden waiting for her to go on.
​“While we were in Bryce Valley, a scout was called, one of Senator Neville Katic’s personal emissaries ran through the Valley, and when we stopped him, he said he was sent to warn Sindell that Orinus and Valith and their supporters retreated into Sindell. And that was their immediate decision after being warned. And we were all to stay put in Bryce Valley.”
“What we didn’t know,” Foy said, was that he was really going to tell Sindell to bomb Bryce Valley under false pretenses. That it was the only way to save their kingdom. Three days later, as all of us were in the valley, the valley was attacked by the airships,” Jaden went on. “During the bombing Ailmar Ducheyene was killed,” he glanced over to Thean. “Thean and I raced to try and save the population from their home in the caverns, but we were too late, they all caved in and everyone was killed.”
“It was because we mapped the Valley,” Thean said. “You see? As part of our reconnasicne we mapped the entire Valley for our government. They used that to tell Sindell where exactly to strike so the people never had a chance.” He said as if he deserved hatred from this, never got over the guilt, but Jace just looked back to Foy.
“When we returned to the Valley floor, after the attack, we found Ailmar Ducheyne was dead there, Artemus was critically wounded, dying. Jaden was standing over him.” Now he stopped, as if this next part should have special importance to Jace. “His wounds miraculously healed, and he was restored.”
“How?” Jace asked.
“Because he was fulfilling a destiny,” Jaden said. “When the Illumanar are needed, they are captained by someone picked by the fates, the very powers that the Sun Kingdom is all about. The greatest ambassador and champion of the most powerful nation in the land to lead the bodyguards, the Illumanar of the Tears while simultaneously trying to find a peaceful resolution.”
“That person was Artemus Ward,” Thean said.
“He and I returned to Lornda Manor,” Foy said.

***

“And Thean returned home with my father’s body,” Aleister said. “He wanted to tell the population the truth about what happened, but you convinced him not to. You knew the truth, knew that you were all responsible, but convinced him that for the sake of national security, secrecy was the best option. That the people wouldn’t understand or could not be trusted. Like the government of Veil’driel has lied and covered up to the public since it’s inception going all the way back to Jonathan Silva’s expedition where the government’s explanation, rather than simply admit what happened, stunted expansion.”
“Oh, and now you will blame us for that I suppose? Why not for bad weather as well?”
“Maybe not you personally, but the philosophy of your forefathers passed down and down and down. A philosophy of hiding the truth and half truths and politics.”
Leverette leaned a little forward.
Aleister went on.
“So, too you covered up what happened in Bryce Valley. Said you didn’t know what happened to Foy and Artemus and why not? Artemus was a big hero of the time, but the populace barely knew of the others. So you made Thean Constable, his life dream to calm him down, and to also use him to instill the ideals you wanted. You used him to fade the prominence of the Outrider order more and more, thinking you won this whole time. That the magic users, these wizards had been blown off the face of the earth.”
Katic leaned back.
Leverette sighed.
“And then your chickens came home to roost, didn’t they? The attacks on Fairlawn City. You must not have known what to do until my cousin pushed them back near single-handedly. Then Jaden arrived, you found out Artemus was working with her. Must have been nerve-racking at first, but lucky for you he had never found out it was you,” he looked to Katic. “Katic who had been the political liason who betrayed them all.” Aleister leaned back. “Only he did, Neville. He knew everything.”​

***

“How?” Jace asked. “How could he have found out the mysterous liason that betrayed the original point team?”
Foy sighed.
“Arkhelan told him. Arkhelan can see and know things in ways we don’t know about. He told Artemus everything, about Neville, Leverette, the betrayal.”
“Then Hazel got sick using the Tunnels of Armegeddon,” Jaden said. “And it must have been the last straw. Though I thought he was still loyal to me, he apparently wasn’t. As it turned out, he was using his knowledge of Veil’driel and scouting prime targets for the tears that were not obeying me any longer but obeying him under the authority of Arkhelan. All the while feeding me false intelligence of mysterious armies occupying Veil’driel, the same lies he used to take over the rest of the continent. All in his quest to conquer it all, to hold dominion over all the nations and await Arkhelan’s arrival. Seems so foolish now, but it’s amazing what you’ll believe when you want to.”
​“Yeah,” Jace said. “He tried to kill you in Bryce Valley. He’s the one who sent Valith and Orinus.”
​“I would guess that now.”
​Jace looked over to Thean, disappointed and a little hurt.
​“And you went along with all of this. You knew the government was covering up this tragedy, were phasing out the importance and the grandeur of the Outrider Order, the prestige, until it declined,” he remembered something Artemus had told him in the caverns. “To where Senator Bren, on that first night, had to be told what an Outrider was. You presided over the decline of our order and for what? Why? They wanted to cover up what happened in Bryce Valley and you let them!”
​Thean did not react, or get angry, he sat there and took the accusations as though he felt he deserved them.
​“At my request,” Jaden said. “He stayed Constable to train you personally when the time came, and to watch over you until that time came.”
​“Why?”
​“To watch over you, boy,” Foy said. “Because of who your parents were.”
​Jace leaned down and put his hand on his forehead.
​“Oh please don’t tell me this is the part where you tell me my father, who I never knew, was some legendary figure and now I have this grand destiny I never knew about.”
​“No. Your father was a womanizer, a gambler, and a drunk,” Thean said quickly.
​There was a moment of silence, and the slight disappointment of Jace.
​“Oh,” he said, suddenly thinking that secret destines weren’t that bad.
“Your mother,” Jaden said. “It was your mother is how I knew.”
“We thought it was Aleister at first, the son of Ailmar,” Foy said. “But by his fifth birthday, we knew his path, while equally as critical was not the one we thought.”
“I asked Fenlow to watch over Ailmar’s whole family, however, and five years later you were born. Your mother died in child birth, and you were sent to live with your grandfather. Your grandfather was the last Illumanar Captain who was not needed. Ailmar was next, but was killed in Bryce Valley and it passed to Artemus.”
Jace was still animated.
“And this has to do with my mother?” he wondered if he was purposefully not getting it.
“Yes, your mother,” Jaden said. “Sara. Sara Du-”

***

​“-cheyne! I will not stand for any more of this blather!” Neville was yelling.
Aleister finished. And the look on First Consul Leverette’s face said it all. (good reason for saying his name right here.)
​Aleister was looking at the Senator again, and he slid a thick herald to the center of the table.
“What is here is a copy of tomorrow’s herald, the biggest Senator Tillian Bren has ever written. It includes everything I’ve just said tonight and your work to impede progress in the High Council just to save your own ass. They will know the fight is not just being waged in Sindell, but right here, at our doorstep …. And within it as well. You see, as a former military liason for the High Council himself, Senator Bren takes such violations quite seriously. What you see in front of you is a copy of tomorrow’s herald. His biggest yet. Everyone is going to be alerted to the approaching army, the truth about the original point team, Artemus, everything. They will know that the only fight is not just in the Kingdom of Sindell. But here at home as well. And we will also use this new information to edit opening sequences in High Council chambers.”
​Now he looked back over to the First Consul.
“I always wondered why Katic didn’t run in your election. I know he would have beaten you, and so did he. But you had proof, you kept all of the documents that tracked his role in the liason duty of the original Bryce Valley mission. You kept them to blackmail Katic, to keep him from running against you. Not even sure if you agreed with it all, but injustice is a small toll to pay to walk the halls of power, eh your Grace?” He leaned a little more forward and pointed to the giant herald that by dawn would be circulating over the entire republic. “You see, last night, when Artemus contacted me, he told me about those documents and where to find them, which I did, in your secret archives. Proving everything he says is true. Which is another reason you had to diminish the standing of the Outrider Order, because you needed to downgrade the clearence, as usually, the Constable would have all rights to see such documents as they have the highest security clearence.”
​Leverette, a man who always had so much energy for his age with a spring in his step suddenly looked very much his age. A man caught and defeated, an elderly man as if his political power was draining out of him the same as life force.
​“The good I thought I could have done, Aleister,” he said. “I had to keep Katic from being First Consul. He was going to beat me. I didn’t agree with what he did, but what choice did I have? It was the only way to keep him out of the Consul office. From being the most powerful man in the Republic.”
​“Yet after you did that, Katic could use it against you. By admitting what you did, blackmailing him and the real reason why he didn’t run, he had information that could bring you down as well. Information that could have destroyed both of you.” He looked over to Katic, “and that’s how you two stayed. Cancelling each other out for decades since. Doing more damage. And when Jaden arrived here there was nothing you could do, Katic, but go along with it as I worked with her. As Creed worked with her and she saved our servicemembers’ lives and helped this Republic day after day. And yet here you are, trying to sell out your country, the country she risked her life, continues to risk her life along with everyone in our country and the Kingdom of Sindell. You claim to try and save Veil’driel from the wizards? And yet you yourself are the true threat. The true reason for destruction. Becoming the very thing you sought to prevent or fight against. A theme that has permeated this entire continent for far too long, a chain reaction sparked by you, thrity years ago.” He leaned back again. “Sparked by both of you.”
Katic stood up
​“You’ve signed your death warrant tonight, Praetor, and that’s all you’ve done.” He looked down to the herald. “Do you think this drivel, this fantasy fiction will ever see the light of day? Do you think I would let the likes of you bring me down? The son of a brute footsoldier?”
​“This is your chance,” Aleister said to First Consul Leverette. “A real chance to do something good in your administration. Admit what you’ve done. Come clean.”
​The First Consul stood up, glanced at Katic.
​“I’m sorry,” he said.
​Katic looked from the First Consul to the Praetor, an expression that was momentarily unsure all at once reassured and cocky, smiling with a wide smile of yellowed teeth.
“Guards!” he yelled.
​All at once the Scarlett Guard came in and kicked open the door, half a dozen soldiers, standing around and behind the Praetor.
​“Arrest this man on the charge of treason! He’s been conspiring with the traitor Artemus Ward,” he picked up the herald. “And spreading sedition, inciting rioutous material.”
​Aleister stood up slowly, unmolested.
​“Artemus Ward is only a traitor because you made him that way, Senator. And you gave rise to an ancient army, the Illumanar. You’re the traitor, and you are under arresst.”
​“What are you waiting for?” Katic yelled, a little shocked.
​“Do as the Senator asks, on my authority,” Leverette added.
​The Guards still said nothing only stared.
​Now the two men’s attention went down to Artemus’ ring, a sapphire, glowing just slightly, and Artemus was rotating it on his finger.
​“Fitting, don’t you think,” he started, spinning the ring on his finger. “My father’s ring. Sapphire. Fitting that you betrayed your nation,” he looked to Leverette. “And you your conscience until there was none left at all,” and now here you are. Coming full circle with another sapphire. Almost poetic, one would say.”
​“You’ll be the doom of us all!” he yells, knowing he was caught he admitted everything. “Those magical people will kill all of us! Unnatural demons, all of them! The world will not be safe until all of them are dead! I saved this country! I’m a hero!”
​Now only three of the guards and the First Consul were left in the room. The three scarlet guards behind Aleister waiting for his lead.
​The First Consul all at once lunged for a sharp knife on the table, where not long before they had laughed around it, happily as an army marched on them. He picked it up and retreated fast to the corner, but Aleister was on him in a split second, somehow grabbing the man’s wrist, knowing what he was planning, the sharp blade just over his wrist. Still, the guard waited.

​“Please, Aleister. Please let me. Please let me go this way.”

​For a moment they had a stand off, and the guards didn’t advance.
​For a moment or two it seemed like Aleister was going to let the old man do it. But finally, though he looked like he took no pleasure in it, said “I want you to think about the Outriders of Veil’driel who died in Bryce Valley in your cell, sir,” and squeezed the old man’s wrist hard enough to where the blade dropped on the floor. “I want you to think of my father.”

​He stood up out of the crouch.

​“Guards,” he said and they came and took him out, leading him past the other shocked High Council members, led out in shame and quiet.

​One of the guards stood behind as Aleister stood there, quiet and still in the abandon room.

​“Sir,” he said, and Aleister didn’t move a muscle, staring out into space. After awhile the guard tried again. “First Consul.”

​At this, Aleister turned to him slightly.

​“What will you have us do, sir?”

​“Start mass evacuations, as many as you can, anyone who can’t fight into Avaleen, tell the rest of the High Council that there will be an emergency sesson called at dawn, give me time to work some other things out. Then return.”

​“Yes, sir” the guard said, and then left, closing the door and leaving

Aleister in there alone.

KEEP PUSHING THIS MATERIAL TO FOLOWING CHAPTER

Malcolm was sitting, quietly, still and alone in his room, in his dress uniform, sitting on his bed and staring at a table with a small pouch on it. A pouch that was just that, but to him, it was everything. Music floated in through his open window. It was so much bigger than just the object in both what it represented and what it felt like. It sparked so many memories of what he had accomplished with its help. The feeling of being invincible, strong, to have fire surge through your vains. In lesser doses, but still more than most would take, it gave him strong energy and confidence. He felt good and in control, as he had first started taking it to get over his nervousness and clumsiness when first getting promoted to sharpshooter and even as his fame continued to grow.

​He had been off of it for months now. Months. If he were to just take a little now before heading down to the Ball, hell, it would almost be even acceptable. Who would know? He was a hero now. Strong, lucky, proud. Hell, even Jace was taking it, even though he wasn’t clear on the reason. And he felt about that, misleading him like that, but really what was the harm.

​Still he stared. He had been counseled in his time since getting off of it, had weekly meetings with Creed who warned him how much more intense it could be if you relapsed back into the drug. How proud Creed was of him, but in that moment he just wanted that feel, he didn’t care about the consequences. He wanted that feeling, for get the side effects. The dry mouth, the occassonal headaches, the lack of appetite.

​He wanted to breathe smoke, and he’d earned it.
​He stood up, took a step towards it and then there was a loud knock at the door, just literally at the moment where his hand was outstretched to touch it and it froze just a bit away. He wasn’t expecting anyone.

​“Who is it?” he asked, perking his head up.

​“Senior Bowman Hawkins,” a familiar voice that surged his heartrate faster than even the herb at the tip of his fingers ever could have. “Are you awake?”

​Even in his excited, near panicked state he still smiled at that reference, and he swiped up the small pouch, pushing it down into his pocket and made his way over to the door. And opened it.
​Cleo was standing there, looking beautiful in a beautiful dress, her hair up, and on one of the little golden wreaths on the strap on her dress. He totally froze, but caught himself in time so that it wasn’t obvious. How beautiful she looked just added to the complete surreality of her presence.

​“Hello,” she said with an adorable smile. Using a tip told by Isabelle and we see her put it into practice, the reader know what she’s doing, Malcolm doesn’t.
​
***

​In order for Relic to gain entrance to the room Hazel Lien was sleeping in, Relic had to have approval directly from the King, who he met along with Jaden for the first time less than twenty minutes before. He had opted not to attend the Ball, but to come here instead when he heard about the situation, the Zarponda mission and various other aspects. He parted with Isabelle as he took Cleo into the city to buy a dress, crazy as that sounded, and now that the Ball started, he would let Isabelle and Jace enjoy the night tonight, this is where he wanted to be.

​So here he sat in a comfortable chair, casual dress, short sleeved shirt, inside the quaint room but with a view out of an enormous window, outside two Sindell guards were guarding, that looked out over the front of the city and out onto the plain over which they rode the last length after being transported by Foy’s cave. In his hand, was a rather worn book about the Bryce Mountain Range, originally taken from the Lornda Manor library the night before they left, intended to collect as much information on it for the powers that be in Veil’driel, only to find out that the High Council seemingly didn’t care, and Alesiter, upon hearing of Artemus’ betrayal, had already been told by Foy. Nothing, it seemed, worked out the way it was intended to when associated with Lornda Manor.

​He had been there since there since mid-afternoon, not long at all after his arrival, and he was only needed for a short period of time by Thean, who seemed much more concerned with talking with Foy than any of his outriders. Now there was a full pitcher of icy water as well as a large kettle of tea at his request. Both sat there, as well as a few other books that were on the table, that he had read and reviewed. He had just set down his cup of tea and turned back to the book on his lap, slowly turning the page when suddenly, shockingly, he heard Hazel’s voice.

​“Told ya I had a feeling we would meet again soon,” her cracked voice said.

​She was obviously pale, and weak, her lips having a whitish tint to them as well,

Relic looked over, astounded to see she was awake, and that her voice was dry and cracked. Then, letting his surprise fade he stood slowly and poured her a glass of the water.

“You did,” he said, walking over as at first looked surprised, but then slowly extended her hand to take it. She sipped it. Stopped and swallowed, took a more generous gulp and then handed it back to Relic who was there waiting, and he took it, placing it back on the table and then sitting back in his chair as if there were nothing out of the ordinary in this situation, whatsoever. “Promised me a rain check, I believe,” he finished as he sat.

She laughed a little but it transitioned to a gentle cough before she refocused.
“Ah,” she said, and it was obvious her spirits were actually rising a little. She cracked a very small smile as she sunk her head back a little more in the pillow and looked straight up at the ceiling. “Yes, I do believe you’re right.” She shifted slightly. “Find anything of use in that one?” she asked. “Bryce Mountain Range, huh?”
“Not really,” Relic said. “the author obviously had no real idea about what those mountains really are. It’s a survey of the topical portsions and secret trails.
Hazel was in a little discomfort, but far from serious pain, she closed her eyes again and spoke as if using the conversation as a distraction.
“Written by pioneers of the Beacon Fleet in the time before they set sail for Emren. Some of those books are thousands of years old, they’re simply preserved by time shifting in that library. Which is why it was dusty and looked like no one had been in there. That’s what you wanted to talk about, right? The Beacon Fleet?”
“What exactly is it you know about it?” he asked.
“I know it could have been the beginning of something beautiful. The coexistence of Tears and humankind before it was the first of many botches by the Veil’driel government, the whole mission, like so much else, the truth lost hidden and covered up until historical fact fell into myth and legend. Based on joint meetings between Sindell and Veil’driel held exclusively at Lornda Manor. That ended with the relationships being sundered, covered up by Veil’driel, and Jaden making the decision that they weren’t ready, putting up the illusion barrier in Terrill Silva and Jaden diminishing the Sindell airship emerald powers so they couldn’t find too far away from the emerald grotto and not reach Lornda Manor. Until the time was right. But of course, after them covering up the whole Beacon Fleet mission experiment, the cycle of blocking enlighment and deception continued and perpetuated itself. It wasn’t until nearly a thousand years later my mother would think them ready to try again. And in those events, she would meet my father.”
She glanced at Relic, waiting for a reaction, but none came. They really were a like, she thought. He had obviously known the information before she told him, but it was still very new to him, and yet he just accepted it and moved on. Always eager for the big picture no matter how shocking the details were.
“Jaden,” he nodded. “A thousand years from the beacon fleet….” His eyes brightened as he made a connection. “The original point team,” he said, having want to know about these events from the time he could remember. “That’s when it would have been,”
Now Relic sat back down just as a warm breeze picked up carrying with it the scent of beautiful flowers, and the beautiful tapestry wafted ever so slightly against the wall, the depiction of the aft section of a mighty battle ship arcing up into the sky, with the front an early model of the fighter airships used, to mark the progression of the kingdom’s transition, then she looked away from it and back to Relic who she was surprised to see staring at her as if he sensed the inner reflection she had just gone through.
“I’m not interested in the war tonight,” Relic said. “The war is the present, and it’s the past I’m interested in. You were talking about how your mother met your father. You were talking about the point team of thirty years ago.”
Now Relic leaned forward towards the bed and looked deep into her eyes, a deep and beautiful shade of blue just shy of purple that were accentuated and even more piercing against the paleness of her skin.
“Look into my eyes,” Relic said, and he stared at her, holding it for seconds that seemed like little separate eternities. By the time Relic broke the silence, Hazel was so entranced that she flinched a little. “Now tell me. Is that what you think?”
They stared at each other just a little bit longer, leaning over their little piece of the Ball that wrapped up the capital city and them along with it. They were frozen, neither moving so much as a muscle even as she spoke.
“Have you ever heard of Operation Longstreet?”

***

​A few airships zoomed overhead on regular patrol and Cleo looked up for a second, not used to them. Malcolm’s eyes never left her as she looked up and looked at them, but when she looked back down to him he quickly diverted his eyes so she wouldn’t know he was staring at her the entire time.
​The courtyards they were walking through were beautiful, a parklike environment with fountains and hedges and things and stunning architecture all around.
​They walked around the sidewalks and up a sweeping causeway that led up to another little level with a bunch of open grass fields and statue of one of the ancient kings looking out as if the beautiful wall leading into another one of the dazzling courtyards were some epic, foreboding landscape instead of a wide bed of flowers.
​“When did you get here?” Malcolm asked, quick to look away when she looked back down to him so she wouldn’t know he was looking at her the entire time.
​“Late this afternoon,” she said, brushing her hair behind her ear. “Gotta admit,” she said glancing down off the courtyard plateau they were on at the festivities below and the huge Ball room off to their right that towered high and brightly above. “This is not exactly what I was expecting.”
​Malcolm looked down referring to her dress.
​“Could have fooled me,” he said.
​She smiled, suddenly appearing to feel a little self conscious, and she looked down and picked up the skrith of it a little and moved it around.
​“This city has no shortage of places, and I was given this one for free by the royal dress makers (tailors?).”
​“You look beautiful,” he said, and it was something he would not have probably said months before, and she knew it. Indeed, she could see quite a few changes about him.
​“Thank you,” she said kind of seriously.
​“Senator,” he added as a joke, and then continued it on as if it was amusing only himself. “Senator Cleo Bright,” he said out loud, that cocky kind of joking tone she was used to, and he put his hands down into his pockets, looking up to the king statue.
​The bottom of the statue was supremely lighted in flickering purple lights so that the bottom of it gave off a beautiful, almost haunting aspect to it.
​But when, in that space he was looking at the statue, she took a full step towards him so that she was nearly pressed up against him, all cockiness fled in one panicked instant of excitement, disbelief and terror. His pockets were stuck in his pockets as if held there by cement, as if he not dare take them out. As if it was a security blanket of sorts.
​“You,” he stopped again and cleared his throat. “You … you uh, never told me how you got here,” he managed but the look in his face now twisted so that he was, on some level, aware even himself how stupid it was.
​“Mmm… must have forgotten,” she said, smiling, and knowing the effect she was having him, just as she did that night on the Fairlawn Monument. “So are you gonna kiss me or not?”
​She reached up and put her arms around neck, and there in that moment the fireworks started bursting like beautiful dazzling sparks in the air, and then a particularly large blue one seemed to explode directly over them. And while she looked up at them for just a second, Malcolm’s eyes never left her, watching the colors splash over her features, and then she refocused on him, beaming with a wide smile.
​“Cyclic circles,” she whispered.
​Malcolm was way too nervous.
​“What?” he asked, and by the looks of him, he probably wouldn’t even, in that moment, remembered where he was.
​Then the smile left her face, slowly as she focused in on him.
​“Nothing,” she whispered, and now her voice was shaking a little as well. They kissed, and slowly, Malcolm’s hands came out of his pockets, rising ever so delicately up to her sides.
​The fireworks blazed overhead.

***

​“So this is your room?” Isabelle asked.
​“When I’ve been here,” Jace said. “They used my knack to see through Artemus’ illusions since I got here. Been on a bunch of missions.”
​“Yeah? Did you have a part in this last one? The one this Ball is celebrating?”
​“Small one.”
​She smiled knowingly.
​“Mmhm.”
​Jace walked to the far corner, climbing halfway up the stairs and opening a latch at the top.
​“But the room does have its perks.”
​He climbed up, and disappeared out of the portal above. And she just stood there, looking up. And she could see the dark sky above and the slightly blue tint of the forcefield protecting the city. Then she saw Jace’s hand come back down through it and she smiled, climbing up it.
​Before she knew it they were up on top of the flat downer, a little railing around it, it was breathtaking looking over the entire city in the dark, warm night filled with stars. And even more as soon as they were outside, the music from the ball floated back up to them, and it was quiet. And he put his hand out. Fireworks were blazing all around them, it was simply the most breathtaking moment she had ever experienced, the most beautiful scene she had ever seen.
​The music, while slow and casual was louder to match the grandeur of the fireworks display. It was a beautiful song.
​Jace slipped the jadeite necklace from around his neck and put it around her neck, as he promised he would do when they last departed.

“May I have this dance?”

​They started dancing.

​“You’re really tan,” she whispered, laying her head on his shoulder.
​Jace smiled.

“So … do you want me to tell you what that meeting was about?” he asked, and they were dancing casually as if formally.
​She had her head on his shoulder, pressed up against him and slowly bobbing. Then she said sighed.

​“Not right now,” she said, not wanting to disrupt the moment. Then she whispered.

​Though they were dancing and he was just lost in the moment, absorbed into her, smelling her neck, he found himself, though hesitating because afraid to look, at her neck all around her. She didn’t move, there was no way to tell that she had perceived what he was trying to do but then she whispered.

​“I’m fine, don’t worry. Whatever that plague is that effects people using those passages it doesn’t effect me. And obviously it doesn’t effect you, either,” she said, soudning relieved.

​Now Jace stopped moving a bit, confused, and he moved his head back far enough so he could look at her.

​“Don’t think I didn’t secretly check you out in the same way,” she said.

​Jace smiled with genuine amusement, only because he thought it was funny that she had checked him like that without his knowledge, and that was probably the only reason why she believed him when he smiled and nodded as if to confirm that he did not have the mysterious plague as well. She must have perceived that, otherwise she always knew when he was lying.

​“But still ….,” she started again, pressing herself a little closer against him. “Just to be safe, just to be …. She bent her arms and rested her elbows on his shoulders, placing her hands on the sides of his face. “absolutely sure, I think you’re gonna have to inspect me for the scars.”

​Jace nodded, a look of sarcastic seriousness on his face in a fluctuating pulse of firework orange, then red, and blue.

​“Yeah, I think that’s smart,” he said, his mouth moving ever closer to hers to where they were almost touching. “Can never be too safe.”

​She didn’t say anything just shook her head, her mouth opening into the duel purpose of smiling and kissing him.

THIS MATERIAL IS NOW CHAPTER FIFTEEN

When the sun rose over the Veil’driel Senate House, it did so on the seat of a very different Republic than it had set on the night before. By now, the shocking new had spread to everyone, the senators most of all, and it was so quiet it felt as if all the Republic was holding its breath. The news had spread that First Consul C.R. Leverette had been arrested, but no one knew the exact details. They did, however, know everything there was to know about Neville Katic who was in a holding cell.

Nearly all of them had a copy of the new Tillian Bren herald that was sitting in front of them from their high spots in curvature bleachers and things that made up this Senate House that had flags and banners from each major city from them, and then over there was represented the various plains of the wilderness that ran all the way to the coast. It was a beautiful room. A legendary room, and now the eyes of all of the Senators were upon him at this crossroads of the Republic, and, it felt to him, all of the ghosts of the great men who shared this room as well.

​He had his arms crossed, each passing moment he did not speaking making them more and more nervous. And then he finally turned toward them all and took them in. The senators straight ahead. The senators to the left and right, and up. And he began to talk, the acoustics of the hallowed chamber giving rise and powerful amplicfication to all around.

​“Senators, there are no magic words I can say at this moment. No measures I can put into effect that will ease the burden or shock of many of you have woken up to today. A day that was going to be shocking enough with the release of Senator Bren’s herald..” paused, nodding to himself. “Made far worse by learning what had happened to First Consul Leverette today.” Now he walked forward to the edge of the stage. “I will not waste time with aggrandizing words. I do not feel the need to sway any of you as to the importance or critical nature of our cause here today with phony words of inspiration, I come here only to say this. The shock we feel today, the truths we must, all of us, face about our current situation as well as our past, will ring through the annals of our history for eternity. A stone was thrown into the waters of our history today that will ripples of which will have an effect for evermore.” He stopped and faced all the Senate. “If we survive.”

​Not a single soul stirred, as if Aleister was the center of the universe. For he was, without a doubt, the beating heart of Veil’driel.
​“Our history runs shamefully deep with half-truths and cover-ups. You all know now what really happened to our beloved heroes,” he hesistated. “My father among them, during the initial Bryce Valley mission. You know what they uncovered there and how they were betrayed by their political liason.” Now he looked around. “Neville Katic was not a singularity. He was the product of a system that made it easy for him to exist and survive. Through red tape and procedure and politics. Through one man’s bigotry, and fear of something he did not understand, he was able to alter the course of history. But there have been many Neville Katics.” He looked up at the wilderness banners, the different colorful weaved dyed pennants of the various plains. “Witness our plains, our wildnerness. We claim control over these lands but who has been there? No one, really? And why? Because there were other Neville Katics who at the time of the Jonathan Terrill expeditions, who didn’t think our people needed to hear about the horrible fate that met that expedition, the truth, like overprotecting parents for far too long. And what happened? It stunted trade and expansion out there. Left it to various settlements, in an otherwise largely unknown area that made it impossible to know. So much so that it gave Artemus Ward an opportunity to full all of us, and launch a grand conspiracy to get our forces out of here and march all the way up to Sindell, leaving us all protected. Turning our very nature against us by doing so, just as he himself was betrayed. It was wilderness we cast him out into. This Council, this senate, decisions made in these very chambers, tarnished the outriders names when the Order launched protest after protest as to how the mission wizards Orinus and Valith mission ended. Tied them up with ropes of bureacurcy. Gagged them with secret threats on their families. Their order held down until they rose to promincence with the events of nearly a year ago in Fairlawn City. All in the name of fear. And out of that wildnerness, this very Senate’s creation, rose this problem.”
​He looked down from the banners.

​“Is this why our people elect us? Elect this senate? To keep secrets from the public, to censor,” he nodded to Tillian Bren. “To outright lie to them?”

​He turned back.

​“Make no mistake about it, honorable senators, Artemus Ward is our creation, our doing, and to think of how this nation could have let down a hero such as that to this point sickens me enough, as it should sicken all of you. Well, now the people will know. They will know with Tillian Bren’s herald. They will know what happened three decades ago and how our outriders were betrayed. They will know that Artemus Ward and Gabriel Foy found refuge with a wizardess who was assigned here to guard this continent even if it takes a long time for them to understand how or why. All of the information this Senate, its highest ranking politicians, this High Council has become privy to is made public knowledge. They’ll know that we knew about wizards and preternatural occurrences in this land far before they did,” now he looked over to the High Council sitting in their special section up on the stage with him. “And they’ll know that the reason is because when we first discovered this realtiy 30 years ago, instead of dealing with it as we should have, we tried to pretend it didn’t exist and forget about, and then punish the entire outrider order when they didn’t want to forget it. They will know the truth, as we know it, and we will trust them.”

​Now one of the High Council members stood up.

​“That is pure insanity!” he said, standing up and looking around. “There will be widescale panic. Drumming up panic. We did what the wizardess told us, did we not? We sent the forces to fight the battle as we were supposed to in Sindell.”

​“Yes, just as Artemus wanted us to, as I have argued to the High Council, as you know Senator Dorsey Trent, for the last few months.”
​“Yet you have brought us no proof. At no point have you ever brought proof before the Council.”
​“Only because all scouting missions were denied, swaying a weak First Consul, and I sent my own.”
​The doors opened and Lucas Reese walked in.
​“I have been scouting secretly for Praetor Ducheyene. An army is on its way. Last night it passed by Bryce Valley and will be on Fairlawn Woods.”
​“When?” a panicked Senator stood up and blurted.
​“A matter of hours,” he said. And there was massive mumbling and talking and panic.
​Aleister patted down the air and they quieted.
​“Mr. Reese is heading back to Fairlawn Woods with all that remains of our law enforcement authorites in all cities.”
​“You are on the verge of causing mass hysteria and now you take away the civil authorities of the cities! There will be riots and they will all burn to the ground.”
​“No,” Aleister said, turning to them. “There won’t be. Have faith in the people. As you should.” Now he took a step closer to Dorsey and while he was bold and still standing, the other members of the High Council did not look near as bold. “The High Council is an antiquated practice, it has long ceased to be a close circle of advisors from the eldest and highest advisors, but that wisest of us has been sacrificed to corruption. Whereas in times of crisis, the Senate is shut out by a small collection of men, no longer subject to election or the will of the people. It becomes an arrogant…” he stopped, hesitated, almost as if he couldn’t believe he was saying the word, or it had some special meaning. “Plutocracy,” he said.
​“Plutocracy, you say!”
​“As my first act as First Consul, I hereby enact a complete and immediate dissolution of the High Council.”
​“You cannot do that! You have not been confirmed! You require two seconds from the Senate, there must be deliberation, in the wake of a crisis of an assassination.
​“I move to confirm the Praetor’s advancement in the wake of this tragedy, then,” Tillian Bren stood up and started looking at him.
​Aleister turned around and watched.
​Joseph Bright, Cleo’s father stood, then another then another in a dramatic fashion until all of the senators were standing, anonoymously, and he looked at the High Council, turning around against the back drop of all the senators standing.
​“Consider this a pardon for any of you who also had a hand in this. And were guilty of things we never knew about. But the time of halftruths and lies are over. You’re dismissed, gentlemen.”

​The get up, look at each other, generations of the families of the highest political ties looking at each other in shock.

​“This is preposterous! We refuse.”

​The doors open and the crimson guard comes in.

​“I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist.”

​Now afraid, they left.

​Aleister turns back to them, to the senators.

​“Had Neville Katic had his way, we would have had a puppet government installed. Our people would have been told the same lies the rest of this continent has to be conquered. The days of isolationism are at an end. The battle of Sindell is only one front of this war, another was right here in the form of corruption, another marches on us from the plains to Fairlawn.” He walked down to the front of the stage. “All members of the Senate are to relocate to Avaleen. The defenses of that structure from the days of old, when it was our capital before we were a world power, will make it able to hold out for quite some time. This will be done in case we are invaded, as long as that city holds, as long as you breathe, you are the legitimate government of the Republic of Veil’driel. The Crimson Guard, all 250 of them are going with you. As advised in the herald, all people of able body are encouraged to fight, all mayors will stand their posts, they will stay in their cities to whatever end. I will stay here. As soon as this session adjourns, your short journey to Avaleen will commence.”

​“And what about you?” someone asked.

​“I will stay here, this is my post, I will stay here to whatever end as well.”

​Now he paused, took a deep breath and wondered if this would be the last time this place would ever convene. If he would be the last First Consul to speak.

​“Make no mistake. We are fighting against enslavement. For our very way of life.”

​He sighed.

​“Senate adjourned.”

​At that moment they all stood up again with massive applause, and he was floored by it, totally unexpected. He kept looking at them, nodding occasionally. Overwhelmed. He looked over at Tillian Bren who was not standing but cool and collected and calm, and reciting stuff to his scribe who was frantically racing to write it all down. He smiled at the First Consul when he looked over when their eyes met, and winked, however.

​Then his eyes moved through the crowd and stopped a second time on Roland and Something Bright. Cleo Bright’s parents. And nodded to them as well. Then he walked over to Lucas Reese who was still standing there, looking at him.

​As the applause continued, he glanced over to Lucas Reese who nodded at him, then turned on his heel and left the Senate Chamber. And with a sigh and looking up at the crescent window that led out into the huge steps of the senate house, leading down, the First Consul caught sight of the bright morning sun.

***

They had been talking about everything that led up to this point, and then they had circled back around to the Beacon Fleet and the illusion Terrill Silva. She looks better, it was almost like a little color had been returning. There were more plates all over the place and platters and drinks, the room was a mess, and she looked better. Color enough returning to her well Relic imagined she could have gotten up to face the day at any time. But then he knew that was wishful thinking.
“You okay?” she asked him, and there was an awkward little smile splayed across her face.
Relic looked up suddenly, with a start, and realized then that he must have drifted, and was indeed quiet for awhile. When he spoke again, he was resting his chin on his hand, only realizing then that the sun had come up, but he didn’t care. He felt more alive and awake now than he had in recent memory. But her voice brought him back, as this had been a lot of information, even by his standards, but that small pause was all he needed to assimilate what detail he was trying to work out, and when he spoke again he was ready to move on with what everything had led to in his mind.
“Yeah, I’m just wondering where Arkhelan came from. He just appeared?”
“Was chosen,” Hazel corrected.
“To replace your mother. To replace Jaden,” Relic said, fairly certain he was following.
Hazel nodded.
“It was my mother who made the decision to try and have humanity and tears coeixist, my mother who led my father and his point team to Bryce Valley, and through those actions, their secret dwellings in Bryce Valley were destroyed, and many of them were killed. The gemstones that kept it grounded in the physical realm was broken. The powers that be blamed my mother.”
“Powers that be? In that Underwater Empire? See, that’s where you lost me.”
“Lost you?” she said with a smile. Wow. Is there an award for that or something?”
Relic smiled a little as Hazel went on.
“Well, then it seems we’ve rounded back to what I promised we’d talk about that night at Lornda Manor.”
Relic smiled.
“Essentially,” she was sitting up a bit, showing as much energy as she had until this point. “You had the breaking of the Sun Kingdom which was, I understand, essentially heaven.”
“Right,” Relic said.
“It all started with the splitting of the Sun Kingdom, which essentially ended all existence, or heaven or whatever you wanna call it, and created the physical realm as well as the metaphysical.”
“Right.”
“When that happened, the ones who remembered the existence of the heaven existence, known to us as the Sun Kingdom, settled, hidden from the rest of the world which would evolve into humanity with no knowledge of existence beyond their current one. Hidden at the bottom of the ocean, setting up settlements that would form an underwater empire of this group. They were called the shamans.” Hazel held up two hands. “Over time, aeons, some of these shamans,” she shook her right hand. “Landed on Ciridian, which is this continent,” she shook the other, “and Emren, this world’s other continent.”
Relic raised his eyebrows.
“So, what? They can breathe underwater?”
Hazel shook her head.
“Their settlements, the Empire is protected.”
“Protected how?”
Hazel poined out the window.
“Same way as this capital is,” she explained. “That forcefield is a recreation of the magical forcefields that protect that Empire.”
“Which is called what?” Relic pushed.
“I don’t know. I don’t think anyone knows, not even my mother,” Hazel said, then thinking on it a little longer, added. “Maybe Arkhelan.” Then she stopped, squinting at Relic.
“You interrupt a lot, has anyone ever told you that?”
Relic leaned back a little in his chair and crossed his arms.
“Yes,” he said with a smirk. “Go on.”
“The shamans from this Underwater Empire settled in Bryce Valley, as far as Emren, I don’t know. I don’ t know much about that continent at all, except my mother would sometimes tell me stories of how humans and tears coexisted peacefully in a faraway land when I was a child. I can only assume she meant there.”
Relic didn’t dare speak, didn’t want to say anything, just listen. He thought he could have listened for the first of his life.
“The shamans existed there in secret for thousands of years, hidden by the illusion magic in the caverns. Before eventually those shamans left there and spread out into the world, living amongst humans, their powers hidden, and all the while the nations of this continent started to form. My mother was among these pioneers who chose to embrace aspects of the physical world, to exist within it, to experience it. She was therefore christened the Illumanite of Ciridian by the original shamans of the Underwater Empire, to preside over all shamans that, like her, spread out to experience life in this form.”
“And those who spread out were called Tears,” Relic said.
“Yes, a term given to them by the shamans they broke away from, as they knew their immediate connection to the Sun Kingdom would be lost the more they took part in the physical realm. That they would weep for what they lost, be Tears,” Hazel nodded. “And my mother was the first of those Tears. She established Lornda Manor, having it built over the portal down to The Tunnels of Armageddon. The Tunnels that connected the entire world, where you could move freely all over not only Ciridian, but over the entire world. It was a hub of unison. Where heads of state from all over the continent, and indeed, the world could meet instantaneously. The communion vaults were set up in every established nation on both Emren and Ciridian for constant communication as well, and my mother frequently visited and communicated with them all. All the nations of this world were united, travel and trade was commonplace.”
Relic nodded.
“Those docks at Lornda Manor.”
“Had all the activity they could hande in their day, believe me,” she said. “The trade routes between Zarponda and the Lornda Manor docks were said to be so busy you could almost walk the distance from deck of one ship to the next. Lornda Manor was considered neutral ground and disputes between various heads of state were decided there, while being entertained in the beautiful Manor, as my mother managed the continent. The Tunnels of Armageddon, which were another construction of the Shamans after they first arrived here, from which every precious stone in this world has come from them or the caverns they lead to. And they lead to caverns all over in the farthest reaches of the world.”
“It sounds wonderful,” Relic said, and by now he was totally absorbed. He had no desire to ask any question at all, and Hazel went on.
“It must have been,” she said, but she was not picturing it, though she had many times to herself at night in her dreams, but now she was concentrating on continuing. “The Tears in Sindell worked with their engineers with the emeralds to create the technology that made their dream of airships a reality. Tears in Mazhira predicted weather patterns that led to the bountiful harvests that fed the people of that nation. Tears with supernatural powers of direction and geography of the lands helped Veil’driel scouts explore new horizons of the continent, which eventually formed the Outrider Order.
“It was at one of these meetings held at Lornda Manor that it was agreed, between forces at Emren and Ciridian to attempt the first physical contact between the two continents.”
“The Beacon Fleet,” Relic said.
Hazel nodded.
“Sindell and Veil’driel would put together the fleet of ships, as the most powerful of the nations on this continent. But Mazhira would send emissaries as well, as well as plants ingigenous to their region, their wines like Orinel Lin, all the nations did the same. The three heads of these nations were all there to see it off, it was the height of the union of this continent, a time of immense promise.”
“Minotaurs weren’t invited, I guess,” Relic said. He was hardly serious but the look on Hazel’s face was.
“The minotaurs are indigenous to this continent,” she said. “They were here before even the breaking of the Sun Kingdom, and the evolution of humankind, and certainly before the first shamans came to these shores.”
“Wow,” Relic said, but he was quickly moving on. “And you said the Beacon Fleet made it. And then, when I was at Lornda Manor, we saw the ballast created the walkway leading up to it. “How did that happened?”
“Nobody knows, but it was the beginning of the end of unison and cooperation between Ciridian.” Relic leaned forward but said nothing. “When the Beacon Fleet left, it was slated to return in one year’s time. But it never did.”
“Never did?”
“No. My mother then started trying to contact the nations of Emren and suddenly began getting no response. All the while, the nation leaders grew evermore restless, wondering what happened to their ships and why they had not returned. My mother assured them all that she would find out, and went to Zarponda, to the Underwater Staircase. One of the means created by the shamans that left the Underwater Empire, and they could only use it to return there, if ever necessary. So my mother went to Bryce Valley, and asked them for permission to use the key, the blue sapphire similar to the golden sapphire that unlocks the fountain in the conservatory. The granted it, giving her the cool name sapphire and she went to Zarponda for the Underwater Staircase and used it to get to the Underwater Kingdom. When she returned, she called a meeting at Lornda Manor to tell them the shocking truth. Emren had broken out in war between the Tears and humankind, unexpectedly, and until it was over the Underwater Kingdom had forbidden travel between the two continents until the crisis was at an end.” She sighed. “The first division, inevitable, since the breaking of the Sun Kingdom. When physical and metaphysical were divided. The brain and the mind became two separate entitites, all was lost in that moment, and that infection of division, spread here to Ciridian. My mother returned, and told them this, but the heads of state grew suspicious, and hearing that on the foreign shores the Tears were attacking humankind, began to expel them all out of their lands. Friendships and familes spanning back generations were split because of fear and mistrust and sent away from each nation. Eventually leading to the bittern and angry wizards like Valith and Orinus and their original followers.”
“Where did they all go?” Relic asked.
“Most retreated peacefully back into Bryce Valley to lead a secret existence, an existence before they branched out from them, returning to the only place they could call home, to return to a mostly metaphysical existence betyond the perception of the people without abilities. But others stayed, bitter, angry, feeling like they gave so much to these nations and this how they betray them. Tears like Valith and Orinus and their followers, which would eventually lead us to where we are now. Even at this time they were making some attacks, enough to feed the nations mistrust of tears, starting to call them wizards. There were even attacks made on Lornda Manor, until finally, the illusory border was have to put in place in Terrill Silva to protect it, another such border was placed around Lornda Manor from the Hezlin Sea, hiding its existence beyond normal perceptions there as well.”
“Then what happened?”
“This continent essentially reset, reverted. The nations started mistrusting each other, not just the tears, and communication all but ceased. Most burying or sealing up their communion vaults, as most tears retreated back into Bryce Valley, they retreated into themselves. Massive parts of histories were rewritten or otherwise forgotten and discarded. New histories were written with all that came before falling into myth or legend. Divided and fractured. My mother, by using the Tunnels of Armegeddon, had the ballast transported here from Emren, along with letters written by those who were on board, telling of how the ships were dismantled but one day they might return, trying to convince the governments for the longest time. But to no avail. They became the walkway to Lornda Manor, hoping that they would one day the spirit that created the Beacon Fleet would find its way back to Lornda Manor as it once did. And centuries passed, with only my mother occasionally visiting each country, but never revealing herself.”
Relic was leaning forward again.
“And yet it couldn’t have been long, because we found so much. So much rare stuff from all over the country that Artemus, when we were there, said were mainly gifts to her.”
“From the prosperous time,” Hazel said. “They stay good forever, because time does not exist in Lornda Manor as it does anywhere else. The books you read in Lornda Manor library some are ancient, and yet as new and strudy as when they were brand new. Food and everything else, even some of those suits of armor in Paladin Hall are ancient, but time can be manipulated there. As it can in Bryce Valley, and was for so many years.”
Relic remembered how at first, when they arrived at Lornda Manor, it seemed dusty and abandon for a long time. And now this made sense to him. It could be fast forwarded and slowed down at will.
“And that was it.”
“Yes. The continent evolved the way it did without the Tears, grew more isolated from each other. There was no contact with Emren at all. It totally ceased. Until centuries later,” she said. “When the outriders, led by my father came to Lornda Manor, in search of Valith and Orinus who had stepped up their attacks and destruction. My mother’s greatest weakness is her hope, and after the way she had worked with the humans of Veil’driel, to so much success with the Shamans in Bryce Valley to push Valith and Orinus out, visions of that prosperous time on Ciridian. The point team she was with, led by my father, stayed in that Valley for months, learning everything I’ve told you, experiencing enlightmenment. It’s how you were transported here without the ill effects of the plague of the tunnels. Because Foy worked so long with the healing Shamans. It was his obsession, and now he can protect any he travels with.”
Relic nodded, understanding.
“But instead of it being the first step of reuniting the continent, the first step down that beacon fleet ballast walkway,” Relic started. “They were all betrayed. By,” he paused, still not believing what she has earlier told him. “Neville Katic,” he said. “If only … if only that never happened,” he said.
“But, you see, Relic, that’s just it. It will always happen. There will always be something in the way, if not Neville’s actions it would have been something else, or something else. There can be no union in this existence. There has to be the Sun Kingdom.”
“No, I don’t believe that,” Relic said. “And I don’t think you completely do, either.”
“Listen to me, Relic. I like you, I do. But I am not on your side in this, and don’t make the mistake of thinking so.”
Relic sighed.
“So what happened? What happened in the wake of that attack on Bryce Valley?”
“What happened? Devastation and mass death is what happened,” she said, angry for the first time. “It’s through the powers in those caverns that they were able to keep their bond to the physical realm and remain ancient. When the attack happened, in that moment they had let down the illusion to experience life with the point team, and the aerial attack came, many were lost to this world forever, the aerial attacks pinpointing exactly the areas they knew where they would have to hit from the intelligence provided by my father’s point team. Most of the shamans ceased to exist in this world as their precious stones were destroyed, the essence of Bryce Valley, and so instantly they showed their true age and appeared as ancient ruins throughout Bryce Valley. Your precious Constable had been up trying to save them when the attacks came, on the upper part of Bryce Valley and returned just in time, in the wake of the attacks, to see Ailmar Ducheyne dead, and my father lying dying beside him. Gabriel Foy standing over them both, disoriented.”
“And then what?”
Now Hazel looked out the window and started to drift.
“I’ve seen it many times in my dreams,” she said softly. “It was the moment his true destiny came into the present. There could be no unity, there could be no peace on the continent. Not in the way that my mother sought or wanted. The destruction of the shamans in Bryce Valley spread throughout the tears that were living amongst the population in secret, and the ancient order of the Illumanar rose up, called upon at moments when the Tears needed protection, in a time of war declared by the Shamans of this continent.”
“But weren’t all the shamans destroyed?”
“No,” Hazel said. “And those that survived sacrificed all their spirtual side so that all that remained of their physical status was what you know as the sky fire units. Those are true shamans. Their life forces tied to the precious stones around their necks. Their final purpose on destruction. Their communication even beyond us, only heard as a series of clicks.”
“So the golden rider rose up.”
“Yes. The moment my mother helped my father to his feet, as he lay dying, he assumed his fatalistic role as the Golden Rider captain. The Illumanar, captain of the Illumanar in service of the Illumanite on this continent, who was my mother. Gabriel returned with them to Lornda Manor. My father did the same, and at my mother’s request, he did not muster the members of the golden riders, not the bulk and so they continued to exist in society, unknown. Mostly in the wilderness, the plains of Veil’driel, but also in the wilderness, the settlements that didn’t draw much attention in all of the other nations as well, idle, quiet, with only a small contigent brought up to be servants and live in Lornda Manor.”
“And then you came along,” Relic said.
“Five years later,” she said.
“I can even remember my first trip,” she looked around the room. “Here. My father and mother planned ways to reunited the continent, helping each other with ideas to restore the continent to its former glory. They eventually decided to do something bold and travel to the Kingdom of Sindell, using the Tunnels to tell the King what really happened in Sindell. The King, William’s father, was gracious and appalled by what happened, by how they were betrayed, and agreed to sanctions placed on by Jaden that took away their firepower, their weapons, and significantly decreased their range. And they continued their good relationship in secret, and we returned to Lornda Manor.”
“And then what changed? What led us here?”
“I was barely a teenager the first time Arkhelan contacted my mother through the communion vault in Lornda Manor. He said that because of her direct actions, Bryce Valley was demolished, and that the Underwater Empire, the original Shamans had named him Luminate over Emren and the world, and that she would no assist him in conquering all of Ciridian, and follow his orders, and that he would be in touch, and then disappeared. In that time, my mother decided to prepare for an attack, warning Sindell and communicating with the King and having him set up this forcefield over his capital city. When it was completed it would be spread to all his other cities, but it never go tto that point, as he died and our attacks started soon after. My father started mustering the Illumanar, the Golden riders, in what my mother thought would be to help bolster the defenses of Ciridian, and told him to do that while she sought out the cool sapphire key lost in the attack on Bryce Valley. We thought it was there, and so Gabriel Foy dedicated himself to moving there, staying there and looking as he was most familiar with the valley, vowing never to leave until he found it. I never saw him again.”
“I guess he never found it,” Relic said.
“No, he did. At least to an extent,” she said. “He found out that the secret to finding it lay in all the point team’s record books. That when they were all put together they all had a part of the puzzle as to where to find it, and this too, was nothing more than fate.”
“Around this time my father started to realize that using the tunnels was making us sick, moreover me, and went from disillusioned to furious. As it was because without the shamans living in Bryce Valley, without that balance, it was poisoning us. Creating a physical infection us, as if a mental illness suddenly started generating physical ailments.”
“That’s when your father turned,” Relic said. “When he knew you were sick.”
She nodded.
“He started communicating with Arkhelan in private. He said he would help him on a few conditions. One, Veil’driel was left unharmed, and together they devised a plan as to how this might be done. A plan you and Jace eventually ruined. And that my mother not be harmed.”
“And when Veil’driel got involved and that part of the plan crumbled,” Relic said. “His stance to protect Jaden soon fell with it.”
“When she tried to get through Bryce Valley to Sindell, she became a real threat, and he had no choice.” She leaned up now. “See, when my mother was trying to bring this continent together, everything she did had the opposite effect, because she was fighting the way things were supposed to be. Fighting fate and so everything went against her. In Bryce Valley she had the very change she sought to prevent happen because of her actions. My father tried to save both her and Veil’driel but it wasn’t meant to be and so fate corrected itself, fought against it and made it impossible. And so the beat goes on and on. The cycle must be broken.”
“My father convinced my mother that it was necessary to muster the entire force of Illumanar, because Arkhelan could be attacking at any time. She agreed, but then secretly my father began using all of his power, his golden riders to lay siege to all the countries in the world, they were all so isolated it was easy, all the tears that had been in hiding were loyal to Arkhelan, not my mother, and the soulless bodies of the sky fire units, tied onlt to this world now by their gemstone necklaces, are loyal to the Illumanar Captain, and they used their ancient shaman powers to enslave the minds of the minotaurs to lure them into our service as well. All the while he was my mother confidant, listening to all of her plans to have a secret resistance and relaying it all to Arkhelan while counteracting all of it. Keeping her pinned in Lornda Manor by saying there were massive armies occupying Ciridian.”
“You conquered the entire continent with deception and lies,” Relic said. “Your mother was the first casualty of that.”
“All in how you look at it,” Hazel said. “Everything always is.”
“And how do you look at it, Hazel? How do you really look at it?”
“Well, I see masses were finally successful. You succeeded in destroying the most beautiful place, that sacred neutral ground on this continent, like my mother erected that illusory border in Terrill Silva to protect and avoid, and yet again, she failed. Just like her entire philosophy is wrong. This continent will not be united, it can’t be, it’s swimming against the current which is why everything happens the opposite way. That’s what happens when you’re on the wrong side of fate. It’s why Lornda Manor, in the end, made the fate it always had to. The place of sacred union and trust burning to the ground.”

“That isn’t how it happened,” Relic said. “You weren’t there, you don’t know. It was either be held prisoner and watch everything we car about fall to ruin, or to try.”

She sighed.

“Well, you are on the other side of things than I am. And we’ll see, Relic. We’ll see, in the end, which of us is right.”

And something struck him, then. A revelation that went beyond any conscious definition but it was there. That Hazel Lien, the daughter of Artemus and Jaden, was literally a child of this ancient cycle. A product, in the purest form, of the quest for the Tears, who remained knowledge of a greater existence, and humankind to unite and coexist. And that … as such a product that seemed so doomed, she was dying. He didn’t know if it was coincidence or simply a perfect representation. But maybe everything was a representation, a representation of something metaphysical, beyond them all. Regardless, the revlelation calmed him, and took his thoughts in a different direction. And he laughed, surprising them both.

“It just dawned on me that you were shooting at me that night. While Jace was on the back of my horse.”

Hazel smiled a little, pulled up the sleeve of her loose comfortable gown, and past the gray scars was a nasty wound where it looked the bone had broken and come through the arm and then healed over.

“Rock hurled by a minotaur,” she said.

But Relic had focused more on her gray scars and she knew it.

***

The Republic of Veil’driel Parliament was laughing around the table, pretty hysterically, as Senator Katic was wrapping up one of his stories. It was the first dinner or occasion of the old boy’s club that Aleister had been invited to and no doubt it was because of his suddenly changed position, falling more in line to what they wanted, the day before. Indeed, that had been his main motivation for doing so. To be brought to this table, on this night, in this way.

​“… and he looked down to the thing, holding it there in his hands book wide open, pages falling out of his back pockets ….” ​The laugher rose to a near obnoxious level now. Some of them into what he was saying and laughing legitimately, others not, all laughing, whether they were afraid of him or truly amused varied on what he was saying. All of them except for Aleister, whose odd smirk could have been interpreted as amusement at the story, but looked vaguely out of place, like it was not related at all. ​“… when he said, if you’ll excuse me, First Consul, I’m usually quite organized.”

​When the story was done, and the laughter – both real and faked – had subsided, Katic had near tears in his eyes he was so amused and took a long exhale, working now on his fourth cup of wine, he clanged a salad fork against it and motioned down to Aleister.

​“Preator Ducheyene,” he started. “It’s something of a tradition at these quaint little affairs of ours to honor our newest and first time guests with an after dinner cigar, could I interest you in this?” he snapped his fingers and a servant in white walked up with a silver platter, he lifted the lid to reveal a single cigar.

​“Ah,” Aleister said, sitting up a little straighter in his chair and leaned over picked it up off the tray, raised it a little and then looked with mock suspicion all around the table. “Isn’t poison is it?” he asked.
​Another round of laughter.

​“Well, no,” Katic said as a joke. “Luckily for you, you saw reason yesterday and the poison was no longer necessary.

​The laughter intensified.

​Now Aleister leaned over to the side, raising his eyebrows slightly while the servant withdrew a silver lighter and sparked it holding it to the end of Aleister’s large cigar.

​“Ah, yes, right,” he stated, pausing to puff until the cigar was fully lit. When it was, he rotated it towards him, looked down at the wide red cherry, and satisfied, he dismissed the servant with a satisfactory nod. Then he leaned back in the chair. “About that, I’m afraid that was an act. A ruse to get me invited to this very spot, this very dinner that you guys run, at this very time.” He punctuated the dramatic news by crashing the heels of his boots on top of the table, rattling glasses, silverware and everything else that was on there, they crashed on top of the table one after the other as they crossed over each other. At first, when he had first talked, there was some laughter that continued on, though the one on Katic’s face had vanished completely. By the time Aleister was sat back, boots crossed on the table, puffing on his ‘initiation cigar’ all was utterly silent, the High Council of Veil’driel all staring at him. Some with confusion, or in Katic’s case, something more seemingly sinister.
​A stare Aleister met head on, meeting it and locking eyes, his words spoken in the subtext of being meant for everyone there, but were quite obviously meant for Senator Katic, but then his eyes floated over to the First Consul as well as he started to bring the cigar back up to his mouth. “I’m afraid we have some rather … unpleasant business to discuss.









Jace and Isabelle had just finished having breakfast with the Sindell Air Force fighter pilots in the giant messhall just adjacent to the Hangar, where Jace made it a point to find out exactly who Thane Grace and Wesley Riller were, and found out they were pilots who lost their lives heroically saving the convoy and getting Jaden within the Sindell forcefield. Isabelle had watched in contented silence as he broke into a whole discussion about how, in a sense, their sacrifice was the deepst and most important in the struggle to date, as without Jaden everything would have been lost. Even going so far as to say what he and Relic had done in Fairlawn, also the stuff of instant legend, would all have been for nothing if not for those men.

​Isabelle had seen him do things like that before, but she didn’t know if he did it to make himself feel better or to make those listening to him feel better, but she was sure for whatever reason he believed it more than anything. Truly, deeply believed it. And whatever his motives, whatever else, you cold see the look in those pilots eyes as they listened to him. There was a power some people had that just commanded attention and confidence. The stuff of natural leaders. His cousing, Aleister had it and was fighting the war on a very different but no less critical front. When they left and made their way out to the courtyards, it was a reminder of why everyone loved him, why she loved him, and it was in those moments that you left, knowing, believing they were going to be successful over the powers attacking this land. Even if it was just for a little while.
​Walking through the gardens outside the gardens, outside the main entrance to Sindell Castle, you could look at it from the gardens and courtyards they were walking thorugh and it rose up like a giant beautiful symmetrical mountain rising up in layers and up and back. And they came to a wide stone bench, sitting down. No one watching them, no more dress uniforms, just them, sitting on a wide beautiful, ornate stone bench, a beautiful fountain bubbling up in front of them.

​“Beautiful, huh?” she asked him, looking at the fountain.
​“I don’t know,” he said. “I think I’ve had my fill of fountains for one lifetime.”

​She smiled a little and leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder. Just watching the fountain, savoring this time with him when she had him all to herself, when there was nothing going on.

Where it was quiet.

​“So are you gonna tell me what you argued about with Thean?” she asked.

​Jace smiled, finding it amusing that she had known when he had an altercation with him or if Thean was the cause of his troubles from the time he was a kid.

​“It’s complicated,” he said, but now that line of thought led him somewhere else.

​“Mmhm,” she said.

​“Hey, do you remember the first time you met me?” he asked.
​“Yeah,” she said, a little surprised and she stood a little straighter before leaning forward to look at him. “You don’t?”
​When he went on, she realized it was more rhetorical and he was still staring down into the beautifully manicured grass.
​“I remember all the other kids had prominent parents, they all had outrider lineage, or had been scouted. You remember all those aptitude tests we had to take to even be considered?”
​Isabelle nodded.
​“I didn’t have any of them until I was already accepted into the Order. Nobody sponsored me. I began my training at the right age, but before that I didn’t even know what the Outrider Order was.”
​“So what are you saying?” Isabelle asked.
​“I don’t know,” he said, and he sighed, and no one was able to disarm anyone’s concern as easy as he was, and even as she found herself still concerned she relaxed in his presence in spite of herself. “Nothing,” he said and then the seriousness left him, the seriousness more evident in the last year of their lives, and he was more like the carefree Jace. “What do you wanna do today?”
​And it was remarkable, when he took the time to think about it or notice how similar this city was to the situation of Lornda Manor. Not far from the mountain range, and to Isabelle, there was even something familiar about this stone bench and courtyard atmosphere.
​“Well, I don’t know,” she said. “There’s a rumor there’s gonna be a scouting expedition to the mountain path,” then she stopped. “Not like they’ll be letting you or I on it together, after that stunt you pulled last night,” but she was doing her best not to laugh.
​“Couldn’t help it, it was your fault anyway.”
​“Yeah, and how’s that?” she asked, a flirty attitude that had driven Jace crazy for as long as he could remember. “Cuz I looked all pretty? And surprised you?”
​“You really are the smartest, most beautiful person I’ve ever seen or heard of.”
​Isabelle reaction was that she was a little surprised by that, and Jace smiled a little sheepish kind of laugh, and after all this time still capable of being embarrassed by her.
​Jace’s mouth quirked into a little sheepish expression, and she leaned over hard on the bench and nudged him hard, an unspoken exchange passed between them.
​A few more moments passed, and then Jace spoke again, looking back at her and leaning forward on the bench.
​“Yeah, well, if anything you’ll be going and I’ll be staying here.”
​“Oh? Why’s that? Wouldn’t be part of that whole complicated thing Thean related, is it?”
​Jace tried not to smile, but more at her than anything related to the situation and then he went to look away.
​“Mmhm,” she said. “So what’s our punishment? Court-martial?”
​“Yeah, well,” Jace said. “The world is ending.”
​She smiled, opening her mouth a little and shaking her head mocking him.
​“Joke’s on him,” she said, but making fun of Jace, but right on the edge of laughing in a flirting way.
​Jace started to laugh, but then suddenly he put his hand up on her shoulder, and even Isabelle didn’t pay attention to it. She was paying attention to the look in his eyes, that wild look she had seen on the balcony with him at Lornda Manor, although it didn’t seem so all consuming now. She watched him rise to his feet, slowly, his hand still on her shoulder, and he was looking out through the light blue forcefield that was barely perceptible in the daylight, out to the plain.
​“Jace, what is it?” she asked, but there was no answer, he just kept staring and she knew there wouldn’t be. “Jace!” she tried again.
​She looked out past the forcefield towards where he was looking, trying to see what he was, but there was nothing there. Past the forcefield and the edge of the city there was nothing but open lush green plains. But when she looked back to him, she didn’t even have the chance to speak before he was grabbing her arm and pulling her back.
​“We gotta go,” he was saying taking a couple steps backward. But still staring at the horizon where there was apparently no threat at all.
​“Where?” she asked.
​He was running now, and she was running after him.
​“To the Hangar, come on!”
​
***

​Hazel was getting sleepy, about to pass out. Relic watched her, and then suddenly an airship flew out the window and it seemed to get Relic thinking about something as he looked back to her.
​Relic stood up.
​“I’ll let you get some rest,” Relic said, standing up. “This has been a lot of information even for me. Do you need anything?”
​But Hazel was transfixed, staring out the window, and when she looked back at him there was something in her eyes that wasn’t there before.
“All roads, Relic. All the different cycles spreading back through time since the fall of the Sun Kingdom and the failed attempts to unite ever since, as the echoes of that very first division has echoed through the world in every form of division since, they’re all coming together to intersect. The Crossroads of fate, when everything will converge and existence will be sent down one of two paths. We can debate who is write, who is truly on Fate’s side, but all that will be at an end after shortly.”
Then, shocking Relic, she grabbed his wrist and pulled him close, pulled him down to where he was kneeling beside her bed and whispered something into his ear.
When he stood slowly, he was in shock.
“Why …. Why would you tell me that?”
“Because there will come that moment, before both roads, where there will be no more arguing and what is meant to be will be. But if I’m wrong, you’ll need to know that. And it’s time now,” she said, looking like she was drifting a little away.
“Time for what?” he asked, leaning a little closer to her. He thought he heard a very feint boom or explosion in the distance, but it was feint, not so near that it was threatening enough to go beyond curiousness or break Relic’s focus on Hazel.
“The beginning,” she said, and now she was looking in his eyes again, exactly as she was when this conversation began the night before and they had talked thorugh the night. And as she faded from consciousness she breathed, “The beginning of the end.”
​
***
Republic of Veil’driel
Fairlawn Woods

​Clive Barringer was standing in the exact spot Jace Dabriel had on the night of his famous mission where he almost single-handedly turned back the threat against overwhelming odds that lay siege to Fairlawn City, and it was a fact that was not lost on him, indeed it gave him comfort. (this paragraph must be saved for revelation later, which is what gives him the courage to make his run to the sentry house.)
​Even despite this, he felt the strength go out of his legs as he saw the enemy army rise up over the hills in the distance over the plain, marching to the beat of a foreign drum, and in that moment, he thought of how hard he had studied to be promoted. All the all night study sessions, and he wondered if he would have done all of that work if he knew it would leave him in command of all these whistlers and this entire operation to confront an entire enemy host they knew nothing about. And unlike when Jace Dabriel stood upon this hill, looking out at the army on the ridge, this one was very real.
​He barely had enough courage to raise the spyglass to his eye for a closer look. To get some detail of this horrible enemy, and then, the blowing of eerie horns blew, and he lowered the spyglass down again in front of him. Not looking.
​He heard a rustling in the brush behind him, and when he turned, he could not deny the very real comfort he felt in that moment to see Adrian Pierce coming up the hill. He had grown to depend on him in the months since he was reassigned, and here in the most tense moments of this army that was totally calm, hardly looking bothered at all.
​Clive didn’t know if the man simply didn’t appreciate the situation, or if it iwas a question of intelligence that he did not seem as terrified as he did, but he did know one thing. He was grateful for it. There was strength there, no matter what, and that could not be denied.
​“Hmmmm,” he said, a bit out of breath. He was not overweight by any means, but heavyset, and the trek through the woods and up the hill had taken it out of him. Then he took his own spyglass and looked out to the gathering force without the slightest hesitation, and while he didn’t see, Clive smiled at him. “Well more than a few, and no mistake,” he said. “If they follow even the slightest of military procedure, they’ll send scouts.”
​“I was thinking the same thing,” Clive said, and now he too was looking back, this time with his spyglass up, feeling more comfortable when he was around. There were banners caught in the breeze, banners he didn’t recognize, and then in a flash he felt hatred for the First Consul and High Council, having read Senator Bren’s most recent herald, hearing the exact, complicated, disturbing truth of things for himself along with most every other Republic citizen.
​Adrian grumbled, lowering the spy glass.
​“Bah,” he said, and then sniffed. “All dem Whistler boys are in place,” he said. “And there ain’t none better. Happen to be a close personal friend of one.”
​“I have no doubt,” Clive said with a smile, then asked, very sincerely. “And what about the street lanterns?”
​Adrian nodded.
​“All taken down, oil spread around stragegically. If it comes to that,” he nodded out to the plain. “And I don’t think I’ll be go’in out on a limb here by say’in it fairly may, we’ll be covered.”
​Clive nodded, took a deep breath, glanced back out at the army just as an eerie horn sounded and the host came to a halt. Then he simply asked what was on his mind. To the soldier he had come to trust most.
​ “So, Whaddya think?”
​Adrian answered all at once, whether he expected to be asked or simply was going to offer his opinion regardless, was not obvious, but it could’ve been either.
​“I think when they send those scouts of there’s, assuming they do, we stay scarce. Let them report nothing. Make the sentry house look abandon. Like we run off. Have them go back and report that, and when their forces start to come down the road, we kill as many as humanly possible.”
​“I like that plan,” Clive said. “See to it,” he said.
​“Aye, sir,” he said with a lazy salute, and he looked back down the hill, dreading that he had just barely come up it and now he was going to have to conquer it again. He sighed as he took his first steps down the hill.”
​“And Adrian,” he said, and he waited until he turned toward him. “I’m glad to have you.”
​“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, L.T.,” he said, and then turned back, amazingly looking more concerned with the walk down the hill back into the woods than with the enemy army on the plains.

***

​In the hangar, Stellan Fox was training a rookie pilot, it had giant copper chains attached to the key points of all the aircraft, and though extremely loud, Stellan was watching from the hangar office, Shamblin Vet busy next to him, and he was talking to the rookie pilot over the sapphire.
​Everytime he would call out a maneuver, the ship on those chains would respond, and Stellan nodded, noting marked improvement.
​“Good,” he said. “Better. Much better that time.”
​“Much better,” he was saying “Much better. Now let’s try a bank right move.”
​From here, secured on the chains, it did just that.
​But it was also a little shakey, as it was very hard to control these for rookies.
​“Add a little more pressure to the pedal pressure pedal he said.”
​And he did it, but now the thing started to verberate.
​“Relax, kid, relax,” he said, watching through the glass. “A nervous pilot flies poorly, a panicked one flies once. We’l get there.”
​Beside him Shamblin smirked.
​“I remember Riller saying that to you like yesterday,” he said.
​Stellan crossed his arms and nodded. The airship was a little sloppy but he wasn’t doing bad.
​“Doing well for his first simulation,” Stellan remarked.
​Shamblin was busy but looked up long enough though the window to asses a second and agree.
​“Still makes me think of-”
​At that moment, Jace crashed through the door of the hangar office, Isabelle right behind him.
​“Jace?” the hangar clerk asked, surprised by both his sudden appeareance but also his intense and concerned face. “What are you doing here?”
​Jace looked around a bit before speaking, as if he may have been expecting Artemus himself or some wizards hanging out in the hangar. Then he focused his attention totally on Shamblin.
​“You have to summon the King here now,” he said. “Summon everybody here right now.”
​Shamblin Vet didn’t show even the slightest hesitation, which Isabelle, still confused was even impressed with. But she knew it was a testament to what he has accomplished since coming to Sindell and how important he was.
​Now Stellan Fox was instructing the trainee to shut it down and the sound of those engines immediately started to shut down and he was walking away from the window looking out on the hangar even before it had totally landed and the heavy chains clinked loudly back down.
​

***

​Cleo woke up alone in Malcolm’s room, and spent the time since getting dressed, getting ready for the day, then she returned to his room, and he was still gone. She didn’t know how to take it, and now she was rummaging around in his room, which like his tent back on the plains in front of Fairlawn Woods, was pretty sparce. But the books were still there, and now, fully dressed, freshly bathed she was walking over to one of the books out of curiosity as she tied her hair back she looked down. She had just dropped her fingers on one of the covers when she heard Malcolm’s voice.
​“If you wanna borrow that, you’ll have to wait,” he said. And she turned around to see him, arms crossed, leaning against the side of the doorframe. “Not done with it yet.”

​“Ooh clever,” she said, her mouth open in a little cute mimicky action, but her entire face lit up when she saw him. “Felt guilty for abandoning me, I take it.”

​He smiled, taking her in, and couldn’t help but smile.

​“Sorry about that,” he said. “Had to check on some things. Didn’t wanna wake you.”

​“Oh, look at your, Mr. Important guy.”

​He smiled.

​“You wanna get breakfast?”

​She stepped toward him.

​“Matter of fact, I would-”

​Suddenly the blue sapphire that was tied to Malcolm’s arm of his uniform in the exact same way as it was in the Bryce Valley mission, and she remembered seeing it like that, sprung to life.

​“This is a call to action. Repeat. This is a call to action. All stations, prepare for imminent action. His Majesty, King William and all senior personnel are requested to report to the Hangar. Repeat, this is a call to arms!”

​Malcolm looked concerned and stood up, surprised.

​Cleo raised her eyebrows.

​“Are you…?”

​“Senior personnel?” he asked. He raised his eyebrows. “Yeah.” The glowing blue sapphire attached to his arm faded to its dormant state again. He turned around took a single step, and then turned back to Cleo. “Coming Senator?”

​Without a single word she started running after him, and they left out through the door and were running through the corridors that were moments before calm that were now alive with chaos and procedure and people doing what they were supposed to do.

​“Is this how it is here? Is it always this crazy?” Cleo asked as they continued to run.

​“Yeah,” he answered, as he held her hand and they dodged around a couple people. And then another, and another as the guard rushed past. “Actually, no, this is a little bit crazier.”
​

Chapter Sixteen  (E) Chapter Sixteen #2190681 by Dan Hiestand