celestial paradigm (Dawn of a New Astral Age Book 4)
Author: Heathers, Corinn
Date: 2016-05-19
Publisher: Unknown

More Stories by Corinn Heathers

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Novels

Dawn of a New Astral Age
bound together
dimension fracture
rebirth disconnect

Binary System

Binary System: Deneb

Binary System: Sirius (Coming Soon)

Unlimited Colors

Unlimited Colors: resonance .1

Short Works

The Dusty Man ~ K.J. Russell

“Tears”

Tides of Possibility ~ Edited by K.J. Russell

“Imaginary Numbers”

Tides of Impossibility ~ Edited by K.J. Russell & C. Stuart Hardwick

“Wind and Ash”

celestial paradigm
dawn of a new astral age, book four

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corinn heathers

celestial paradigm
dawn of a new astral age, book four

copyright © 2016 by Corinn Heathers

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced without express written permission from the copyright holder, with the exception of short excerpts for review purposes.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and situations are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

meilin's chapter / fate
nightfall
confluence
broken pieces
loss
domination

karin's chapter / nocturne
family
the pale
from fear
condemnation
darkened paths
hollow
questions
illusion

karin's chapter / requiem
small wishes
within the blood
hope
white void
falling dark
despair

soleil's chapter / umbra
recovery
subterfuge
stained red
equanimity

karin's chapter / rift
contact
retaliation
devastation
red fangs
crossing over
enmity
dreams
honest wishes
rift

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about the author

meilin's chapter

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fate

nightfall

“There. You look great.”

Meilin smiled at the child before her, the girl standing tall and straight like a soldier presenting themselves for their commander's inspection. Her wavy brown hair was pulled back and tied up with an enormous yellow bow that coordinated well with the soft lavender dress. Small feet were clad in silver low-heeled slippers.

“I need to use the toilet,” the girl announced.

“You should have done that before we put the dress on.” Meilin rolled her eyes in mock exasperation. “Fine. Go look in the mirror after you're done and tell me what you think.”

The girl scampered off in the direction of the large apartment's bathroom, where a full-length mirror was mounted on the inside of the door. Meilin shook her head slowly and reached for a nearby glass filled with ice water.

“I don't think I've ever seen a cuter kid.”

Meilin felt a warmth surge through her as she turned toward the speaker. The tall man that sat next to her at the kitchen table was smiling, too. He ran a hand through short-cropped dark curls and leaned forward to kiss her cheek.

“I'm sure we'll be able to do just as well,” Meilin informed him, a faint blush appearing on her cheeks. “Since their future father is the cutest guy I've ever seen, it would only make sense, after all.”

“And their future mother is the most beautiful woman I've ever seen,” he added without missing a beat.

Meilin felt a pleasurable chill run down her spine. “Stop it, Gabriel, you're making me blush like a schoolgirl.”

“I love it when you blush like a schoolgirl.”

“You aren't supposed to love that!” Meilin laughed and playfully swatted away the hand that reached out to take her own. “Didn't you fall in love with my elegance, poise and grace?”

“I fell in love with all of you, sweet lady.”

“Okay, okay, enough of that—Alicia's going to be back in here soon enough. I won't be a party to the corruption of youth.”

“Especially not when the youth in question is your niece.”

“I prefer my head attached to my neck, thank you very much.” The image of her hotheaded half-sister popped into her mind. It was still exceedingly strange that Amber, her foul-mouthed, argumentative, rude and violent younger sister, had become a mother. “She's going to be a heartbreaker when she gets older.”

“Dangerous little kit. My sympathy to the parents of all the boys in her classes,” Gabriel remarked with a rueful chuckle.

“You should save your sympathy for the boys themselves,” Meilin countered wryly.

“Oh?”

The bathroom door opened with a loud click. Fully aware Alicia could hear her, Meilin added, loudly, “Mm-hm. You haven't seen how she acts when Soleil is around. She gets so flustered and nervous, starts stammering and everything. It's adorable.”

“Aunt Meilin!” Alicia cried, her face turning a rather bright shade of red.

“What? It's true.”

“B-but it's embarrassing!”

“It's not embarrassing at all, sweetie,” Meilin soothed, standing up to tug the chagrined child out from behind the corner where she currently hid. “Have you told Soleil how you feel about her yet?”

Alicia's blush intensified and she shook her head emphatically.

“Why not?”

“I-I'm afraid,” Alicia blurted. “Soleil's a year and a half older than me. I'm scared she'll think I'm just some little kid or something. And she's always around Tsubame so much… it's just… I don't think I can do it.”

Meilin took hold of Alicia's hands and squeezed them encouragingly. “Trust me, I think that's the least of your worries with Soleil. She's not like an ordinary girl, not like the girls in your class—you know this already, right?”

“Y-yeah, well, she has the Bright Swallow…”

“That's not what I mean. You and she were both taken from your lives by House Kihara, so you share many of the same experiences. You both have a connection to the astral flow. There's no way Soleil's going to fuss about you being a little younger than her.” Meilin leaned forward and kissed Alicia on the forehead. “Besides, that little gap isn't even worth talking about. Gabriel is four years older than I am, and we love each other just fine.”

“It's true, kid,” Gabriel agreed. “Honestly, Meilin's a load more mature than I am at least half of the time.”

Meilin giggled. “Only half of the time?”

“I guess you're right,” Alicia conceded, smiling a little at the banter between the two adults. “I mean, Misaki is a lot older than Karin…”

“Well,” Meilin hedged, “that's a little bit different, since Misaki isn't human.” And at this point, neither is Karin, she added silently. There was no reason to voice her own unsettling thoughts in front of her adoptive niece, though.

The discussion was interrupted by a knock at the door. Alicia's expression shifted from pensive to a mixture of excitement and nervousness all at once. She reached up and tugged at Meilin's wrist.

“I'll get the door.”

Meilin sat back down. “Okay, go ahead.”

Alicia took a deep breath, steadying herself as she approached the door. Her small hands reached out and disengaged the auto-lock. The heavy wood-paneled metal door swung open, revealing two familiar figures.

The taller of the two was several centimeters taller than Meilin. Her long, silvery-white hair was straight and left unbound. Even in the still air of the apartment complex, the woman's locks appeared to blow gently about her face in some intangible wind. Bright feathers covered her ears and the back of her neck.

It was the shorter figure that Alicia fixated on, however. A thick mass of red curls topped a freckle-scattered face with brown eyes and large, round-rimmed glasses. Beneath the hair and the eyes was a smile that widened considerably as the door swung open.

“Hi, S-Soleil,” Alicia managed.

“Wow, you look so pretty,” Soleil marveled. “That dress is beautiful!”

“Y-you look really p-pretty, too.”

Soleil's cheeks flushed faintly and she spun around, showing off the pale blue dress she wore. “You think so? Tsubame helped me pick this one out.” The bespectacled girl chuckled and shifted her attention to the adults in the apartment. “Hi Meilin, Meilin's boyfriend.”

“So I'm just 'Meilin's boyfriend,' then?” Gabriel protested in a mild tone. “I'll have you know that I have a name and I'd prefer you use it.”

“Well? Are you ready to go?” Soleil pressed, ignoring Gabriel's comment as if it had never even been spoken. A hint of impatience crept into her voice.

“Y-yes—”

Soleil reached out and took hold of Alicia's hand. “Well, then, come on! Let's go! I don't know about you, but I'm hungry!”

“Go on, Alicia, go have fun,” Meilin said with a wave of her hand, but both girls were already around the corner, headed for the elevator. She turned her attention to Tsubame and nodded. “Thanks for letting her stay with you two. It's been a while since Gabriel and I have had some time to ourselves.”

Tsubame shrugged. “It's not a problem.”

“Keep an eye on Alicia, but I'd appreciate if you don't, um, interfere,” Meilin hedged, fixing the Relic spirit with a meaningful look. “With whatever happens between the two of them, if you catch my meaning.”

“I understand. Soleil and I have spoken a little on the subject. I believe there is a great deal of mutual attraction between the two of them, but neither seem to be willing to speak with the other directly.” Tsubame's head tilted and her crystal-blue eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “It seems an inefficient way of communicating.”

“It's love, Tsubame,” Meilin informed her. “It makes you stupid. Haven't you ever felt that way about someone?”

“I feel some degree of physical attraction to others.” Tsubame's expression grew even more pensive. “I'm not sure that could be considered 'love,' however. My experience in these matters is extremely limited.”

“Certain people?” Meilin's eyebrow arched curiously. “Like who?”

“Karin Ashley and Misaki.”

“Um, wow. Really? I mean, I figured that was the case but I didn't expect you to actually just come out and tell me.”

Tsubame blinked. “You asked a question but didn't expect an answer?”

“Never mind that. Better catch up to those two before they try to leave without you.”

“Of course.” The Relic spirit bowed respectfully and took her leave, closing the apartment door behind her.

Meilin turned to Gabriel, who had kept a polite silence during the whole rather awkward exchange. He stuffed his phone back into the pocket of his rumpled suit jacket and stood up, extending a hand to her in a gallant fashion.

“Shall we also get ready to depart, lovely lady?”

“I think we should, since our reservations are in two hours,” Meilin replied. She accepted the offered hand and rose to her feet.

“It's still a bit chilly out.” He regarded the short, midnight-blue qipao draped across the nearby sofa with a hint of concern. “Are you sure you'll be warm enough in a dress that short? Not that I'm complaining or anything.”

“I'm sure. Now go get a shower and change. You still smell like office.”

Gabriel's lips curved into an impish smile. “You don't want to join me?”

“If I did that, we'd never make it to the restaurant. Besides, I already took a shower earlier. Now get moving. Traffic shouldn't be too bad but we still need to leave before eight.”

“Fine, fine.”

Meilin sighed and downed the rest of her water as her overly-silly fiance headed toward the bathroom. Her hair was still slightly damp, but it wasn't likely to be a problem; she'd planned to wear it pinned up in a messy sort of bun that would look better with a few strands hanging out here and there.

The door to the bathroom shut and latched shortly before the shower cut on. Meilin shook her head and laughed softly as Gabriel broke into song, his voice rising up above the sound of the water. He had a powerful baritone—one of the many things she found irresistible about the man—but singing in the shower was about as silly as one could get.

Meilin walked into the kitchen, setting her glass on the counter, when she caught an unusual glint on the balcony deck outside. Her apartment was on the fifth floor; it was unlikely to be an intruder, but Meilin didn't survive this long by being careless. Her hand went to the small of her back, where her compact automatic was holstered, and unsnapped the retention strap.

Slowly she crept toward the sliding door. The balcony light was off; Meilin left it off on the off-chance that whoever or whatever was intruding on her home couldn't yet see her. She slid her pistol out and flicked off the safety as she eased across the common room, pressing her back against the wall near the doorway.

Peering around the corner, Meilin felt her heartbeat quicken as she saw a dark-clad figure, shrouded in the lengthening shadows. Steadying her shoulders, she tapped the control on the back door auto-lock and waited while it slid open.

When the doorway was not immediately riddled with gunfire, Meilin relaxed just a touch. She dashed out around the corner, weapon leading, and—

—nearly dropped the gun when she recognized the person standing on her deck, at least fifteen meters off the ground.

“Do not be alarmed,” Eirene said quietly. “You may put your weapon away. I only wish to talk.”

“How did you get on my balcony?”

The shadowy mage shrugged. “I move through the astral flow; height and distance are irrelevant. I did not wish to cause a commotion, and so I waited until the Sun and Swallow were no longer present.”

Meilin glanced back inside the apartment. “My fiance is here with me. He's in the shower. Whatever you have to say, you need to do it quickly. We're supposed to go out on a date tonight and I'm not about to let anyone get in the way of that.”

Eirene's expression seemed wistful. “Very well. I will not take up much of your time.”

“Good. Then let's talk.” Meilin re-engaged the safety on her pistol and shoved it back into its holster.

“Elias of the Order of the Moon has struck a permanent alliance with the remaining summoners of House Kihara,” Eirene stated, bluntly and without preamble. “Were you aware of this?”

Meilin nodded hesitantly. “I knew there were negotiations going on. I spoke with the Archivist and the Order Magicians about the deal, but most of the information is confidential. As far as I know, it's supposed to mandate some sort of period of atonement for the atrocities committed by the late Samuel Kihara.”

“Why did you not stop this?”

“I voiced my objections. So did Amber. The Order judges that the Kihara remnant would be far more dangerous if left to ally with other, more amoral Houses.” Meilin regarded Eirene coolly. “I don't necessarily agree with letting the Kihara mages off the hook like this, but I don't see any other options.”

Eirene scowled. “House Kihara was greatly weakened after the death of their lord. The Order possessed enough martial and astral might necessary to remove the Kihara from consideration.”

“You're saying we should have just killed them all?”

“Yes.”

Meilin's lips compressed into a thin line. “They're not innocent bystanders, but I don't necessarily believe they deserve to be killed for what they did. Under Luna's guidance, the former mages of House Kihara will be given the opportunity to rehabilitate. If they refuse, then the Swordlady will pay them a visit.”

“They will not rehabilitate.” Eirene's tone was frosty. “The Archivist Elias has not restricted their actions in the slightest.”

“What?”

“You have been deceived by your lord,” the shadowy mage continued. “You do not have the ability to touch the astral flow, but it is my domain. I have sensed the invocation of potent bindings. They exhibit an ancestral style known only to high mages of House Kihara. It is not likely your lord is unaware of their actions.”

Meilin felt her blood freeze in her veins. “Did you just tell me the Kihara survivors are summoning specters?”

Eirene nodded wordlessly.

“But… why? For what purpose?”

“I do not know, but I fear their actions will inevitably lead to suffering.” Eirene turned away from the doorway and gestured absently to the center of the balcony. Meilin watched, entranced, as the space nearby started to warp and twist. Crackling black energies wreathed the edges of the tear in the fabric of reality.

“Wait,” Meilin said. “There's something else I need to know.”

“Ask.”

“Are any of the other allied mages doing this, or is it just Kihara?”

Eirene smiled grimly as she stepped through the rift. Her physical form began to fade away as she slipped into the astral flow. Meilin stared, open-mouthed, at the spot on the balcony where the most unsettling mage had been only a moment before.

She shivered involuntarily as she felt a sudden connection within her mind. It was a familiar sensation, one she experienced once before, months ago, when Misaki contacted her with a sending invocation after Karin had been taken by AEGIS.

This time, however, the voice in her mind was not Misaki's, but Eirene's.

It is not only Kihara.

confluence

Several hours later, Meilin awoke in the darkness.

Blankets had been pulled up around her, but the man she shared her bed with was gone. There was a confused moment of anxiety that quickly passed as Meilin's conscious mind regained some semblance of functionality.

She was tired; the day had been long and filled with activity. Alicia was a good kid, but taking care of her still took a lot more out of Meilin than she expected. On top of that, Gabriel had come to spend the weekend with her.

Meilin tossed the covers back and retrieved a thin silk robe from a peg on the wall, wrapping it around her slender form. A soft glow emanated from the kitchen; Meilin tied the robe's sash around her waist and walked into the dining room. Two glasses of orange juice sat on the small table, accompanied by napkins and silverware.

“Did I wake you?”

She shook her head. “No, I woke up on my own.”

Gabriel was already dressed, wearing casual and comfortable clothing suitable for a long day of air travel. The kitchen clock's glowing green digits told Meilin it was a little past five in the morning.

“I was hoping you'd stay in dreamland a little longer—at least until I finished cooking breakfast,” Gabriel said with a grin, gesturing to the operation in progress. Scrambled eggs, liberally infused with butter and fresh dill, cooked slowly on the stove. A wrapped package of smoked salmon sat on the countertop; Meilin reached out and snagged a piece of the fish for herself.

“Hey, that's supposed to go on the eggs.”

“This piece is going in my tummy.” Meilin's expression was amused. “I'm sorry I spoiled your surprise by waking up. I have too much on my mind these days.”

“I'm sure,” Gabriel murmured as he stirred the eggs and cut off the flame. “You've been oddly tense recently. Trouble with work?”

Meilin winced. “You could say that.”

“I figured maybe the stress of taking care of your niece might be the cause, but after meeting Alicia for myself I realized that was wrong.” He dropped several crumbles of sharp and salty feta cheese in the eggs and folded them gently with a rubber spatula. “Come on, Meilin, tell me what's going on.”

“Last night I spoke with a—not a friend, but a person I at least don't believe would lie to me. She told me that the former members of House Kihara were absorbed into Luna unconditionally, even though both Amber and I spoke against doing such a thing.”

Gabriel seemed lost in thought. Shortly after the two of them decided to take their relationship to the next level, Meilin filled him in on the shadow world of magic, her past as an agent with AEGIS and her present as a controller for the Order of the Moon. There was a lot he still didn't know—Meilin believed it would be easier if she eased him into it—but she had already found him to be a wise and insightful sounding board.

“That makes no sense,” he objected, portioning the eggs on two plates. He set the empty pan down and started to fold several thin slices of smoked salmon atop the custard-like scrambled eggs. “Weren't these the same people who—”

“Yes, they are,” Meilin interrupted, not wanting to give voice to the atrocities committed by the Kihara mages. “Amber wanted us to wipe them out. I argued with her about it at the time, and even recently I thought placing them into restricted servitude was the best course of action, but…”

“They aren't behaving,” Gabriel reasoned.

“The person I spoke with last night believes it to be worse than that.” Meilin took her plate and sat down across from Gabriel at the table. She sipped slowly at the glass of chilled orange juice he'd set out earlier. “She told me they've been summoning specters for reasons unknown, and also implied that the Archivist is aware of their actions.”

“I won't pretend to understand the strange world you live in, but it seems to me like the people you work for are more concerned about becoming powerful than doing the right thing.” He picked up his fork and cut off a small piece of salmon and egg. He chewed slowly and swallowed. “This turned out really good.”

Meilin smiled despite her dark thoughts. “Of course it did. It's smoked salmon and eggs and you're a wonderful cook. Thank you for making my favorite breakfast.”

“I'm rather fond of it myself.” Gabriel took another bite and washed it down with a healthy swallow of juice. “That tangent aside…”

“Luna's primary directive is the preservation of astral lore,” Meilin said. “The rationale behind the focus on expansion is sound. The more mages Luna fields, the more easily we'll be able to locate artifacts.”

“Yeah, but have your people been doing much archeology recently?”

Meilin sighed. “No.”

“And have you talked with the boss about that?”

“I have. Elias seems to genuinely believe in expanding Luna's influence.” She paused for a moment to take a few bites of her breakfast before continuing. “The 'demons' consumed so much, and nearly every arcane house seems determined to get their hands on anything that could contain even the smallest mote of mana.”

Gabriel shook his head. “That makes sense as far as it goes, but that doesn't explain summoning specters. I'd bet half my next paycheck there's something shady going on here, Meilin.”

“I think you're right,” Meilin admitted. “I appreciate your perspective on these sort of things. Sometimes it takes a second pair of eyes to see the picture clearly.”

“Have you thought about what to do next?”

“I think… I need to talk to Karin. Amber, too. She's supposed to come by to spend some time with Alicia later today. If that person wasn't mistaken—and I would be surprised if she was—then the situation will probably worsen.”

“Hmm.”

Meilin glanced down at her empty plate. “I'm sorry about dumping all of this on you right before you leave the country.”

“Hey, that's what I'm here for. I just want you to promise me one thing.”

“What's that?”

Gabriel met her gaze squarely. “That you be careful. I know you can handle yourself, iron lady, but please… if things get too dangerous… I don't want to think about you getting hurt, or worse.”

“I'll be fine,” Meilin insisted. “If things go bad, I've got friends I can rely on.”

He chuckled. “Two of whom are capable of taking on small armies on their own. Maybe I'm just worrying like an old maid.”

“There is that, yes.”

Pushing his chair back from the table, Gabriel stood up and collected the dishes, carrying them into the kitchen. Meilin raised a hand to stop him, but he waved her off and started washing the plates, pans and utensils.

“Are you sure you don't want me to see you off at the airport?”

“I prefer saying goodbye in private, honestly.” He set the dishes in the nearby rack to dry and walked back around to her side of the table. She accepted the outstretched hand and allowed Gabriel to pull her up into a warm embrace.

Meilin smiled shyly. “Me, too.”

“Great minds think alike.”

No more words were spoken for several minutes. Meilin leaned up and kissed him softly. She could feel the smooth, freshly-shaven skin of his cheeks beneath her fingers as she let them slide back to his neck and shoulders. She closed her eyes and felt his strong hands hold her, drawing her body up against his.

Eventually she broke the kiss, pulling back and gazing up at the much taller Gabriel, peering deeply into his vivid green eyes. They reminded her somewhat of Misaki's, but more a sea-green shade than the gem-bright emerald of the fox-featured spirit.

“I miss you already, and you're not even gone yet.”

“I wish I could stay longer.”

Meilin kissed his cheek lightly. “I wish you could stay with me all the time.”

“Another six months, pretty lady, and that wish will come true.”

“That's six whole months, though,” Meilin complained. “Six months when I only get to see you for a few days at a time.”

“This job is almost over and I won't be taking any more that have me leave the country like this.” He reached out and tapped the tip of her nose with a finger, but their extended farewell was interrupted by a notification chime. “That's my cab. I need to get going.”

“Call me when you land in Seoul,” Meilin urged. “Don't worry about waking me up or anything. I don't care even if it's late.”

“Of course.” Bending down at the knees, Gabriel shrugged his large backpack over his shoulders and picked up the smaller carry-on bag. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, tapping to dismiss the repeating notification. “I'll see you again sooner than you think, Meilin. I love you.”

She smiled. “I love you, too.”

Gabriel turned and tapped the auto-lock, slipping out as the door opened. A moment later it clicked shut and the lock re-engaged, leaving Meilin alone in her apartment for the first time in weeks. She shivered slightly—the heat had been turned down for the night and her robe wasn't the warmest garment ever sewn.

With her partner gone and Alicia staying over at Soleil's place for the night, Meilin was acutely aware of the silence. She turned and headed back to her bedroom, easing herself back down to the mattress. Her phone sat on the nightstand nearby, plugged in and charging. Meilin reached for it, wondering how annoyed Karin would be about a five-thirty phone call.

Guess I'll find out soon enough.

Meilin unlocked the device and scrolled through her contacts to Karin's entry. When the two of them worked for AEGIS, she would contact Karin through a secure comm tunnel developed by the agency. Luna developed a similar but more primitive version of the same method. While it wasn't as secure, it could be applied to ordinary phone numbers without needing to connect to a special server.

She was fairly sure AEGIS could break the encryption if they really tried, but it would still take them considerable effort, and thus she felt reasonably safe discussing sensitive information over the phone.

The phone rang five times before the other side picked up.

“Meilin, why are you calling me at five-thirty in the fucking morning?” Karin's voice came over the line, slurred and sounding half-asleep. “This better be really important if it couldn't wait.”

“It's important,” Meilin insisted.

“I'll be the judge of that.”

“Eirene came to speak with me, last night.”

“The fuck?!” Karin's tone cleared almost instantly, concern sharpening her words. “She just showed up at your place out of the blue? Let me guess; she appeared randomly somewhere ridiculous, like your balcony or some shit.”

Meilin chuckled. “That's exactly what she did.”

“She's so fucking creepy. What did she say to you that was so important you had to wake me up this early in the morning? And if it's that important, why didn't you just call me last night when it happened?”

“It was my last night with Gabriel before he left for Korea.”

Karin's voice softened. “Oh. Yeah, that's important, too.”

“I knew you'd understand.” Meilin leaned back against the wooden headboard of her bed and stared up at the dark ceiling. “Eirene claims that the former Kihara mages were accepted into Luna without any restrictions placed on their actions.”

“I don't even want to know how she knows that, but I'm not surprised. Elias seems desperate to make Luna more powerful as quickly as possible.” There was a pause before she continued to speak. “Something tells me this gets worse.”

“It does,” Meilin agreed, a grim note resonating through her voice. “She also claimed they've been summoning specters. No explanation as to why, but the possibility that they're doing so at all, for any reason—”

“Is really, really fucked up,” Karin finished for her. “Wasn't Luna's whole claim to fame that they refused to bind specters to do their bidding? I pretty distinctly recall Amber saying something like that.”

“That's what I was told. I was also told that the Kihara remnants would be put under heavy restrictions and only allowed to work in non-sensitive areas until they'd proven their loyalty to the Order.”

“Deception is generally built on more deception.” There was a grunt of annoyance over the line that Meilin knew probably came from Misaki. “Let's do a little speculation. What do you think Luna's trying to do by letting the Kihara summoners drag specters across the boundary?”

“I don't know,” Meilin admitted. “It's not just the Kihara mages, but others, too, according to Eirene.”

“Well, there's one issue we can address. If it's not just the former members of House Kihara, then we can assume they're not plotting to escape or take control. If Eirene is right and Elias knows about it, it's for some other purpose he has in mind.”

Meilin didn't respond to that.

“We both know the usual reason summoners bind specters,” Karin went on. “Power, money, influence, control. I don't think these motivations apply in this case, though. I think it's a little simpler than that.”

“Oh?”

“What's the quickest way for a bunch of mages to boost their offensive capabilities?”

“I thought of that, too.” Meilin reached for the bottle of water on her nightstand and took a sip to moisten her drying throat. “But for what purpose? Do you think it has to do with the Pillars of Heaven?”

“Possible, but unlikely. I doubt even dozens of summoned specters would be able to stand up against someone like Orn Thaal.” A quaver of fear-tinged respect ran through Karin's voice as she spoke. “If the rest of the Pillars are anything like him or Eirene, they'd have to summon an army of the fucking things.”

“Then who does Elias expect to fight?”

“Remember, Luna shifted focus to bolstering their ranks before the Pillars made themselves known,” Karin reminded her. “It started during the crisis with the demons, probably right around the time they first started showing up. AEGIS was pretty distracted at the time, too—demons were eating agents, as I'm sure you recall, and Nergal was making his move to oust the former Director.”

Meilin sat up abruptly. “You think Elias is preparing to wage war on the agency?”

“Well, yeah. Why not? Blondie straight-up admitted to me that AEGIS's goal is to cut us off from the source of magic entirely. I'm not optimistic enough to fool myself into thinking nobody else knows that.”

“The destruction of magic.” Meilin let out a slow breath as she considered the implications. “Elias would do anything to prevent such a catastrophe, no matter the cost to himself or Luna.”

“Also, AEGIS might have government backing and be more effective than ever with Blondie at the helm,” Karin continued, “but the main reason they've been so successful at wiping out arcane houses is the squabbling behavior of the houses themselves. They're all way too concerned with competing with each other to unify.”

“The inherent corrupting nature of miasma inevitably causes summoners to lose clarity of mind and purpose. Paranoia runs rampant and they can't trust anyone else.” The former AEGIS operative stood up and walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, gazing out at the city as the sun slowly started to edge against the horizon. “We both saw that demonstrated most vividly with Isao Tsukimura.”

“I'm not likely to ever forget that asshole. If it wasn't for ending up fused with the Relic, I'd be walking with a limp and a cane for the rest of my life.”

Meilin rubbed her eyes with her free hand. “What do you think we should do about this? I don't doubt Eirene has some agenda of her own, but this isn't something we can ignore.”

“Nor should we,” Karin agreed. “Remember who you were when I knew you as Star. An investigator, a seeker of truth—and remember the fact that you were blinded by your superiors. The situation doesn't seem all that different now, does it?”

The woman who was once called Star laughed without humor. “No.”

“Do what you do best, Meilin. Poke around—but do it carefully. If the Kihara mages are summoning specters with official sanction, your bosses aren't going to take kindly to any sort of curiosity.”

“I'll be careful,” Meilin promised. “I'll let you go back to sleep now. I can hear Misaki making annoyed sounds in the background.”

“All right. One other thing, though.”

“Yes?”

“Don't tell Amber about this until we've got more information. If she has even the slightest inkling that Elias is involved in this, she'd kick his door in and demand answers at sword-point. That would be the exact opposite of quiet.”

A long moment passed before Meilin spoke. “I don't like leaving Amber in the dark, but… I agree with you.”

“Let your sister do the door-kicking-down thing when we've got something solid. I don't think Eirene's lying about this—she's annoyingly cryptic and opaque, sure, but making shit up just isn't how she operates. Still, it'd help to have something a little more tangible.”

Meilin's expression hardened as she processed all that had been discussed. A small part of her hoped that her investigation would prove Eirene wrong, but she knew such a hope was nothing but wishful thinking.

“Right. I'll start investigating immediately—and I'll be careful.”

broken pieces

Far too worked up to go back to sleep, Meilin tossed her phone on the mattress and headed into the bathroom. She stripped off the thin silk robe and stepped under the water, washing up quickly. There was no rush at this point—Alicia wouldn't be back for another two days. Meilin wanted to at least get some of the work done in the time she had.

She stepped out of the shower and started to dry herself off. The clock on her nightstand told her it was only a few minutes after six. That gave Meilin some time to snoop. She chose her outfit with the tasks of the day firmly in mind. A pair of dark designer denim pants went with a long-sleeve fitted gray blouse. She pulled on a long, loose tunic in a soft lilac shade. The hem of the long shirt dropped low enough to hide her holstered automatic while still allowing her easy access to the weapon.

In her bedroom, there was a small gray lockbox. Fireproof, with a hardened casing, hinges and latches that were nearly impossible to cut with ordinary tools, the lockbox held something of Meilin's former life. She tapped her fingers against the compact auto-lock and entered in a complex string of characters. A soft chime sounded as both the passcode and biometric scans were accepted.

Inside the box was a heavily modified and upgraded Spell Engine, complete with two dozen overcharged mana cartridges. They were the last remnants of the woman she had been, the agent code-named “Star.”

There were many reasons why she didn't often use the device. During the demon incident, no specters were able to answer the summons of human mages. The magic of Orn Thaal, the Third Pillar of Heaven, trapped them within an ancient ruin, forcing their essence into the bodies of feral predatory animals to create vicious monsters.

Without specters, there were no miasmic cores to harvest for quintessence. No new mana cartridges could be produced. That was likely to change soon enough, assuming Nergal and Eirene were correct and that human summoners were once again calling dark spirits across the boundary.

Meilin's lips twitched thoughtfully. She was glad she kept the Spell Engine in reserve, just in case. The Order of the Moon was one of the most powerful arcane houses in the world—and the more smaller houses it absorbed, the more powerful it became. To compete with rival mage orders, Luna eschewed bloodlines and familial connections and accepted any unaffiliated mages who wished to join.

“I have to wonder how many of those mages joined voluntarily,” she mused to herself as she pulled the Spell Engine on. The device was mounted to a glove that fit her left hand, securing around her wrist with a nylon strap. She drew one of the mana cartridges out and locked it into place on the Engine's main body.

She could sense a barely-audible hum as the device powered on for the first time in months. The discharge aperture emitted a soft blue glow and flashed twice. Meilin could just barely feel the tingle as the Spell Engine established a solid link between her own frayed and disorganized lines of force.

Meilin would never become a mage herself. Her astral pattern was like that of most humans on the planet—a series of meandering lines that didn't connect to anything and traveled nowhere. But the Spell Engine possessed its own astral pattern, one that could link with the usable lines within her. The older models would only allow the wearer to enact a limited number of preprogrammed invocations, but Meilin's was special. This Spell Engine would let Meilin invoke astral effects in the same way a natural mage would, albeit she could not tap into the ambient mana to refresh its capacity.

With her automatic, two spare magazines, the Spell Engine and four mana cartridges, Meilin felt as well-prepared as she possibly could be. A small part of her still hoped that Eirene was mistaken, but Meilin knew she wasn't nearly that lucky.

Her normal duties within Luna gave her a great deal of freedom to access the Order's archives of astral lore, as well as their intelligence reports and observer records. Meilin was more interested in the latter two than the former at this point. Examining these things was part of her job.

The Order was a lot more fanatical about data security than even AEGIS, though. Most of their digital archives were kept on physical media disconnected from any “live” systems, making them impossible to steal through hacking. She'd need to head to one of the nearby outposts equipped with a secure terminal.

Meilin's opening move would be to make use of one of these.

Her boots went on and she laced them up tight. She was moving toward the door even as she finished her usual morning routine. Her jacket was tucked under one arm, her handbag slung over the same shoulder. A free hand held a compact as she finished her makeup off on the way to the car.

The elevator ride down to street level was quiet and quick this early in the morning. She knew things would be different in an hour or so, when many of her fellow residents started heading to work, but for now she was alone.

Chill air wafted against her face as she stepped out into the parking lot, heading for her car. She smiled wryly as she recalled how she had to abandon it at the cafe before heading off with Misaki to ask Amber for help with rescuing Karin from AEGIS. It took a bit of doing, but they managed to track down where it had been towed and get it back before giving it a thorough inspection to remove any surveillance devices.

The electric motors started up only a little sluggishly. She slotted her phone into the vehicle's docking cradle and put the car into gear. A twinge of anxiety shot through her as she merged into traffic.

If Eirene was right… if Karin's instincts are good—and they usually are—I won't be able to come home for a while. Meilin's expression became pensive as she considered the possible consequences of her actions. The possibility that Karin was overreacting didn't even cross her mind; she had a tremendous amount of respect for her friend. Despite her own wish to belong to something larger than herself, she couldn't ignore this.

Was I wrong to assume Eirene told me the truth?

No. The accusation was too big to dismiss. She trusted Karin's assessment of Eirene's sincerity—at least enough to take a look, if for no other reason than to confirm the truth for herself.

If Elias was not aware of the renegade Kihara mages' alleged actions, bringing them to light would be a great service to the Order. If he was aware…

I don't know.

There was really only one way to find out. She had to call them out, to issue a challenge that could not be ignored. The direct approach wouldn't work within a game of lies.

Meilin shook off her dark thoughts and tried to keep her mind firmly set on her present task. Most of Luna's outposts were kept in out-of-the-way locations, either hidden within regular homes in residential districts or within nondescript offices. After their main repository had been assaulted by demons and raided by AEGIS shortly after Karin's rescue, the Order was forced to relocate.

The location of the new main repository was a closely-held secret. Any Luna personnel with a connection to the astral flow had been forbidden from approaching the site, for fear of drawing the attention of demons. Though the magic-eating monsters were no longer a serious threat thanks to the efforts of Karin, Misaki and Tsubame, Elias chose to maintain such strict security.

Traffic was already starting to thicken, but Meilin was almost at her destination. She took the next exit and coasted down the off-ramp, tapping the brakes lightly to keep her vehicle under control. The car shuddered slightly as she hit the surface streets. Her destination was only a few blocks from the freeway off-ramp.

It was as generic a building as ever existed. A two-story concrete box studded with windows, the signs advertised the place as a small office building. Two of the offices inside were occupied by tax lawyers, the third was the site of a small physical rehab center. The fourth, located on the second floor, was the Luna outpost.

Ostensibly, the office was home to a rare books dealer—which was true as far as it went. The Luna outpost did indeed deal in rare books completely unrelated to the preservation of astral lore, but that was only a convenient cover. Meilin parked in one of the open spots and killed the engine. A light was visible in the window; the “dealer” opened at seven AM sharp, every morning.

Ascending the stairs, Meilin took a right in the short corridor and walked right through the open door. It was a small, comfortable little room, lined with bookshelves that sagged under the weight of tomes of all varieties. Locked display and conservation cases were arranged against one wall, containing very old and valuable leather-bound books.

The woman behind the front desk looked up and smiled at Meilin. “Starting early today, aren't you?”

“I was up already. Gabriel went to the airport this morning, but he cooked me a wonderful breakfast before he left. Smoked salmon and eggs.”

“Ooh, he's a keeper,” the receptionist observed. “So, has the happily-engaged couple decided on a date yet?”

Meilin blushed. “Not yet. We're waiting until his current project is over before we start making those kind of plan.”

“That makes sense.”

The former AEGIS operative's expression became all business. “I'm headed into the rare books storage. Lots of work to get done today.”

“Right, I'll let you know if you get any calls.”

Meilin gave the receptionist a polite nod and walked behind the desk to a narrow door set against the wall, flanked by a pair of overstuffed bookshelves. She tapped her card against the auto-lock and waited while it cycled. The door opened and Meilin walked inside, sealing the door behind her.

The “rare books storage” wasn't her actual goal. Inside the storage room, past the stacks of old books, was another door, this one cleverly hidden to resemble a section of blank wall. Meilin stood in front of the “wall” and waited while the automated biometric scanner verified her identity. There was a click and a section of the wall recessed, then slid away.

The secret room was only a little bigger than the bathroom in her apartment. It was almost completely empty, save for a single computer terminal sitting atop a metal desk against the far wall. Meilin sat down at the desk and logged into the system.

Luna's proprietary operating environment appeared on the screen. Meilin tapped a few commands into the keyboard and opened a voice link to the main repository. A familiar voice answered her.

“Hey, Meilin. What's on today's agenda?”

“I need a connection to the archives for the next four hours.”

“Right. Anything specific you'd like to look at first?”

Meilin chuckled softly. “If I knew what I was looking for, I probably wouldn't need to look for it.”

“Trying to find out more about the enigmatic Pillars of Heaven?”

“We need to know all we can about them,” she agreed. “If there's any additional historical data at all on the Pillars, it's probably somewhere in Luna's archives.”

“No doubt. I don't envy you your task, though.”

Meilin shrugged, though the connection was audio-only. “Someone has to do it.”

“I'm just glad it's not me. Anyway, you're all good to go. Connection to the full archives is established. Just give me a ring if you need anything else.”

“Of course.”

The call was disconnected. Meilin checked her network drives, confirming that access had been granted. She had no intention of actually studying the astral lore digitally encoded into the system. It was the connection to Luna's servers that mattered.

She reached into her pocket and drew out a small memory stick, plugging it into one of the available data transfer ports on her terminal. Written to the little storage device was a clever little piece of malware that would allow her to access a diagnostic mode while still connected to the network.

The indicator LED on the side of the memory stick lit up and flickered rapidly as it delivered its electronic payload. In another window she started a comprehensive and resource-intensive search for certain keywords relating to the Pillars of Heaven. Her authorized access would be monitored; Meilin wanted it to at least look like she was trying to do this without getting caught.

While the search processed—it would take at least an hour before it completed—she switched to the diagnostic mode window opened by her electronic lockpick. At the very lowest levels of the system, Meilin had a limited form of superuser access under a generic maintenance account. It was by no means an ideal hack; her moves would be monitored, but then again, that was the point.

Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she entered in several low-level commands, accessing the surveillance records for allied Houses. Inside this directory were dozens of names, most of which were familiar to her as she had participated in the negotiations. Pulling up the logs for the Kihara remnant provisional operations, she tapped in a command that should have displayed a detailed report of their activities for the past two weeks.

The diagnostic window returned an error message.

“What the hell?” Meilin muttered under her breath. Her access wasn't denied—at least not yet. The records themselves were empty. She knew there should have been at least a list of their locations, assignments and current statuses, but there was nothing at all visible. It was as if the logs had been wiped clean.

Meilin backed out of that directory and examined the list of allied Houses again, reading over each one carefully. Eirene's last words rang ominously in her mind, but as she examined each of the other log entries, none of them seemed to be out of the ordinary until she reached the last log in the directory.

Instead of the name of the family that previously controlled the House, this entry was only labeled with an identifier number. Meilin opened the log for viewing and instantly felt all of her doubt vanish without a trace.

This log, too, was empty—but the names contained in the metadata… Tsukimura, Kihara, Jiang, Nehara. Meilin recognized them as houses known to have committed atrocities in the pursuit of power and influence, three of whom were supposed to have been utterly wiped out by AEGIS.

Forcing herself to calm down, Meilin entered a command into the diagnostic mode that would copy the logs, including the empty ones, to the memory stick. A progress indicator appeared on screen as the records were transferred.

The transfer would only take a few minutes. Meilin reached behind her back and unsnapped the holstered automatic's retention strap. The sense of foreboding that washed through her increased as the progress indicator reached 86 percent—

And stopped. The diagnostic mode still seemed to work locally, but her network connection had been blocked from the other side. Her lips twisted into a grimace and she took a deep breath. Her task here was finished, the challenge delivered. Her move had been played, but she had no intention of letting them put her in check so quickly.

Meilin yanked the memory stick out of the terminal only seconds before the diagnostic window crashed and the system's security lock engaged. By removing the device with the transfer still in progress, the later records would probably be incomplete and unreadable, but those that had already copied wouldn't be erased by whichever sysadmin had caught her poking around. It was the Kihara and Tsukimura entries that were most important, after all, and those were copied first.

She turned and mashed her hand against the release for the hidden door. It opened without resistance. Meilin proceeded through the rare book storage and back into the main storefront. The receptionist glanced up from her desk, appearing somewhat surprised to see her visitor again so soon.

“Need a break already?”

“I'm not used to being up this early,” Meilin grumbled, keeping her voice as casual as possible. “I'm just going across the street for some coffee and a bagel.”

“You should have just told me, I'd have them bring something over.”

“I don't mind walking. It'll let me stretch my legs a bit.”

The receptionist nodded in understanding. “I know how you feel.”

“I'm sure.” Meilin favored the woman with a wry grin. “I'll be back in fifteen.”

“No problem.”

Pulling her jacket back on as she went, Meilin's easy stride became a half-jog the moment she was outside the receptionist's line of sight. She ran down the stairs as she took out her phone, unlocking her car remotely.

loss

Behind the wheel, Meilin made a conscious effort not to jam the accelerator all the way to its stops. The last thing she needed was to get tangled up with the police and cause her would-be pursuers to back off. Merging calmly into traffic, Meilin made it onto the freeway, heading away from the population-dense downtown area.

She glanced down at the Spell Engine on her left hand. The polished metal of the device's main body glinted dully in the early-morning light. Shrouded by the first clouds of an incoming storm, the light was dimmer now than it had been when Meilin left her apartment. It would start raining again soon.

Meilin shook herself mentally, shifting gears to deal with her unknown opponent's response. If Eirene's information was true, they would move to counter her. She had no idea what form that counter would take, but it didn't make sense to increase the risk of collateral damage.

Reaching out for the car's control panel, she tapped in a command that switched the car over to auto-navigate mode. The vehicle's internal systems took over, giving her the use of both hands. They shook only slightly, but Meilin let out a slow breath and tried her best to calm down. With a barely-audible click, she plugged the memory stick into the multi-port on the bottom of her phone.

Indicator LEDs flashed, but the hacking script didn't execute—it wasn't compiled for the phone's mobile operating system. Her phone recognized and mounted the stick as what it ultimately was, a form of removable external storage. Meilin navigated through the touch interface and opened up a file manager application.

The copied records were mostly there. A few showed up as unreadable, but Meilin intended to save all of them regardless. Karin had once been a data security specialist and Tsubame was a skilled programmer; it was possible either or both would know a trick to at least partially recover the damaged files.

It only took a few moments to copy the logs to her phone, archive and encrypt them and send the encrypted data to Karin's email address. The progress indicator ticked only for a few seconds before her signal bars abruptly vanished and the upload failed.

No way that was a coincidence. Meilin could see two cellular comm towers from the freeway, one of which was less than a hundred meters distant. There was no reason at all that she should lose signal… unless someone was jamming wireless communications. She glanced in her rear-view mirror, studying the cars behind her.

There! Four cars back—an unremarkable black sedan. An unusually thick antenna was mounted to the vehicle's roof with a temporary magnetic attachment. Wires ran off the antenna and through the cracked-open passenger side window. Silently she blessed the espionage experience working for AEGIS had granted; that was indeed a military-grade wireless comm scrambler, extremely illegal for civilian use.

The traffic around her started to thin as she and her tail moved further away from the city center. On the outskirts now, it would only be a matter of time before—

A staccato series of muffled pings and Meilin understood. They were going to take her out right here on the freeway. She didn't even have to look back to see the line of bullet holes that stitched up her trunk.

“Okay, you made your move, now it's my turn,” she hissed, disengaging the auto-navigate mode. The wheel unlocked and she grabbed it, wrenching hard to the right and sending her car into a sudden spin—now facing the wrong direction.

Meilin stomped hard on the accelerator, aiming the hood of her vehicle for the wide shoulder area. There were a few cars, not understanding that she'd just been shot at, that honked in protest, but Meilin ignored them. Her eyes narrowed and she locked in on the car following her.

The look in the driver's face was almost comical as Meilin's car slammed into his. She wasn't going all that fast—there hadn't been much time or distance to accelerate—but it was more than enough to knock the vehicle off the road and into the ditch beside the shoulder. Her pursuer's vehicle tipped over, rolling onto the passenger side door before becoming stuck.

Meilin threw her own door open, her automatic already ready in her right hand. With her left she traced a quick series of blazing runes that brought forth a shimmering barrier, shielding her from damage.

To their credit, the people chasing her were out of their vehicle almost before she was. The instant her boots hit the gravel, a fusillade of suppressed gunfire erupted around her, the nine-millimeter submachineguns spewing a startling volume of projectiles.

Taking cover behind her car—which was currently full of bullet holes, a small part of her mused sadly—Meilin disengaged the safety and popped out of cover, squeezing off a couple of shots as she surveyed her opponents.

Four men, two of whom were armed with SMGs. The other two held pistols similar to her own. She didn't recognize any of the faces.

They didn't seem interested in talking, either. A spray of automatic weapons fire engulfed her, but the barrier she'd raised with the Spell Engine should have been able to shrug off that level of firepower without issue.

She fired twice, putting her attackers on the defensive again. If they didn't know she had a kinetic barrier up, they certainly did now. Her ears rang from her own unsuppressed gunfire; she couldn't make out what they were saying to each other.

It didn't matter, really—with the Spell Engine protecting her, she could simply walk around their car and take them all out with impunity. She didn't know what else they might have had up their sleeves, though. It would be far more sensible to conjure a force bolt to knock them senseless and make her escape.

Meilin popped up from behind the bullet-riddled car and fired a few hastily-aimed shots, more to distract than anything, while her left hand traced blue-glowing sigils into the air. The modifications to her Spell Engine traded speed for versatility, but the invocation for the bolt of force wasn't particularly complex.

As her finger began to trace the final rune, one of the pistol-wielding men leaped out of cover, took aim and fired three times in rapid succession. Meilin willed herself not to flinch, not to move or duck, trusting her barrier to protect her. The bullets struck the barrier and splattered with an ominously familiar deep ringing sound.

Meilin's eyes widened in shock and horror as bright bursts of violet light exploded all around her. The protective barrier shattered as if it were made of intangible glass—and the Spell Engine's glow flickered and faded away.

MQ rounds!?

“Drop your weapon if you want to live,” the shooter barked. “Nice and easy—if you make one wrong move, you'll be shot dead. You know as well as I do that your Spell Engine is useless now.”

There was nothing more she could do if they had weapons loaded with ammunition that had been doped with crystals of malformed quintessence. Originally developed by AEGIS as a means of fighting specters, the MQ rounds caused the flow of mana to short out by fragmenting and twisting the lines of force that guided it.

Luna had obtained the method for creating MQ rounds in the same raid where Amber, Meilin and Misaki freed the comatose Karin Ashley from AEGIS custody. That information had been the incentive Meilin offered to convince the Order to help them. She didn't expect that decision to come back to haunt her.

“Okay, I surrender. I'm putting the gun down.”

Meilin held her hands out, letting her weapon dangle off of a finger from the trigger guard. She slowly eased it to the ground, making no sudden or potentially threatening movements.

The man who had disabled her barrier, likely the team's leader, barked orders to his subordinates. The two SMG-wielding men rushed forward, keeping her covered while the other pistol-wielder twisted her arms around behind her back and cuffed her.

“Push the car back over,” the leader commanded. His three subordinates immediately moved to the other side of the ditch and pushed the car back onto its wheels. Despite having hit it with her own car, Meilin noticed her captors' vehicle had sustained only superficial damage.

“Yes, it's an armored vehicle. Don't even think about escaping; you won't be able to. Now move.” The leader shoved Meilin toward their car, where the other pistol man had opened the trunk. “The Archivist would like to have a word with you.”

“I'm sure he would,” Meilin said coolly.

“Speak again and you'll bleed.” The leader scowled and jabbed his automatic's muzzle at her. “Get in the trunk.”

Meilin gave the man a withering stare, but she said nothing and complied. There was no point in arguing. She adjusted her position as best she could with her hands bound behind her back, curling up inside the tight confines.

“What do we do with her car?”

“Torch it,” the leader instructed. “The cops won't be able to link it to us, but we don't want her friends following her easily.”

Meilin felt a surge of dismay—her phone was still in the car, as was the memory stick, both of which would be destroyed in the fire. Before she could even open her mouth to object, the leader drew a smaller weapon from a hidden pocket in his jacket. Meilin recognized it as a pneumatic dart gun.

He pointed the gun at her and fired. Meilin felt a sharp sting as the dart struck her in the shoulder. The pain quickly faded and was replaced by a numbing warmth that washed over her. She felt her eyelids become heavy and an irresistible drowsiness stole over her as the dart's soporific payload took immediate effect.

Her last thought before she plunged into darkness was the fervent hope that the email she sent Karin actually managed to make it through before the jamming took effect.

domination

When Meilin awoke some time later, she was somewhere else.

Her eyes flew open. Her whole body felt tingly, a pins-and-needles sensation that was already fading away. She tried to move, but her muscles wouldn't yet obey her mind's commands.

Not that it mattered. As her vision cleared, Meilin took stock of her surroundings. She was in a small, featureless room with only one way in or out. There were no windows, only a large, heavy door that was sealed tightly with a hardened auto-lock mechanism.

The numbness was almost gone. She was lying on a cold floor—the temperature of the polished concrete-like material told her she hadn't been in the room long enough for her body heat to warm the ground beneath her.

There wasn't much to look at. The only objects in the room were two chairs sitting around a small rectangular table. It looked remarkably like an interrogation room at any metro police precinct, save for the lack of a one-way window.

Judging by the stiffness of her muscles, Meilin guessed she had been unconscious for more than an hour. She shakily levered herself into a sitting position, still unwilling to trust her legs enough to try to stand.

“Not the most pleasant way to travel,” she muttered aloud.

There was a loud metallic thunk as the auto-lock sealing the door was disengaged. Meilin tensed, but she was still far too affected by the tranquilizer to try and make a run for it. Even if she hadn't been, it would have been a stupid and suicidal course of action.

A woman dressed in nondescript clothing and armed with a pistol stepped inside the room, keeping her gun leveled at Meilin while the door was held open for her next new visitor. The tall, regal-looking man of middle years walked inside and strode across the floor, standing next to the table.

“You may leave us,” Elias told the guard.

She holstered her pistol. “Yes, sir.”

Meilin said nothing as the woman turned and walked out, shutting the door behind her. The auto-lock chimed once and re-engaged, locking her in the small interrogation room with Elias.

“How are you feeling? Has the effects of the drug worn off?”

“Mostly,” Meilin answered. She managed to get to her feet, but she felt herself swaying dangerously. Elias gestured toward the chair.

“Please, have a seat. I wouldn't want you to fall and get hurt.”

“Strange thing to say considering you sent people to kill me if I didn't surrender,” Meilin shot back as she dropped heavily into the chair. “Or was that only a bluff?”

The Archivist nodded. “I instructed the team to bring you in alive and unharmed.”

“Why?”

“Because I consider you and your skills to be a great asset to the Order,” Elias explained as he sat down in the chair across from her. “I would like the chance to explain myself properly before you commit any further impulsive actions.”

“Your men set my car on fire,” Meilin growled. “Not to mention shot at me.”

“If we manage to reach an understanding, I will have it replaced.” Elias straightened his shoulders and met her angry glare squarely. “Now, I'm sure you have many questions. You may ask them and I will answer to the best of my knowledge.”

Meilin figured the studiously polite mien was just another way of putting her off-balance. She reminded herself she was dealing with a master diplomat and negotiator. Elias would be able to make a great many things sound reasonable and sensible, even if they were not. She'd take a page from Amber and go right for the throat, hoping to draw out the man behind the mask.

“Fine. Why are the Kihara mages summoning specters?”

The Archivist made a dismissive gesture, clearly unperturbed by her attempt to put him off-balance. “Our enemies are more powerful than ever. I speak not only of AEGIS—though the agency is certainly the most serious threat to the Order that has ever existed—but also the alliances of arcane houses. If we hope to survive this season of blood and chaos, we must become strong.”

“I've heard that before,” Meilin said, scowling hard at the Archivist. “It's a convenient excuse to grab as much power as you possibly can, isn't it? No one can summon and bind specters without inviting disaster. The miasma—”

“That is why the Order Magicians work through intermediaries, allies from former Houses that already have felt the taint of miasma upon their spirit. Under our guidance, they call forth specters and perform tasks as I see fit.” Elias placed his hands together and turned a cold glare on Meilin. “I do not appreciate the implication that I am too weak and foolish to control them.”

“It doesn't matter,” Meilin shot back. “There's no way to bind specters without taking the corruption within yourself, no matter how good your wards are. I told you all of this when you accepted me into the Order. I handed you the most comprehensive research ever performed on the damned things.”

“Indeed you did. In fact, it was the AEGIS data that offered a solution to the problem of miasma toxicity.”

Meilin blinked. “How?”

“You said it yourself, my dear—those who bind specters to themselves have no choice but to infuse miasma into their own spirit.”

“Which is why you don't summon specters. The cost is far too high and you damn well know it, Elias!”

The Archivist started to laugh softly. “Overly-cautious nonsense. Perhaps centuries ago, the Order's leadership knew of no way to safely make use of the dark spirits, but, I assure you, I do.”

“I don't believe you.” Meilin crossed her arms over her chest defiantly.

“Oh, but you should,” Elias countered, the barest hint of a smug smile forming on his weathered face. “Using the agency's own tools, I have devised a method to bind dark spirits while insulating us from the corruption.”

Astonishment flooded Meilin's expression as she made the connection.

“But—that should be impossible! The call has to come from a living summoner!”

“Not entirely true. Orn Thaal of the Pillars of Heaven created an artificial system that pulled them across the boundary in order to create the demons. I assure you, my dear, this method works. It has been proven in dozens of tests, both in a laboratory environment and in the field proper.”

Meilin glared at him with as much fire as she could muster. “Doesn't change the fact that you're still deliberately summoning specters. Nothing can come from that but death and suffering.”

Elias scowled so deeply his thick brows nearly obscured his eyes. “Your loyalty to the Order has been placed in doubt, this I can see plainly. I do not understand what else I can offer to convince you that my plan is necessary to protect the world from the terrible fate AEGIS plans to inflict.”

Meilin shook her head emphatically. “Elias, this isn't right. We shouldn't be like them. We should be better than them.”

“You would risk the permanent destruction of the astral flow, simply for the sake of abstract morals?” Elias scoffed. “I already know much—even if your friend Karin Ashley refuses to take Luna into her confidence. I know that Nergal of AEGIS has successfully synthesized a True Relic—the first to be created in four centuries.”

Meilin said nothing.

“I also know that Nergal has the means to fuse with his Synthesized Relic far faster than anyone could have anticipated,” Elias continued. “He is dangerously close to achieving his goals, Meilin. We absolutely cannot allow him to succeed. The consequences of such a catastrophe would be terrible to behold. What is the binding of specters compared to the death he promises for all who have felt magic's touch.”

“I'm well aware,” she managed, trying not to think about the millions who would die after the astral flow was abruptly cut off. The number of latent children continued to rise as the boundary became more and more porous, the effort required to access the astral's power diminishing over time. Meilin knew she herself would survive, but her friends, her sister and adoptive niece, would not.

No. The ends don't justify the means.

“There are other ways to stop Nergal from succeeding,” she murmured, her voice raw with emotion only barely kept in check. “What about Karin? She already swore to stop AEGIS from severing the path between worlds. If we work together, we can do it, without having to rely on specters.”

The Archivist's cold look grew even colder. “Karin Ashley is an idealistic fool. Her fusion was incomplete, her power severely limited. Her methods are both unwise and ineffective. It was her refusal to serve the Order that ultimately forced my hand.”

“She refused to cooperate because she didn't trust you,” Meilin snarled,  the anger that had been simmering within finally boiling outward. “I didn't believe her. I thought she was being paranoid, but you've fully validated her mistrust!”

“Karin Ashley lacks the conviction necessary to do what must be done.” The Archivist glared imperiously at Meilin, his expression becoming even more frosty. “I am starting to wonder if you suffer a similar dearth of resolve.”

“Maybe I do. I'm through with this, Elias. I thought Luna was different, but this proves you aren't any different than any other power-hungry arcane house. The ends don't justify the means.”

Elias sighed softly and stood up, straightening his shoulders. “While I value your willing service to the Order highly, it is clear that you have strayed. If you will not walk the path of your own volition, I will ensure you have no choice in the matter.”

“So you are going to have me killed,” Meilin observed in a dispassionate tone. “Is that what Luna's devolved to? Threats and intimidation tactics? You really are just another Isao Tsukimura.”

“Hardly.” If Elias was angered by her accusation, he showed no sign of it. “I have no need to rely upon such crude methods.”

A deep sense of foreboding stole over Meilin as the Archivist extended his right hand and closed his eyes. Without the Spell Engine, she couldn't feel the astral flow warp and the ambient mana coalesce within Elias's palm—but she didn't need to. The gathering energies were so potent they blazed with a visible scarlet radiance. She shielded her eyes as the intense brilliance flooded into the tiny interrogation room. Tears sprang to her eyes and spikes of hot pain jabbed into her brain, but only for a moment.

The searing red light vanished abruptly. Trying desperately to clear the spots from her vision, Meilin gasped at the chillingly beautiful and ornate longsword that Elias now held with the casual ease of a master of the blade.

It was a weapon fit for a devil prince of the netherworld. The metal of the blade was so dark it appeared almost black. Long and robust but lightweight, it was designed for agile slashes and thrusts. Glowing crimson runes were etched inside the sword's fuller and the hilt and crossguard were set with blood-red garnets. Burnished silver inlays and engravings of chaotic, asymmetrical patterns decorated the hilt and converged upon the pommel.

Meilin stared at the weapon in mingled amazement and fear. “I-is that a—?”

“It is not a Relic, but an ancient artifact of similar power. I call it Mindfang, the Will's End.” the Archivist said. He held the blade out horizontally for her inspection. “Unlike the Relics, the Mindfang was created for a very different purpose.”

“What purpose?”

Elias's lips split into an inhuman, mocking grin. “It is not called the 'Will's End' without good reason. The Mindfang possesses the power of absolute domination.” He whipped the blade around with a flourish, a dazzling display of swordsmanship—

—and lightly touched the flat of the blade to Meilin's shoulder.

She tried to dodge, to move away, but it was impossible; her body would no longer obey her mind's commands. As the ancient, astrally-forged metal touched her, she felt a soul-freezing chill rush through her very being.

Meilin could no longer even direct her own thoughts. All she could do was stand and stare blankly ahead. Her consciousness was aware and could feel, but the oh-so-aptly named artifact had severed her own will from her body and mind.

“Now,” Elias purred, his voice thick with satisfaction, “I suspect we should be able to come to an understanding.”

karin's chapter

/

nocturne

family

I sighed under my breath and placed a cigarette between my lips, lighting it with the same battered old chromed thing I'd been using for years. I could already tell that the day was going to be a long and frustrating one. My wife, Misaki, stood next to me, the fur on her fox-like tail standing on end. Her ears were flattened back against her head and her emerald-green eyes almost disappeared beneath the scowl that was currently on her face.

The reason for my wife's obvious anger was obvious—as obvious as the splattered mud that currently streaked across her pale pink top. There was some on her face, too, and not a small amount in her hair.

“Misaki, don't,” I said, my tone placating. “We'll get you a new blouse.”

“It's not about the shirt—it's the principle of the thing.” She crossed her arms over her chest, smearing more of the mud in the process, sending the fur on her tail rippling. “That little brat seems to delight in—”

I held a hand up to stop her before she started ranting in earnest. “Yeah, he does. Yayoi warned us that he's quite the trickster. Why don't you go get cleaned up and let me deal with this for a bit?”

Misaki let out a slow breath. “I'm not cut out for this kind of work.”

“I'm aware, but look—we can't just let my cousins go around with latent power and not know how to use it.” I turned around to gaze at the two kids, both of whom were currently looking very discontented as they practiced a breathing exercise. “Go ahead, go inside and get cleaned up.”

The fur on Misaki's tail collapsed in her obvious relief. “Where did you get all of this patience? Tell me so I can go get some for myself.”

Laughing, I turned my focus back to the two children as my wife went back into the house. Kotori and Yuto were my cousins, both the offspring of my mother's youngest sister, Yayoi. Two months ago, my aunt brought the little monsters here, to the United States, so that we could determine if they were latent mages.

Kotori was the eldest at sixteen. Out of the two, she was the one who took her lessons seriously. Her younger brother, Yuto, was twelve and seemed to fluctuate from boredom and excitement, depending on whether or not things were currently on fire. With their mother gone back home to Japan and my mother out with So-yi and Nicole, the little twerp redoubled his efforts to play pranks on Misaki.

Yuto opened one brown eye and stared at me. I crossed my arms over my chest and returned that glare as balefully as I could. Silvery-red hues swirled in my Relic-affected irises, displaying the mild annoyance I currently felt.

“This is boring,” he complained.

“I suppose you're right. I know something that'll keep you much busier.” I clapped my hands together and gestured toward a broom propped against the exterior wall of the house near the sliding glass door. “You can clean up the mess you made while I work with your sister.”

Yuto let out a dismayed whine. “But I don't want to—”

“You should have thought of that before you made the mess,” I chided him. “And before you splashed mud all over Misaki. Get that broom and sweep the mud from the deck, then wash it off with the hose.”

“But—”

“No buts. You also better damn well apologize to her when she gets back, too.”

“Fine,” Yuto muttered.

“I told you to behave and listen to Karin.” Kotori crossed her arms over her chest, too, mimicking my posture and sour expression. “Why do you have to be such a little brat all the time? Just do what she tells you and you'll learn something!”

“Let me worry about that,” I told her, ignoring Yuto's rude gesture as he turned and trudged off toward the broom. “Now, Kotori—do you think you want to try again? Or does your hand still hurt too much?”

The girl glanced at her reddened hand and shook her head. “I-I'll try it again.”

“Don't worry about speed of invocation yet. Just try to form the runes exactly as they appear in your mind. Remember how Misaki showed you—calm concentration and focus.”

“Why are your runes so much simpler than the ones Misaki showed us?”

“The Relic fragment lets me access the astral flow in a different way.” I tapped against the bright silvery object embedded in my sternum. The scarring around the edges had gone down considerably over the months and I no longer felt too self-conscious to wear low-cut tops. “You may have to learn more complex runes, but remember that your power is yours and yours alone.”

Kotori nodded and relaxed her shoulders. The rain started to fall again—well, more like a light misting—and collected on the girl's bare arms. Unlike her brother, who seemed only interested in these lessons if Misaki made something burn or explode, Kotori took her magical training seriously. She was always an athletic type, but she'd really ramped up her efforts in order to meet any challenge we put in front of her.

“Trace the runes, but don't think about inscribing them. Visualize the astral flow, feel the lines of force as they bend and twist.” I set my stance and quickly traced a short runic phrase in blazing silver-white, repeating an invocation I'd worked many times already today. “Don't worry about hurting me. My barrier will keep me safe.”

“I'll do my best,” she promised.

My only response was an expectant nod. She let out a slow, measured breath and closed her eyes, sinking deep within herself to touch the part of her being that connected with the currents of mana that meandered through the space around us. Through the Relic fragment I could feel her efforts as she clumsily altered the currents of power.

“Good, good. You've got it, now try the invocation.”

Sweat beaded on Kotori's forehead and she nodded wordlessly. Her right hand came up and started to laboriously trace the sigils in the air. The hue of my cousin's runes were a soft reddish-orange, like a low-intensity version of Misaki's. The two shared an affinity for fire, as well—which was exactly what I was trying to get her to invoke.

The barrier that surrounded me at the moment was strong enough to deflect bullets, miasmic blasts and even my wife's spell-flame, so long as she didn't turn it blue. Misaki was much better at this sort of thing—I still hadn't entirely figured out what my astral affinity actually was. The few invocations I knew brought forth some kind of disintegrating power that nobody seemed to know anything about.

Well, Eirene probably knew something about it, but trying to get a plain answer out of her was like trying to get Amber to wear a frilly pink dress. It just wasn't fucking happening. I shook my head slowly, getting back to the matter at hand.

The runic phrase Kotori traced was messy, but the sigils glowed with power. I felt the loose mana surge into her and vanish as it was converted into flames that sprang from her outstretched left hand. A searing jet of heat and light burst from that hand and streaked toward me with lethal intent.

I didn't even blink as the magical fire splashed against my invisible barrier. I didn't feel any impact from the spell—Kotori had nowhere near the level of accuracy required to form explosive projectiles—but I did feel the skin on my face and chest heat up. I gave her an approving nod.

“Congratulations, Kotori—you just performed your first successful invocation.”

Her face split into a wide grin. “Yes! Finally! I knew I'd be able to do it—”

“But you might want to release the excess energy before you burn your hand again,” I interrupted her in a mild tone. The teenager blinked and turned her eyes to her left hand—which was still wreathed in dancing orange-red flames.

“Shit!”

I couldn't help but chuckle as she willed the power to back off. The flames shivered for a moment before flaring more vigorously than before. I frowned, concerned, wondering if she panicked and couldn't concentrate, but then the fire vanished instantly. Kotori released her connection and the lines of force around her became quiescent.

“Remember that Misaki can hold the fire indefinitely because it's an intrinsic part of her being,” I reminded her. “You may have an affinity for manipulating fire, but you're not immune to the effects you invoke. If you hold it for too long…” I trailed off, not really wanting to describe the sort of gruesome self-inflicted death she could suffer.

Kotori paled visibly. “I-I'll remember.”

“It's not that dangerous now, but as your power increases, so will the inherent danger of using it. In other ways, too.”

“What should I do, then?”

My expression became thoughtful. “Well, you can bring forth flames but you can't hold them for long. So to get around that, why not start a fire on something less important than your hand and then control that fire?”

“Is that what we're going to do next?”

“Yep, but that's not for today. You're already tired, Misaki wants to strangle your little brother and we're all hungry. Mama's not coming back till around ten, so I'm probably just going to order pizza for us all.”

“Pizza?!” Yuto stopped his halfhearted scrubbing and grinned widely. “Awesome!”

“I—I want to try it at least once today,” Kotori insisted.

I blinked and studied the girl for a long moment. Ever since my cousins arrived, Kotori had been utterly fascinated with the concept of astral manipulation. She was determined to learn as much as she could in as short a period of time as possible. It took me by surprise at first; I figured that both Kotori and Yuto would be grudging participants in this training, only after impressing upon them both how dangerous it was for their magic to remain wild.

The younger sibling certainly followed my expectations, but Kotori's enthusiasm was a pleasant surprise. Even so, I felt as if her efforts had redoubled in the past week. I hadn't told the kids all that much about the shadow world of mages and spirits, but I suspected someone else had.

“You and Soleil seemed to get on pretty well,” I pointed out. “The two of you were practically inseparable while she was here. Now you're trying to push yourself even harder than before. What gives?”

Kotori blushed and looked away. “We, um, talked about some things.”

“She and Tsubame told you about what's been happening, didn't they?”

“Y-yeah.” The girl's embarrassed expression became alarmed as she realized my irises darkened to red. “I'm sorry, I just wanted to hear the stories—I wanted to know more about what you—”

“That's enough,” I cut her off. I sighed heavily and pulled another cigarette out of my pocket. “I won't say I'm not angry—you'd know it was a lie, anyway. I'm not upset with you or with Soleil or Tsubame. I'm more upset at…”

“The situation?” Kotori supplied.

“Yeah. That.” I lit the fresh smoke and puffed away for a moment. “Mama's right. It's fucked up that we have to do this, but I don't really have another answer. If I'm angry at any person, that person is me, for causing this situation in the first place.”

Kotori frowned. “How is it your fault?”

“I never should have challenged Blondie openly like that.” I took a deep draw off the cigarette and blew the plume of smoke up into the air. It was at that moment that I felt a subtle shift in the astral flow, a change in the ambient mana that was familiar and usually welcome.

“There's someone here,” Yuto announced. “Someone strong.”

I shook my head in wonderment at the little brat. Unlike Kotori, the patterns of lines of force that ran through his spirit were more suited for detection and scrying than for conjuring destructive forces. This was both a very good and very bad thing, considering the little monster's fondness for watching Misaki burn things.

The back gate opened and the Swordlady of Luna strode into the yard, her omnipresent black nylon case slung over one shoulder. She ran a hand through her short red hair and chuckled as she saw Yuto cleaning up yet another mess.

“Threw something at Misaki again, I see,” Amber observed. Yuto shot a sly look at her and cackled like the little prankster he was. The tall, athletic woman walked past the deck and approached Kotori.

“How's the training going, kitten?”

Kotori blushed and smiled at Amber in a way that caused my eyebrow to arch more than a little. I still wasn't entirely sure whether or not my cousin idolized Amber or had a massive crush on her. Probably both.

“N-not bad, though I messed up a little earlier.” It was as if I'd simply vanished the moment the Swordlady arrived. “I'm going to keep trying my best, though!”

“Amber, it's good to see you again,” I said, keeping my tone neutral. Unannounced social calls weren't out of character for her, but I could still tell that she was here on business.

“Likewise.” I turned to Kotori and Yuto and gave them a meaningful look. “You two, go inside and get cleaned up. We'll work a little on remote pyrokinesis tomorrow. Yuto, go get the leash and take Kaede for a walk.”

“But—”

“No buts, you little brat,” I snapped. “Mama's not here and it's time for her walk.”

“But Auntie Yoshiko told you to do it.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and scowled at him. “I have to talk to Amber. Go on, get going. Make Kaede happy and I'll get the ice cream out.”

“Pizza and ice cream?! Hell yeah!”

I giggled softly as Yuto vanished almost too fast for the eye to track. Kotori was a little slower to go inside, obviously still wanting to spend time around Amber. I shook my head grimly and the girl nodded, disappearing inside the house.

“What are you doing here, Amber?”

“I'm here to give you a message from the Archivist.”

The Swordlady's response instantly put me on guard. No sarcastic comebacks, no jabs about my blunt inquisition—in other words, not typical Amber behavior. The silvery sheen in my irises was tinged with pale violet. Not that Amber needed a visual indicator to know I was feeling anxious.

“What message?”

Amber's expression was inscrutable. “He wants to talk to you face-to-face as soon as possible. Right now, actually. I'm supposed to come pick you up and bring you to a Luna outpost nearby.”

“I'm kind of busy right now, as you already know,” I informed her. “Misaki and I are the only adults here and Mama and my aunt left them in my care. I can't just leave the two of them alone.”

“Misaki can keep an eye on them. It'll only take a little while—you should be back here within an hour or two.”

I didn't miss the obvious implication in her answer. “Misaki and I come as a package deal, Amber, and you damn well know that.” The traces of violet in my irises were replaced with the reddish-orange of indignation. “What the hell is really going on here?”

“If you'll just come with me and speak to Elias, you'll find out.” The Swordlady shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. I'd never seen her look so out-of-sorts in the entire time I'd known her. “Please, Karin, just do this—for me.”

A chill ran down my spine as my mind started to sort through the load of bullshit Luna had just handed me. Judging by Amber's discomfiture I had a pretty good idea what Elias actually wanted to discuss. It wasn't something I could just ignore.

“Fine. I'll tell Misaki—”

“I heard enough.”

I turned to see my wife walk out onto the deck and slide the back door shut behind her, her ears laying flat and back. The fur on her enormous tail stood on end, broadcasting to anyone with eyes just how upset she was.

“Misaki, I—”

“Shut up, Amber,” Misaki snarled. “None of us are stupid and yet it's plain that you seem to think we are. We're supposed to be friends—how about showing us a little bit more respect.”

Amber's expression darkened. “Look, this isn't my call. Elias wants to talk to Karin and only Karin. I was sent here to pick her up. That's all.”

I reached out and placed a hand on Misaki's shoulder. “I agree it's bullshit, but it's not going to go away unless I deal with it. I'm not even going to ask you to trust me, love—I already know you always do.”

“I trust you,” Misaki agreed. “I don't trust this, especially since he doesn't want me present during the meeting.”

“No harm will come to Karin as long as I'm alive.” Amber turned a hard stare on my wife and patted the black case containing the Shattered Sword. “You trust me, don't you, Misaki?”

Brilliant green eyes narrowed and fox-like ears twitched. “Yes. I do.”

“We both know what this is going to be about, love.” I turned to Misaki, clasping her hands in my own. No matter what the weather was like or how cold it was, her hands were always warm.

“I'll let you handle it, then,” Misaki said after a long moment. “But before you go…”

I didn't even have time to form a query before her lips were shoved against mine. My bones instantly turned to jelly and I felt her pull me into a tight embrace, supporting me as I swayed. I couldn't hold my eyes open as my wife kissed me hard, harder than she usually did, the sheer force of it leaving me breathless and weak in the knees.

Misaki pulled away some time later. My hazy vision cleared and I blinked dreamy eyes that swirled with bright pinks and blues.

“I-I'm just going to be gone an hour or so, love.”

“I don't care,” Misaki countered, leaning in close. “You're mine, Karin. Every little part of you belongs to me. I love you more than anything.”

The blush that formed on my cheeks was almost as bright as the pink streaks that ran through my black hair. It was obvious the display of affection was more for Amber's benefit than mine, a sort of unspoken warning—and implied threat.

It was a most eloquent reminder that if anything at all happened to me, Misaki would not be forgiving.

the pale

I stared out the window, my tongue absently tapping against my lips where Misaki's little fangs broke the skin during that incredible kiss. It wasn't all that common for her to assert dominance that blatantly in public—usually that sort of thing happened only when we were alone, in bed and naked.

“You really could have handled that better.”

“I expected it to be worse,” the Swordlady mused. “I'm honestly surprised Misaki took it as well as she did.”

“Why doesn't Elias want Misaki present for the meeting?”

Amber shrugged. “I suppose it's because Misaki is hotheaded, impulsive and prone to acting on her emotions.”

“So are you,” I countered. “That's an evasion, not an answer.”

“Look, Karin, what do you want me to say?” A frustrated sigh passed between Amber's gritted teeth. “That for all his practiced diplomatic politeness, Elias doesn't see Misaki as a person? Fine, okay, consider it said. You already knew that, anyway.”

“Don't fuck with me, Amber. I know Elias wants me to join Luna,” I interrupted. “Or rather, he wants the Bright Swallow. Like my wife already mentioned, Amber, I'm not stupid. I know you aren't stupid, either.”

Amber didn't respond to that.

“If he thinks he can intimidate us into doing what he wants, he's wrong.”

“Karin, you picked a fight with AEGIS. That's a battle you can't possibly win on your own.” The Swordlady changed lanes and eased on the brakes as the car cruised down the off-ramp. “You're going to need Luna's help if you want to survive, much less succeed.”

“What does Meilin think?”

Amber let out a slow, frustrated sigh. “I haven't talked to her recently. That doesn't change the fact that you put most of your friends and family in danger because your ego got the best of you—”

I felt the endless wellspring of astral might seethe within the Relic fragment, but I forced myself to calm down. This ultimately wasn't her fault, but I was still angry that she seemed to be going along with it.

“Amber, I'm serious. Don't fuck with me.”

“I'm not.”

“Bullshit.” I turned away from the window and glared hard at her. “I know you're almost as angry about this as Misaki. You've been doubting Luna's direction for a while now, ever since Elias started fixating on bolstering his strength.”

“There's nothing I can do about it. We need to be strong. Under Nergal's leadership, AEGIS has gone from being a little covert-ops group to practically its own army. That isn't even counting the other arcane houses still out there.” Amber let out a long, frustrated sigh. “The boundary between the physical and the astral worlds grows thinner every day. I can't be everywhere at once, Karin, but the bad guys can.”

“You could always stand with us, instead,” I reminded her.

Amber scowled fiercely.

“I know you've thought about it.”

“The Shattered Sword is not mine,” Amber retorted. “It belongs to Luna. I am only carrying the responsibility of using it for the sake of the Order.”

“That's absurd. Luna stole the Relic to begin with. I don't think you have to worry about the morality of the situation here—and besides, the Shattered Sword is now as much a part of you as your heart or your brain. There's only one way to sever that bond.”

“This conversation is over,” Amber growled.

“Fine. Is this the place?”

“Yes. If you're armed, leave it in the car.”

I held empty palms out. “I don't carry my automatic anymore. I leave it at home with Mama. Just in case.”

“Good.” Amber pulled the car into the driveway of an unremarkable house, smaller than my sister's but much more upscale. The neighborhood itself was filled with new and well-tended homes, all of which had expensive cars parked in driveways and sheltered inside garages.

The car's motors shut down and I opened the door, stepping out onto the pristine concrete of the driveway. A porch light burned brightly in the early-evening gloom and I could tell that people were inside the house.

“Come inside.”

I followed Amber up the steps and she placed her hands on a panel that looked like an oversized auto-lock, but was probably a biometric lock. There was a loud thunk as a heavy bolt was disengaged and the door swung open upon soundless hinges.

The interior of the home was pleasantly warm. Inside, however, it looked more like an office than a place where people lived. A desk had been set up near the door and behind it was an unfamiliar young man. He stood up and smiled politely.

“May I take your coat, Miss Ashley?”

I shrugged it off and handed it to him without a word. Amber took her own jacket off and handed it to the receptionist.

“The Archivist is in the main study. He has been waiting for you.”

“Thanks,” I said. Amber and I both brushed past the reception desk and into what used to be the common room of the house. It had been converted into a working office more than a study. The bookshelves that lined the walls were loaded down not with tomes and grimoires, but with protective cases containing high-speed solid state drives.

I suspected this was intentional on Luna's part. Keeping sensitive information on disconnected physical media prevented any possible chance that it could be stolen in an electronic information raid. It was actually a much more secure setup than I'd administrated back at my old job with the Records & Licensing Agency, though considerably less convenient.

The center of the room was dominated by a small conference table. Only one chair was currently occupied—I recognized the Archivist from the last time I'd seen him. I was always a little surprised at how young he looked.

Elias stood up and inclined his head respectfully. “Thank you for meeting me on such short notice, Lady Ashley. Please, have a seat.”

I pulled a chair out and sat down. Amber remained standing.

“Would you like something to drink? Coffee? Tea?”

“No. I'm not going to be here long enough to need it.”

The Archivist's expression didn't change as he took his seat. “If you change your mind, simply let Amber know. I believe this discussion may last longer than you anticipate.”

“Why?” I demanded bluntly.

“Lady Ashley, I don't believe you have considered the full ramifications of what you have started by issuing an open challenge to AEGIS. You were only an external collaborator with the agency; your knowledge of their strength is incomplete. I assure you that AEGIS is vastly more powerful than you believe.”

“I gathered that much the last time I talked with Blondie,” I snapped. “Are you going to get to the point any time soon?”

Amber gave me a look that suggested I was stepping out on thin ice, but I ignored her and stared hard at the leader of the Order of the Moon.

“My point is simple. Luna's purpose is the preservation and research of astral lore. The Order considers the new AEGIS, under Nergal's leadership, to be inimical to our focus. We cannot simply stand aside and allow him to destroy what we've worked so hard to create.”

I laughed bitterly. “If AEGIS really is such a wrench in your gears, then why did you help them? Why did you sell data to them?”

I noticed Amber's eyes widen sharply, but Elias was completely unruffled. His gaze met mine squarely; the silvery background of my eyes shifted with hues of ruby and peridot. I didn't really expect him to be honest, especially not with Amber in the room.

“Come now, Lady Ashley.” Elias drummed his fingertips against the darkly-stained wood of the tabletop. “That man thrives on lies, lives and breathes deception and misdirection. AEGIS itself exists forever shrouded in shadow and illusion. You would do well to disregard Nergal's attempts to foment conflict between us.”

“So you're saying you've never done business with them?” I put as much disbelief in my words as I could. “Not even once? You've never, in the Order's entire history, sold astral lore to AEGIS? I find that a little hard to swallow.”

“I can assure you we have not,” Elias insisted, his tone growing dark. “We vet our clients with great care, Lady Ashley. The Order does not exchange knowledge for wealth, but only as a means to add to our archives.”

Amber seemed to relax beside me, clearly relieved to hear exactly what she expected to hear. Had I not been fused with the Relic, I would likely have believed him, especially considering how often I'd been manipulated by AEGIS. Amber certainly seemed much more willing to believe her boss, but of course things weren't that simple.

Fusing with the Relic did a hell of a lot more than just making me look young and changing the color of my hair and eyes. My awareness had expanded—and I don't just mean being able to study the astral flow. Months ago, Misaki predicted that I would gradually become more spirit than human.

As the astral aspect within the Relic further asserted itself, I started to feel faint echoes of the emotions of those around me. There was relief hiding suspicion buried within Amber's heart, though it was hard to pick out.

More important was what I sensed from Elias. The moment I accused Luna of transacting with AEGIS, a bright flare of alarm shot through the Archivist's sense. It was quickly smothered and replaced with a skillful mask of innocence. I almost missed it, but it was there. Elias was holding something back, plus he was definitely lying about never selling data to AEGIS.

All of this passed through my thoughts in only a few moments. Paradoxically I felt myself calming down, my eyes returning to their usual sedate silvery color. The Archivist was apparently mollified by this.

“Let's lay it all out on the table, then,” I told him. “What do you want?”

“What I have always wished: for you to join the Order. You cannot hope to defeat AEGIS otherwise.” Elias refilled his teacup from an ornate porcelain pot and took a long sip of the hot beverage. “I understand that two young members of your family have awakened as latent mages. We offer them a place among the Order Magicians. They would learn from the best. All of the astral lore in our libraries would be made available for use by members of the Ashley family.”

I was careful not to let my surprise show. Elias was throwing a lot of inducements out, which of course made me instantly suspicious.

“Those of your House not bestowed with the gift of magic would be well-protected,” Elias continued, piling more and more sugar on an already sweet deal. “You would have the freedom and security necessary to focus solely on the total defeat of AEGIS.”

“That's very generous of you.”

The Archivist seemed satisfied, both on the surface and below it. “We stand to gain much from your service. We are prepared to offer much in return. It is a mutually beneficial arrangement, do you not agree?”

“Absolutely.”

Elias straightened in his seat. “Then you will consent to an alliance?”

“I need time to consider your offer,” I replied, stalling for time. It was a sensible enough request, of course. Even if he wasn't bullshitting me and I actually intended to agree, I'd still need to talk it over with Misaki, Soleil and Tsubame.

“Of course. Take what time you need, but bear in mind that Nergal and AEGIS are not likely to allow your challenge to go unanswered for long. They will move against you.”

I pushed away from the table and stood. “I'm aware.”

“Thank you for meeting with me, Lady Ashley. I hope, for all our sakes, that we can come to an agreement… before it is too late.”

My expression remained neutral as I allowed Amber to lead me out of the Luna outpost and back to the car. The Archivist's parting words stuck in my mind. They were both a warning and a subtle threat.

Settling into the passenger seat, I buckled my seat belt and sat in silence for a long moment as Amber started the car and pulled out into the narrow streets. She stomped on the accelerator, headed back for the freeway.

“I know you're upset with me. Go ahead, say what you want to say.”

Amber scowled as she drove. “Karin, I'm not upset—I'm royally pissed off. I don't think you could have been ruder to Elias if you tried, and once he started offering incentives, you turn all sweetness and light? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“I was trying to be an asshole. He lied to me; Luna absolutely sold information to AEGIS. Not to mention those 'incentives' sound suspicious as hell.”

“What?!” Amber's expression darkened even further. “How can you sit there and say something like that? You really believe Nergal—the man who played you and Misaki like a fiddle every fucking time you crossed his path—over Elias?”

“Yes.”

Disbelief rippled through Amber's sense. “That's absurd.”

“I detected the change in Elias's emotions as we spoke. There was an instant of shock and fear, quickly buried beneath exaggerated innocence, when I made my accusation.” I turned to gaze at Amber and tapped the brilliant shard embedded in my chest. “Nergal isn't the kind of person who tells a lie when the truth will work even better.”

“You can't seriously be telling me you're capable of reading people's minds.”

“No, only surface intentions and emotions.” I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out a cigarette, rolling the window down partway. I didn't bother asking whether I could smoke or not and lit up. “You, for instance, are feeling conflicted—I'm guessing about Luna's goals and methods. You were apprehensive the whole time we were in there.”

Amber scoffed. “You can't possibly prove that.”

“You don't think so?” I sighed and puffed on my smoke for a moment. “Why did you refuse to let the Order Magicians train Alicia, then?”

“What—how did you know that?!”

I shrugged and blew smoke out the window. “Meilin told me, back when you asked her to let Alicia live with her. By the way, you shouldn't be upset with Meilin. She was just telling me how things were going with you two and the brat. Since we're supposed to be such good friends and all.”

Amber opened her mouth to make an angry retort, but thought better of it and said nothing. I finished my cigarette in silence as the car left the freeway and cruised down the surface streets, back toward my sister's house.

“You don't have to take my word for it,” I continued. “Eventually, Elias will realize I have no intention of allying with him. I'm still surprised he hasn't sent people to kill Soleil in order to get his hands on the Bright Swallow.”

The Swordlady's shock was palpable. “That's absurd!”

“Is it?”

“It's wrong, Karin. That would be stupid and pointless. You think Tsubame would agree to bind to someone who killed the person she loves more than anyone?” Amber's face looked paler than it had been before. “A Relic can't be bound to a new wielder without the willing consent of the spirit that inhabits it.”

My irises darkened and were shot through with red. “Wrong. Isao Tsukimura knew of a modified binding invocation that temporarily suppresses a Relic spirit's powers. Tsubame wouldn't be able to stop an unauthorized wielder from binding to the Relic, nor would she be capable of destroying her own existence to deny her enslavement.”

Amber didn't respond to that.

“How else do you think they could have stolen the Relic you carry now?” I pressed on, mercilessly battering away at her assumptions. I felt bad about this—I really did like Amber a lot—but it was necessary. “Trust me, Amber; Elias has that capability. Why else would he simply brush off your failure to secure the Bright Swallow for Luna after Eirene took out Samuel Kihara?”

“Stop it,” she muttered, her voice barely audible.

“Because he knew he could just reclaim it from Soleil any time he wanted. She can barely manage minor little invocations, much less raise a barrier of her own. All it'll take is one agent with a rifle and the Bright Swallow would be his for the taking.”

“Karin, please. Just stop.”

I turned away and stared out the window as the sun dipped closer toward the horizon. We'd only been at the outpost for twenty minutes, but it was already getting later in the evening.

“Fine. Take me home.”

from fear

I stepped out of the car and walked toward my sister's house without another word to Amber. I wasn't quite as angry with her as I had been earlier, but there really was nothing more to say. Unless…

“Karin, wait.”

I stopped. “What is it?”

“I… I don't know what to do any more.”

“Come inside and talk with us,” I offered. “I'll banish the brats to the common room, let them watch a movie while they eat or something.”

Amber opened the driver's side door and got out, her boots clacking against the concrete driveway. I took that as an agreement and said nothing more, tapping my key against the auto-lock and heading inside.

Inside the house I could hear the sounds of the television—apparently they were already watching something while they ate. The scent of pizza from my favorite local place was thick in the air. Honestly I preferred the old place, the one close to that shoebox apartment I had in Seattle. Not that this one was bad or anything.

Amber and I went into the kitchen. Misaki sat alone at the dining table, calmly eating a slice while she gave me a curious look. Next to her plate was a glass filled with frothy pink liquid—that same watermelon and yuzu juice cocktail my mother taught her to make.

“Hi, love,” Misaki greeted me. She gestured to the pizza box on the table. “Go ahead and eat—you, too, Amber. There's beer in the fridge, more of the watermelon stuff in the blender.”

I retrieved a plate and a very cold amber ale from the fridge. Dropping several slices onto the plate, I pulled up a chair next to Misaki and plopped down. Being my wife, she knew my preferences and had ordered my favorite toppings—mushrooms, olives, chili peppers, feta cheese and lots of different kinds of salty preserved pork.

“How is Alicia doing?” Misaki inquired as Amber sat down across from us. I did my best to suppress a smile. She sure went right for the kill, no matter what situation we happened to be in. Her apparent lack of subtlety and tact was, in fact, carefully calculated.

“She's been doing well.” Amber frowned, attempting to cover her surprise by fiddling with the cap on her beer. She eventually got it open and took a long pull that drained almost half the bottle. Maybe that was a good thing.

“Still living with Meilin?”

“Yeah. I have to go all over for missions, but Mei does a lot of her work online, so… it works out, at least for now.” Amber took a bite of her pizza and chewed thoughtfully. “She's been enrolled back into school, though we think she might have to repeat the sixth grade. Her 'father' pulled her out after she refused to stop asserting her gender, so she's missing a lot of the material.”

I shivered slightly. “I'm glad that didn't happen to So-yi… though I don't doubt it would have if she hadn't been scared back into the closet.”

Misaki glanced at me and then fixed Amber with an emerald stare. “It's obvious you care about Alicia a lot.”

“She grows on you pretty fast.” Amber's lips curved into a smile and a faint blush touched her cheeks. “I never expected her to bounce back so quickly, but she has and she's doing well. Mei makes sure she gets to talk to me on the phone at least a few times a week.”

“Then how can you justify endangering Soleil?” Misaki demanded.

“W-what?!”

Misaki held her phone up for Amber to see, the screen showing a thread of text messages. “Karin filled me in on the meeting. Quite the generous offer Elias made, don't you agree? He was practically throwing every possible thing Karin could want at her. And for what, exactly? An alliance with Luna?”

To her credit, Amber managed to regain her balance quickly. “Why is that in any way unusual? We've all worked together in the past and we work together well—or at least I thought we did.”

“What does Elias stand to gain from an alliance with House Ashley?” Misaki pressed.

“Well, you and Karin and your help dealing with—”

“Neither Karin nor I have any intention of helping Luna weaken and absorb smaller arcane houses,” Misaki snapped. “We're not supposed to be playing their game, but that's exactly what Luna has been doing. You've become remarkably similar to the monsters we're trying to slay.”

“We have no other choice!” Amber stood up and started to pace around the kitchen, glaring harshly at my wife. “You're the one who told me what AEGIS plans to do, what Nergal is capable of now that AEGIS synthesized a new Relic. If he succeeds, millions of people will die. You will die.”

I felt my anger stirring again as she hit me right in that tender spot, but my wife gave me a warning look and flicked her ears. The unspoken message was clear as crystal.

“Look, Karin, Misaki—give me some credit here,” Amber growled, apparently not noticing the nonverbal communication. “We aren't stupid. Those mages who are beyond redemption are dealt with. The others we offer a chance to survive in exchange for their services. As the Order has vowed never to bind specters, we need more mages to increase our strength.”

Now was as good a time as any to show my hand, I suppose.

“Except that's exactly what's happening. The former House mages are summoning new specters. There's no way Elias could possibly miss that. He's not that incompetent.”

Amber's face went absolutely white. “No. There's no way the Archivist would allow such a thing! Yeah, Elias may be obsessed with Luna's mission and doesn't always care what collateral damage he causes, but that's even more reason why he would never allow that to happen! He knows damn well what happens when people are exposed to too much miasma for too long.”

Misaki's ears laid back and her eyes narrowed. “Are you certain of that?”

“I…”

“I think that's enough,” I said, nodding to my wife. Misaki scooted her chair closer to mine and leaned against my shoulder. I felt a soft warmth as her tail curled around the small of my back.

“I'm sorry, Amber, but I needed you to consider all sides.” Misaki's expression softened and she regarded the Swordlady sympathetically. “Karin has always been suspicious of Luna's motives, but I didn't agree with her. There was a time when I believed the Order's focus to be a worthy one. I made it clear to her that I would have been honored to pledge myself to their service.”

“We actually fought about it on several occasions,” I added. “But then something happened that validated my suspicion and changed Misaki's mind.”

Amber glowered around her beer bottle but said nothing.

“Elias accepted the remnants of House Kihara into Luna.” I felt my wife's hand close around my own and squeeze encouragingly. Neither one of us found this particularly pleasant. “And those same mages are summoning specters. This isn't a coincidence. Elias knows what they're doing—most likely he ordered it in the first place.”

I sensed the dull stab of shock and perceived betrayal pour off of her. Never had I seen Amber look so thoroughly defeated and exhausted. The Swordlady of Luna was far more accustomed to fighting with her blade than with her words and emotions.

“Did my sister tell you that, too?”

“She did, and she also told me that you were opposed to the Archivist's decision and tried to get him to change his mind.” I didn't mention that Eirene was the original source of the information. Out of all of us, Amber was the one most likely to reject anything the ancient mage claimed.

“I was, I went to go talk to Elias about it. I was ready to blister his ears—shit, I was almost mad enough to put my blade to his throat!—but he just sat there and calmly waited until I shouted myself out.” Amber shivered—not from the cold—and walked into the kitchen. She took a bottle of scotch out of the liquor cabinet and filled a tumbler with the dark liquid, tossing it back in a single motion. “When I couldn't yell at him any more, he explained his reasons. He didn't have to do that, but he did, and it all made so much sense…”

I glanced at Misaki. “But it doesn't really make sense, does it?”

“N-no, it doesn't. House Kihara's mages slaughtered thirty-seven children to try and gain control over the demons. They… deserve nothing but swift death.”

“How could he possibly convince you otherwise?”

What little blood remained in Amber's face quickly abandoned it. She opened her mouth to respond, but she couldn't form the words. I felt a surge of alarm and I stood up, but Misaki held a hand out to stop me.

“Don't touch her, Karin.”

My irises flooded with violet and black. “What's happening to her?”

“There's some sort of charm spell on her. It's blocking her from answering your question,” Misaki replied, her eyes narrowing sharply. I turned back to Amber and stared at her with a mixture of worry and fear. The woman looked as if she was on the verge of losing consciousness, but somehow managed to teeter right on the edge.

“A charm?”

“No, that's not even a good word for it. It's vastly more powerful than any sort of charm I've ever encountered.” Misaki stood up and walked around the table to stand next to the unresponsive woman. She closed her eyes, her tail swishing slowly and her ears folding back as she plumbed the depths of the magic that encircled Amber's mind.

“Misaki, talk to me,” I implored.

“It's like some sort of barrier placed around a part of her mind, wrapped in an irresistible compulsion. The only reason I sensed it at all is thanks to her bond with the Shattered Sword—it keeps trying to forcibly cancel the mental domination, but without an intelligent spirit behind that bond, it can't figure out what it's doing isn't working.”

“Can you get rid of it?”

Misaki nodded. “Yeah, I should be able to dispel it, but there's a catch.”

“What catch?”

“She'll probably lose the memories inside the block.” My wife's expression darkened as she studied Amber's body for a long moment. “We don't have much of a choice, though—her Relic is going to kill her trying to protect her if we don't stop this struggle quickly.”

“Do what you have to do, then.”

Her tail lashed violently behind her. “I'm not going to let Amber die.”

There was little I could do but watch and wait. I made my way over to the fridge and took out another beer while my wife sat down on the floor in a lotus position. She let out a slow breath, calming her mind and focusing herself inward.

I remembered that this sort of meditation allowed her the ability to invoke powers that would normally be beyond her capability, but it wasn't something she had to do since I removed the restriction placed upon her when the Relic was forged. That she was forced to do so now spoke volumes about the potency of the spell placed on Amber's mind.

Minutes passed without any physical change, but I could feel the astral flow warping as thousands of lines of force connected with Misaki's astral pattern. The sheer quantity of mana she drew upon depleted the space around us so thoroughly that it would be impossible for Kotori to miss—

“Hey, what's going on? I feel really weird, like all the mana disappeared.”

Sure enough, Kotori was standing in the hallway between the common room and the kitchen, staring directly at Misaki. Confusion and worry twisted the edges of her sense. I stood next to her and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and felt a shock of fear surge out from her.

“Karin, what's wrong with Amber?” Kotori cried. “She's not… dead, is she?!”

“No. Someone placed a powerful spell on her and it's interacting badly with the bond between her and the Shattered Sword.” I stepped in front of her, blocking her view of Amber's insensible form. “The ambient mana's being depleted because Misaki is trying to dispel it before the interaction hurts her.”

“Will she be okay?”

I placed a comforting hand on my cousin's shoulder. “Of course she will. Misaki's going to take care of it, and you know how good she is with magic.”

Kotori bit her quivering lip. “I'm scared.”

“I know, but try not to be. Come on, let's go into the common room so we don't break her concentration.”

condemnation

It took another hour before Amber woke up.

The woman still looked deathly pale, but Misaki assured me she was out of danger. The super-charm, for lack of a better term, was gone. I'd never seen Amber look so vulnerable in the entire time I'd known her. She shivered beneath several heavy blankets and sipped at a cup of very hot ginger tea. Her sense was fractured, a mess of chaotic emotions and feelings that I could barely sort through.

“You should eat,” I pressed. The kids demolished all of the pizza, so I quickly grilled up several strips of beef Mama had left over from a recent meal. I set the plate of grilled meat in front of Amber, along with a chunk of crusty bread.

“I know, but I feel so sick to my stomach.” Amber grimaced and she took another sip of her tea. “If I throw up all over the place, you're the one who's going to have to clean it up.”

I smiled despite the potential for vomit. “I don't mind. That's what friends are for, right?”

“Cleaning up vomit?” Amber laughed weakly and took a piece of grilled beef. She bit off a small corner and chewed. Heartened by the fact that she didn't instantly turn green, she took a larger bite and also a bit of bread.

“It's good, right?”

Amber smiled. “Yoshiko taught you well.”

“I'm sure Mama would be happy to hear that.”

“Karin's cooking skills aren't important right now,” Misaki's voice cut in as she walked back into the kitchen. “Amber, do you remember anything about the last time you spoke to Elias in person?”

The Swordlady's gaze went unfocused. “I… remember meeting him at his office, but everything after that is just blank. The next thing I can remember was returning to my mission.”

“I think it's safe to assume Elias was the one who twisted your mind,” my wife stated, her tone and expression plainly furious. I couldn't blame her. Once again, someone had used us to further their own ambitions of power and control.

Amber looked utterly stricken by the revelation that the man she'd pledged her loyalty to had been pulling her strings the entire time. Though I could feel her pain, bright and raw, I couldn't fathom the level of betrayal she suffered. Even after being used by Blondie multiple times, this sort of thing was on a completely different level. I never trusted him to begin with.

“But… why? What does he hope to accomplish?”

I sighed and glanced at my phone. It was getting late—Mama, So-yi and Nicole would be back soon enough with Rowan. Misaki already tucked Kotori and Yuto in bed for the evening, but with the rest of the Ashley family back, there would be a considerable amount of explaining to do. Unfortunately, I had no answers, only questions.

“Now would be a convenient time for Eirene to show up and answer some of these questions,” Misaki complained loudly, as if her words could cause the weird mage to appear in our kitchen.

“Eirene has an agenda of her own. She's manipulating the situation, too—who knows what the hell she really wants?”

“Maybe you should ask her next time you see her?” Misaki suggested.

“She'll just answer with some cryptic nonsense and we'll be even more confused than we were—”

I broke off as a loud knock at the door shattered the late evening quiet. My wife glanced at me, her eyes narrowing suspiciously and her ears laying flat against her head. I nodded and stood up, Misaki following close behind me. It couldn't have been any of my family members at the door; they all had keys.

As my feet touched the wood paneling in the foyer, I felt a familiar presence. While the source of that presence wasn't at all unwelcome, I was more than a little curious why the hell they would be here at this hour. I disabled the auto-lock and opened the door.

“Tsubame, Soleil—and Alicia, too. What the hell are you doing here? Shouldn't the three of you be having a slumber party or something?”

“Something has happened,” Tsubame murmured. “I don't know what, exactly, but I thought it would be best to speak with you directly.”

The Relic spirit's expression was worried and matched perfectly with what I could read from her sense. I beckoned for the three of them to come inside and follow me into the kitchen. From the table, Amber's eyes widened in surprise at the sight of her adoptive daughter.

“Alicia, what are you doing here? Weren't you supposed to be back at Aunt Meilin's apartment tonight?”

“Um, I was, but… I don't know,” Alicia managed. Her sense was cold and dark with worry and anxiety—which only increased upon seeing Amber in her current state. “Mama, what happened to you? You look awful!”

“Never mind that right now.” Amber beckoned for the girl to sit in the chair next to hers. “Why aren't you with Meilin? What happened?”

Alicia looked as if she were about to cry. “I… I… d-don't—”

“We were supposed to meet Meilin at our favorite cafe this afternoon,” Soleil cut in, sitting down next to the distraught Alicia. “But she never showed. We waited around for a few hours, but Meilin didn't come to pick Alicia up.”

Amber stiffened in her seat. “You did try calling her, right?”

“Yes,” Tsubame replied. The Relic spirit chose to stand behind Soleil's chair, seeming to float protectively around the wielder of the Bright Swallow. “My calls went directly to her voicemail. I left two, requesting that she call me back, but she hasn't yet done so. Has she contacted you today at all?”

“No, though I haven't been paying much attention to my phone.” Amber's expression darkened considerably as she reached into her pocket for her phone. She thumbed the device on and stared at the missed call log. “Mei didn't call me… but her fiance did. He left a message, asking if I knew why she wasn't answering his calls.”

Alicia shivered visibly. “What if something bad happened to Aunt Meilin?”

“Whatever happened to Meilin, I'm sure we'll all be able to figure it out.” Soleil scooted her chair closer and put her arm around the other girl's shoulder and pulled her close. I suppressed a smile as I felt Alicia's anxiety all but vanish with Soleil's touch—and Amber's look of relief that Alicia's tears had been halted before they began.

“We will,” I added. “Don't you worry about that.”

“Karin, you know something, don't you?”

I turned my attention back to Amber. While she still looked pretty weak, it was obvious she was starting to bounce back from her ordeal. I hoped that meant her fighting edge would return sooner rather than later.

“Two days ago, Meilin called me to tell me that she spoke with Eirene.” I let my outward expression harden to halt the inevitable protest from Amber, but she said nothing. “It was Eirene who tipped her off about the specters being summoned by former House mages working for Luna. She didn't take it at face value, of course—don't start with me, Amber. I know you don't trust Eirene. Just listen.”

“That's an understatement,” Amber growled. “Fine. Continue.”

“I suggested to Meilin that she might want to do a little investigating, find some solid proof of Eirene's accusations. I didn't think she was lying—out-and-out falsehoods isn't how she operates—but we both knew it would be easier if we could find some corroborating evidence.”

“Why didn't she tell me about this?”

“Because I asked her not to.”

The Swordlady's scowl deepened. “You want to explain that decision?”

“Because we both know you, Amber,” I replied, keeping my expression calm. “Can you honestly say you wouldn't have charged into Elias's office and demanded answers? Actually, we already know the answer to that—you did, and in response, the Archivist dominated your will. What do you think would have happened if you kept it up?”

Amber's expression took on a haunted quality, but she said nothing.

“The magic Elias used to twist your mind is several orders of magnitude more powerful than anything any of us can manage,” Misaki said, deftly picking up the thread of conversation. “If it wasn't for the bond between you and the Shattered Sword, Elias could have re-written large portions of your personality. He did alter as much as he could without tripping the Relic's defenses.”

“Mind control is one of the most difficult types of magic to use.” Amber sipped at her coffee and closed her eyes. It wasn't hard to tell she was still in a great deal of pain. “Elias isn't that strong. He's skilled, sure, but there are plenty of Order Magicians with more raw astral muscle than he has.”

Tsubame frowned. “Is it possible he has been hiding his true strength?”

“Very possible.” I turned my attention to Amber and gave her a sympathetic look. “Further speculation isn't going to help much. We need to find Meilin. She may have gone to ground… or she's been captured. Either way, we have to find her—and soon.”

The Swordlady's eyes went hard. “I'm going with you.”

“No.”

Both Amber and I turned to stare at Misaki. I didn't expect her to object, even though I privately agreed with her assessment. Even so, this was Amber's sister we were talking about here. They may have had different fathers, but we all knew Amber considered Meilin to be the only decent family she had.

“Mei is my sister. I have to find her.”

Misaki shook her head emphatically. “The thing I just tore out of your mind did a lot of damage on its own. The Shattered Sword exacerbated that damage in its effort to protect you. I don't care how tough a front you put up—you're not in prime fighting condition.”

There was a frustrated sigh as Amber pulled the blankets more tightly around her shoulders. “Yeah. You're right. I feel better, but… not much better.”

“It'll get worse.” Misaki's ears twitched and her tail curled up onto her lap. She smoothed the fur of her tail absently. “Your mind took a serious beating. You need to rest as much as possible if you want to heal.”

“Besides,” I added, gesturing to Alicia, the girl's fearful gaze fixed on her guardian, “someone needs to stay here and keep an eye on Alicia and my family. Mama will be back soon, with So-yi, Nicole and Rowan. I'd feel a lot better with you protecting them.”

Amber's cheeks flushed slightly, her sense filled with a pleasant warmth. I was a little surprised she hadn't argued harder to come with us, even considering the pain that still flared brightly from her spirit. Well, there was the matter of her daughter. I didn't envy Amber one bit, having to choose between the warring desire to both go find Meilin and stay with Alicia.

I nodded approvingly to my wife. Misaki gave Amber an easy out. Sometimes I was a little in awe at how well she could handle people problems. Neither Amber nor I were all that great dealing with that intersection of complex emotional and social interaction.

My lips curved into a small, indulgent smile. If she wasn't so quick to try and burn things that annoyed her, she'd make a great diplomat.

darkened paths

Misaki and I stood outside on the deck behind my sister's house. My car was already charged up and ready to go; Tsubame and Soleil sat in the rear passenger seats, waiting while we finished up. There was one more thing we had to do before we left.

“Here,” Amber said, shoving a blue object toward me. It was a lightweight knitted scarf, one Meilin wore often in the cooler months. “Mei left this in my car the last time we saw each other. I haven't had a chance to give it back to her.”

“Thanks. Misaki should be able to use this to find out where she's been.”

The Swordlady nodded, sitting down in one of the deck chairs. She chafed her hands a few times and blew into them—it had already gotten rather chilly. Spring may have officially arrived less than a week ago, but it was still cold in April in the Pacific Northwest.

“You're not going back inside?”

Amber shook her head. “I could use a little solitude.”

“I figured you'd get plenty of that after the kids go to sleep.”

“Maybe.” She shrugged. “Your family can sometimes be a bit… much, Karin. Alicia seems to enjoy the attention, though.”

“And the sweets,” I added in as dry a tone as I could manage. “If only every problem in life could be solved with a liberal application of pastries. Mama would be the queen of the universe.”

Misaki turned to me and took Meilin's scarf without a word. I guess she didn't want to interrupt the conversation. The Relic fragment embedded in my chest tingled and started to warm as it detected the nearby use of magic.

“How are you feeling?”

“Want an honest answer?”

“Please.”

Amber leaned back in the deck chair. “I feel like shit, but it's weird. My body doesn't hurt at all, but my thoughts feel… sluggish. It's so hard to concentrate. I've been running through basic mathematical equations in my head, but I can't even solve the easy shit.” She let out a loud, frustrated groan. “Misaki really was right about it getting worse before it gets better.”

“She's usually right about most things,” I agreed, pulling a cigarette out of my pocket and lighting up. “Especially if they have to do with weird magicky stuff. It seems like the more time passes, the weirder the magicky shit gets.”

“It's the weakening of the boundary.” Amber shifted a little and sipped at more coffee, insulated from the chill air inside a stainless-steel vacuum flask that I recognized as belonging to my mother. It only took one look at Amber's sorry state before Mama went into full-on caregiver mode.

“Tsubame mentioned something about that. The average density of ambient mana is increasing all over the world.” I puffed a few times and flicked ashes onto the grass. “More and more new talents are cropping up, in every nation across the globe. I don't care how powerful or influential AEGIS has become, they're not going to be able to hide this for much longer.”

“With the demons gone, there's been a little bit of back-stepping,” Amber noted. “Pretty much every organization with any kind of dog in this fight is doing their best to discredit reports of unexplained phenomena. Enough Houses have corporate ties and money; keeping the mainstream media quiet hasn't been hard.”

“They won't stay quiet for long if things keep escalating.”

Amber shivered in her chair and not from the cold. “I don't even want to think about the religious implications once the cat's out of the bag.”

I winced and blew a plume of smoke up into the air. Amber had hit upon fears both Misaki and I felt since the demon crisis began. We all dared to hope that with those hunger-driven monsters wiped out that it'd be a lot easier to maintain the separation between the worlds of light and darkness, but I realized that was wishful thinking.

“We're going to have to think about those implications,” I said, somewhat more harshly than I'd intended. “People are going to be afraid. They're going to look toward their faith for answers, but they won't find any. That fear is going to turn into hate, directed at those who can use magic. It's just how our species operates.”

The Swordlady looked away. “No matter what, a lot of people are going to suffer.”

I felt a light tap on my shoulder and turned toward Misaki. Her gem-bright eyes seemed a touch duller than they usually were and I felt uncertainty and confusion permeating her sense.

“Did you find her?”

Misaki shook her head. “I found where she's been recently, but I can't pin down her current position. Something's blocking detection spells from reaching her. I went through a few variations on the usual—”

“What did you say about blocking?” Amber demanded, cutting her off.

“There's something shielding Meilin from detection spells.” Misaki's ears twitched and her expression became thoughtful. “I couldn't discern the source, so it's possible that she's using her own Spell Engine to hide.”

“That's good news, then.”

My wife frowned at me. “Not necessarily. There's no way to tell if the non-detection field was put up by her Spell Engine or by another source within the field itself. She might be laying low somewhere, hiding herself… or she was captured and is being held at a warded location.”

“But you have some idea where she's been recently?” Amber pressed.

“Yes. We'll start there.”

“Good.” She ran a hand through her short-cropped red hair and turned an intense gaze on both Misaki and me. “Do whatever you have to do, Karin, Misaki. Please, find my sister and make sure she's safe.”

“We will.”

I stubbed the cigarette out in a nearby ashtray and turned to follow Misaki through the dining room. My mother sat at the table, her usual nightly pot of tea close at hand as she paged through a news feed on her tablet.

“You're going to go do something horribly dangerous again.” Mama sighed heavily and stood up, scooping me up in a tight hug. She could still do that, even though I'd been taller than her for almost fifteen years. “Karin dear, will this ever end? Will there ever be a time when our family can just live a normal life again?”

“I don't think so.” There was a familiar stinging in my eyes as the tears threatened to come back again. The Relic fragment might have been turning me into a weird cross between a human and a spirit, but it sure didn't affect my tender heart. “I don't think things will ever be 'normal' again.”

My mother reached up to brush an errant lock of pink-streaked black hair from my forehead and kissed me on the cheek. “Don't start crying, dear. You've got to keep it together so you can find your friend and come back to us.”

“I'll keep Karin safe,” Misaki promised. “No matter what happens.”

“I know you will, little fox.” Mama released me and promptly embraced my wife with just as much warmth and love, if not more. “Make sure you keep yourself safe, too. I don't know if I could bear it if I lost either one of you.”

“Come on, love. Tsubame and Soleil are waiting for us.”

My mother let Misaki go and stared at me.

“Good luck, Karin dear. We'll be waiting.”

I said nothing as I started to walk, heading for the front door. Misaki fell into step beside me as we left the house. I opened the driver's side door and settled inside, buckling my seat belt as Misaki slid in beside me. The car's electric motors whirred to life and I put the vehicle into gear, pulling out of the driveway and onto the road.

Misaki reached into her jacket pocket and pulled her phone out, slotting it into the car's dock cradle. She tapped a few commands into the device and brought up a map.

“This is Meilin's itinerary for the past four days,” Misaki explained. She fiddled with her phone for a moment and a glowing blue line appeared on the screen, highlighting sections of the map. “She didn't have much deviation from her usual routine until two days ago.”

“I see that. She went into the Luna outpost, then left and headed down the freeway toward… where?” I frowned at the projected image as I drove.

“The trail ends on the freeway, here.” Misaki tapped an area sectioned off on the map that represented about two kilometers or so of four-lane interstate. “This is the point I could no longer detect the signs of her presence. It's about a forty-five minute drive or so without traffic to worry about.”

I weaved through the light traffic and made a right-hand turn at the next red light. My foot pressed down on the accelerator as the car cruised up the freeway entrance ramp that would take us to the last place we knew Meilin had been.

“That's where we're going, then.”

“What do you think we'll find there?” Tsubame inquired from the back seat.

“I don't know. If we find nothing, then most likely Meilin chose to go dark at that location and we have no real choice but to wait until she breaks radio silence. If we find… something… it might give us some insight into what happened to her.”

hollow

I killed the engine and opened the door, stepping out onto the gravel-covered shoulder on the side of the freeway. Misaki followed first, then Tsubame and Soleil. Both spirits had a calm, vigilant look about them that comforted me somewhat.

We definitely found something, all right.

“The gravel's been pushed aside here,” I said, pointing to a great swath dug into the small rocks. “Pretty sure a car lost control here and flipped up on one side before falling into the ditch.”

“Do you think it was Meilin's car?”

“It's possible.” I took another step forward, aiming the beam of my flashlight at the ground around the ditch. There was an odd darkened pattern on some of the gravel that would have probably gone unnoticed had I not already been suspicious. I knelt down and touched some of the darker rocks and my fingertips came away black.

“There was something big on fire here, recently. Probably a car.”

“Are you certain?” Tsubame asked.

“Completely. See these black flecks here and there? That's melted tire rubber. Either there was an accident here right around the same time—pretty unlikely—or this is where Meilin ran into trouble.”

I frowned and started to brush a few bits of gravel aside, hoping to find some other clue that might be useful. There were small bits of debris of various types, most of which looked like it had been out here for a long time. A lot of broken glass, but that didn't mean much on a freeway shoulder.

“Karin, I found something.”

Soleil walked up to me, holding a small cylindrical object in her hands. I took it from her and held it in front of my light. It was an empty shell casing, nine-millimeter, either from a pistol or submachinegun.

“Yeah, I'd say that cinches it. There was definitely a gunfight here.”

“Did it come from Meilin's gun or someone else's?” Soleil pulled the sleeves of her jacket over her hands to protect them from the cold. “It felt kind of… weird. I can't really explain why, though.”

“Weird how?”

“Like… it made the mana feel strange.”

I held the shell casing in my hand and closed my eyes, focusing on my connection to the astral flow. Soleil's pronouncement of “weird” could have meant a lot of things, but it didn't take long for me to figure out why the brass felt strange.

My eyes opened and I scowled. “This case came from an MQ round.”

“What?” Misaki was beside me, peering at the shell casing. Her expression twisted in confusion as she felt the minute deflections caused by the malformed quintessence residue left on the casing's inner walls. “What the hell does that mean, Karin? It doesn't make any sense. Why in the universe would AEGIS hunters even care about Meilin?”

“They don't and this does make sense—it explains a lot of things, actually,” I corrected her. “Remember that Luna got a lot of the agency's proprietary data when you, Meilin and Amber came to rescue me. It's not much of a stretch to figure the process for manufacturing MQ rounds was part of that data.”

Misaki's ears jerked back in surprise. “Was that the only casing you found, Soleil?”

“I didn't see anything else, but I can look some more.”

I held a hand out to stop her. “Don't bother. This scene has been cleaned up professionally, but they missed a few things—the scrapes in the shoulder, the discolored gravel, the rubber flecks, the shell casing. I think I can guess what happened now, though. Where did you find the brass?”

Soleil gestured toward the swath of disturbed gravel. “Over there, near the ditch. There's a lot of broken glass over there, too.”

“Yeah, I'm getting a picture of how the encounter went now.” I wiggled my flashlight beam at the blackened area. “Meilin's car was here. They probably set it on fire after they had her in custody. Their car was the one that flipped into the ditch; Meilin forced them off the road and into an on-foot confrontation.”

“If they set the car on fire, where did the parts that won't burn go?” Soleil's expression was baffled. “Why would they set it on fire if they were just going to clean everything up after they were done?”

“Because Meilin's attackers didn't clean up. AEGIS probably did, some time after the county police found the burning wreck.” I switched off my flashlight and started back toward the car, the others following close behind me. “I don't think we're going to find anything else here. We should get out of here before anyone gets too curious about what we're doing out here.”

“I think it's too late for that!” Soleil cried. I gawked at her as I realized she had manifested the Bright Swallow and was pointing the short blade at the dark, indistinct landscape beyond the freeway shoulder.

“What the—”

I broke off as a familiar disgusting sensation blossomed deep within the Relic fragment. I hadn't ever felt that sensation myself, but I knew what it was: close proximity to pure miasma given form.

Misaki's tail stood straight out on end and her ears laid flat and back. She inscribed several runes into the air before her, blazing a bright reddish-gold. A shimmering field of golden light pulsed outward, enveloping the four of us in a potent defensive barrier.

“Specters!” Misaki snarled.

Adrenaline poured into my veins as I leaped over the ditch and into the faintly-illuminated landscape beyond. “We need to keep them away from the road!”

There was a brilliant flash of blue-white as Tsubame's wings unfurled. The wind spirit leaped straight up and took to the air. Soleil deftly hopped over the ditch and caught up with me more easily than I expected. The Bright Swallow was enveloped in a hazy blue aura of astrally-contained air, extending the short blade into something more approximating a sword's length.

“How many?” I shouted at Misaki.

“Ten,” came the response. “A thousand-eyes is leading nine reavers.”

“Oh, that's just fucking lovely.” I grunted and opened myself up to the Relic fragment's power. The seething font of near-unlimited potential bridged my own astral pattern with the lines of force that constituted the astral flow. Good thing, too, as I was going to need all the power I could possibly get.

I'd fought thousand-eyes before on several occasions during my time with AEGIS—in fact, a thousand-eyes was the first specter I'd ever destroyed. With a vaguely humanoid form completely covered in blinking, staring eyes, the thousand-eyes preferred to stay out of direct confrontation and rake its enemies with disorienting miasmic blasts from the “eyes” embedded in its palms.

The thousand-eyes would be easy enough for me to take out, but the reavers posed a bigger problem. Like other lower forms of specters, reavers were fairly stupid beasts that resembled enormous flightless birds. Instead of feathers, though, they were covered in razor-sharp spines and their powerful legs were tipped with crystalline talons. Worse still, they were venomous, their bites and claw attacks inflicting severe pain and paralysis.

“Karin, they're splitting off and trying to flank us,” Misaki muttered. I could feel the warmth of her spell-flame as the two of us stood almost back-to-back. “How do you want to play this?”

I smiled as I caught Soleil out of the corner of my eye. The girl was using her size and the darkness to her advantage, slipping into the deep shadows with a level of skill far beyond her young age.

“You and Tsubame take the reavers. I'll keep their commander busy.”

Misaki turned and nodded fiercely, her ears mashed flat against her flowing locks. She leaned close and kissed me quickly before spinning away. The glow of her spell-flame made it easy to see where she was in the darkness, but the specters were almost invisible. With things the way they were, our opponents had the advantage.

Time to do something about that.

I traced a series of blazing white runes in the air before me. A point of bright light materialized in my right palm and began to grow, swelling and becoming brighter and brighter as seconds passed. Soon it was as if I held a miniature sun in my hand; I held it aloft and flattened my palm before willing the glowing flare to ascend into the sky.

I clenched my fist and the flare detonated in a soundless explosion of silvery light. The motes of charged mana were propelled outward and collected around the bodies of the specters. Bright sparkles limned the spine-covered forms of the reavers, spoiling their advantage in the darkness.

The thousand-eyes barked a guttural command in the language of the specters and sprang backwards. The thing's eye-covered hand lifted and began to cast, inscribing red-black symbols into the air, but I was having none of it. I made a quick slashing motion with two fingers and countered the invocation before it could begin.

Snarling in frustration, the thousand-eyes gave up attempting to invoke astral power and instead held both palms outward, shaping its miasma into a half-dozen fast-moving projectiles.

I ducked as the barrage of miasmic bolts streaked through the air, transfixing the spot where my head had been only moments before. Misaki's shield and my own barrier should have been more than enough to shrug it off, but I wanted to preserve my defensive strength for as long as I could. I'd need it if one of the reavers decided to come pay me a visit.

Without the Relic in the form of a sword, I had no real close-combat capabilities. Under ordinary circumstances, Misaki would screen me from the enemy, using explosions and enfeebling invocations to keep them busy long enough for me to blast them out of existence. Unfortunately, she was otherwise occupied, so I'd have to take care of this on my own.

Silver-white sigils burned in the air and I lashed out with a beam of pure disintegrating energies. The piercing line of argent power struck the thousand-eyes a glancing blow; it had changed direction at the last moment. The air around the specter glowed as the beam obliterated a portion of the thing's defenses.

The thousand-eyes leaped backwards in a flying somersault that brought it to rest upon a large boulder a meter or so above the ground. It began to cast again, tracing an intricate series of runic symbols. I recognized the spell; it was the same type of annihilating miasmic sphere that Isao Tsukimura nearly killed me with.

I grinned at the specter's own shortsightedness. The Relic fragment drank deeply of the astral flow and granted me the power to kill my enemy with its own weapon. I let my legs go out from under me and fell to the ground as I loosed another disintegrating beam.

The amorphous blob of miasmic destruction was only half-formed and still unstable when my attack struck it. For the briefest of moments the globe took on a silvery sheen, causing it to resemble a lumpy sphere of liquid mercury.

Then it exploded.

I rolled and scrambled to my feet, running in the opposite direction. I could hear the thousand-eyes shrieking in agony and rage as its physical manifestation was torn apart.

“Did you have to do that again?” Misaki demanded over the pained roars of a reaver she was currently cutting apart. She wielded a blade formed of frozen blue flame, the power of her native aspect contained and crystallized into a weapon. Her tail stood out behind her, providing a counterbalance as she spun and slashed through the reaver's neck. The creature's severed head instantly dissolved into gray ash.

I opened my mouth to answer her, but slammed it shut with an audible click, staring in astonishment as Soleil appeared out of… somewhere… and plunged the Bright Swallow's blade deeply into the glowing miasmic core.

“That's three,” the girl called out, raising her Relic to offer me a battlefield salute. I blinked as she once again disappeared into the shadows. Even with my heightened senses, I couldn't pick her out in the darkness.

Without the thousand-eyes to command them, the remaining reavers clustered together and let out a banshee shriek. They were reverting to a feral state without a guiding intelligence to command them.

A glittering blue-white flash signaled Tsubame's strafing run. The wind spirit soared overhead, maybe only five or six meters off the ground, and loosed a storm of mana-infused plumes with an act of will. The glowing feather darts streaked through the air, trailing sparkling motes of mana, spinning and weaving around the clustered reavers.

The monsters roared in frustration. One hissed and lashed out at Tsubame's feathers, its long-necked head darting out to bite the animate projectile. This turned out to be a very bad idea; the reaver's hiss of anger turned into a shrill scream as the feather exploded in a flash of blue-white flame.

“Misaki, now!”

My wife stepped up beside me, her lips spread wide in a feral grin. A huge sphere of coalesced mana was suspended between her palms; she fed more and more mana into the pulsating orb. Without the slightest hesitation, Misaki took one step toward the massed specters and hurled the enormous astral bomb directly at them.

Golden radiance sprang up all around me as Misaki raised a wide shield—and the bomb went off. I caught sight of Soleil stepping out of the shadows to stand behind Misaki. Tsubame changed direction in midair, streaking away at an ascending angle that would take her beyond the blast radius.

I shielded my eyes from the blinding flash. Misaki's shield warded off the effects of her own attack, but the ground shook violently from the incredible amount of energy released in a fraction of an instant. While only three of the specters had been permanently destroyed by Soleil's Relic, the rest were no longer an immediate threat, their physical manifestations utterly obliterated by the explosion.

The battle was over.

questions

Misaki's astral bomb had roughly the same effect as a miniature nuclear device, which posed a rather large problem because it would attract a lot of attention. Attention we didn't want or need, so we made our way back to the car and got the hell out of there as quickly as we could.

The astral bomb blasted a crater three meters deep into the brush-dotted landscape along the freeway. Intense heat had fused the soil and rocks into a glassy substance that still glowed a dusky reddish-orange as it slowly cooled. I knew that any seismic monitoring station within a hundred kilometers or more would be calling every government agency they could about the, well, bomb detonation they detected.

“AEGIS is going to be busy trying to smooth a lot of feathers after that,” I commented as I pressed down on the accelerator, passing a slow-moving delivery truck. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Misaki smiling smugly. “You planned that, didn't you?”

“Well, of course,” she replied with a wink. “Now AEGIS will have to thoroughly cleanse the entire area, not to mention hiding what really happened while also desperately trying to keep everyone from thinking about terrorist bombings.”

I slowed to match the speed of traffic. “Should keep them off our backs for a little while, at least. Soleil, you got a few of those miasmic cores, right?”

“Yeah.” The girl took her glasses off and wiped dust and sweat from the lenses with a small cloth. “While everyone was fighting, I sneaked around and got three of them. Was there something you wanted to do?”

“We went looking for Meilin and found specters instead. I think it's safe to assume she ran into trouble and that trouble wants to discourage us from following it.”

“But we're not giving up, right?” Soleil pressed.

“With the cores absorbed by the Bright Swallow, Tsubame should be able to pinpoint the location of the mages who bound them.” Misaki's ears twitched thoughtfully. “We should find somewhere to rest for a little while and give her time to investigate.”

Tsubame nodded. “I'm certain that the specters were bound by summoners of House Kihara. I can't say more until I've had time to study the remnants captured within.”

“If we find the summoners, there's a good chance we'll be able to find out what happened to Meilin. There's a roadside diner coming up and after all of that, I could definitely use something to eat and drink. How about the rest of you?”

There was general agreement. I still found it somewhat odd that Relic spirits needed to eat, but I suppose any energy requirements that could be fulfilled through mundane means meant less mana consumed.

I took the next off-ramp, slowing as I pulled the car into an all-night diner and refueling station meant for long-haul transport trucks. In addition to the usual H2 pumps, there were a dozen multi-type refueling slots that could handle fuel alcohol and biodiesel vehicles. Fuel cells weren't all that economical for large vehicles that carried heavy loads and transport trucks were typically exempt from burner taxes and fees so long as they only used carbon-neutral “offset” fuels.

My car's fuel gauge was sitting around half; it wouldn't hurt to top off the hydrogen tanks, I suppose. I stopped next to one of the pumps and turned to my wife. “Mind grabbing us a table in the diner while I get the car fueled up?”

Misaki's ears twitched. “Want me to order you a drink?”

“Nothing alcoholic. We're on the job.”

“Got it.” She turned and stepped out onto the tarmac, beckoning for Tsubame and Soleil to follow her. I listened to the fading sounds of their footsteps as I connected the nozzle to my car's refueling port and sealed it shut. I tapped my phone against the auto-reader panel and validated payment, watching patiently while the pressure gauge on the H2 tanks slowly rose.

A few minutes later, the hydrogen pump chimed and cut off with a click. I shoved my phone back into my pocket and disconnected the refueling line, then dropped back into the driver's seat to pull the car away from the pump and into one of the diner parking spaces. It was only a little after midnight; the place was quiet and not at all busy.

Misaki, Tsubame and Soleil were all sitting together in a booth far in the back. I ignored the “Please Wait to be Seated” sign and plopped down next to my wife. Soleil and Tsubame were looking over a menu while Misaki sat and sipped at a cup of hot tea. I knew from her somewhat annoyed expression that it was black, not green.

“Not a great selection, huh?”

My wife made a thoroughly disgusted face. “This was from a bag, Karin. A bag. I can't believe a restaurant would have the gall to charge money for tea from a bag.”

“It's better than nothing.” I picked up the glass of sparkling lemonade Misaki ordered for me and took a sip. Not bad, a little sweeter than I preferred, but since I didn't want any alcohol it suited me fine.

“Barely,” she grumbled. “At least the food looks good.”

I opened up the menu and scanned it for a moment, looking for something that sounded good to me. It was all pretty standard diner fare, a bunch of breakfast items served twenty-four hours a day and some burgers and sandwiches. I sipped a bit more from my lemonade as the server came back to our table.

“Are ya'll ready to order?”

I glanced up at the waiter, a weathered-looking man probably in his forties or so. His nose wrinkled slightly in distaste as he surveyed our group, trying not to look like he was staring at Misaki's ears and Tsubame's feathers.

“I think so. What about the rest of you?”

Soleil and Tsubame nodded, giving the waiter their orders. Misaki and I added ours as the pile as the man scribbled furiously on a small notepad. “Ya'll heading back home from a convention or something?”

“Something like that,” I replied, suppressing a giggle. Ever since Misaki resolved not to hide her appearance beneath illusion spells, nearly everyone mistook her for some kind of otaku fangirl. People were generally unwilling to assume anything outside of the usual if they could help it. Children were a different story, though; a fact that made me feel a little more hopeful for the future as the boundary grew thinner.

“Be about twenty minutes or so,” the waiter grunted. “We make everything fresh to order. Takes a bit longer, but it's worth it. Ya'll need anything else? Refills on your drinks or anything?”

I examined my lemonade glass, which was already down to half, and nodded. “Another one of these would be great.”

Tsubame and Soleil shook their heads. The two of them were drinking ice water from a large chilled carafe sitting in the center of the table. Our server grunted again and ambled off, heading toward the kitchen.

“We can relax a little bit, but let's not forget what we're stopping for,” I reminded my companions. “Tsubame, do you know anything yet?”

“I have some information.” The wind spirit set her glass of water down and touched her fingertips together. “The binding invocations that were used are unique to House Kihara, but there's something very unusual about them.”

“Oh?”

Tsubame nodded solemnly. “They're all exactly identical. One summoner bound all ten of these specters.”

That got my attention. I nearly spewed lemonade all over the table, but instead started to cough as I choked down the drink. Misaki looked just as astonished as I did, her ears standing straight up on her head.

“That's impossible,” I croaked, trying to stop my coughing fit. “There's no way one summoner can bind ten specters—especially not a thousand-eyes and nine reavers. There's just no way.”

“House Kihara's summoners had the ancestral ability to bind multiple specters, but I agree that binding this many should not be possible.” Tsubame took a healthy swallow of water and gazed at me coolly. “Even the mightiest of Lord Kihara's immediate family were only able to bind four at most, and only for a short period of time.”

“Yet you're still saying these ten were permanently bound to the same person.”

The wind spirit frowned. “I'm not mistaken about this. The binding invocation branches off at the root, iterating into ten identical copies. Three of those were linked to the miasmic cores Soleil destroyed.”

“And the other seven?”

“Severed. The lines of force are frayed where the binding was disrupted by the loss of the specters' physical manifestations.”

I mulled over that for a moment, sipping at my drink. “Can you find the summoner?”

“I should be able to locate them.” Tsubame's brow furrowed slightly and she took a sip from her glass of water. “It will take some time to obtain a precise location.”

My wife steered the conversation to more innocent topics; further speculation wouldn't be all that useful and we had to wait until Tsubame could trace the source of the bindings before we could make our next move. After a few more minutes, the waiter returned with our meals and a fresh glass of lemonade for me.

“Thank you,” I said. “This looks delicious.”

The waiter grunted. “Anything else I can get ya'll?”

“No, I think we're fine for now.”

As the man ambled off toward one of the few other occupied tables, I turned my attention to my (very late) dinner, a quartet of beef sliders that looked and smelled pretty much like heaven. I snagged one and took a huge bite. The ground meat was nicely shaped and cooked, seasoned just right and topped with extra sharp cheddar, slivers of red onion and a few slices of a very sour and salty pickle.

“This was a good decision, I think,” I announced around a mouthful of burger. Misaki nodded from behind the large pork rib she was currently tearing into. Her plate was heaped with various types of Southern-style barbecued meat—a generous portion of ribs, sliced beef brisket, smoked sausage and half a smoked chicken.

Misaki caught my look and grinned widely, showing off her little fangs. She licked grease and barbecue sauce from her lips before attacking her plate again.

I glanced across the table at Tsubame and Soleil. The girl was digging into a plate of blackened chicken pasta with a Parmesan cream sauce—I'd almost ordered that myself, but I wanted burgers. The Relic spirit seemed quite content with her bowl of spicy black bean soup and a small plate of sliced raw tomato and avocado.

“You sure that's going to be enough food, Tsubame?”

Soleil's fork stopped short of her mouth. “She doesn't like to eat meat.”

“I gathered that, but I meant it's just not very much.” I finished off my first burger and dipped a paprika-covered potato wedge in a container of garlic cream sauce. “You could have ordered more. If you're worried about the price, don't be.”

“I'm not used to eating at all,” Tsubame admitted. “While I was a ward of House Kihara, I was expected to draw all of my sustenance from the astral flow. Since I have been with Soleil, we try to eat together, but adapting to such new circumstances after centuries is… sometimes challenging.”

“Trust me, I know.” I winked and smiled at Misaki. “It took Misaki almost a year before she stopped begging for forgiveness every time she made even the slightest mistake.”

My wife blushed faintly. “But I did get over it, thanks to you.”

“I know, and that's why I have hope Tsubame will be able to adapt. It'll just take time. The two of you have only been bound together for a few months, after all.”

We spoke a little while we ate, but all of us wanted to give Tsubame every possible advantage in seeking out the source of the anomalous binding that anchored ten specters to the material world. It was about another twenty minutes or so before Tsubame set her spoon down and looked across the table at me with grim purpose.

“I think I've located the summoner.”

“Show us.”

Tsubame nodded wordlessly and pulled her phone out of a hidden pocket. I was continually surprised at how much she managed to hide in a dress that short. The wind spirit opened up the maps and navigation interface, spending a few moments panning around until she stopped and tapped a point on the map.

“Here.”

I peered at the phone's display and frowned. “That's not very far away, though I guess that makes sense. The closer the summoner is to his pets, the easier time he'd have making sure they do what they're told and don't try to break his dominion.”

“It's about an hour's drive from here,” Misaki observed. “Not much around here but farms and undeveloped land. This is really out in the middle of nowhere.”

“There's probably some sort of Luna outpost there.” I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples, recalling the words I spoke to my mother earlier that day. This really wasn't ever going to end, was it?

“What are we going to do?” Soleil asked.

I leaned back in the booth and frowned. There wasn't much else we could do but try and confront the summoner. It was possible he didn't know anything about what happened to Meilin, but this was the only lead we had.

“We don't have a choice but to follow up on this. A summoner who can bind ten specters is not going to be a pushover, but I don't think he'll be any match for the four of us together.” I slid out from behind the booth and stood up, slipping my jacket back on.

Tsubame nodded to me and turned to Soleil. “If you're feeling sleepy at all, I know an invocation that will revitalize you.”

“I feel okay,” the girl assured her. “I'm too worried about Meilin to be sleepy.”

I counted out the cash necessary to pay for our meal and leave a nice tip for the waiter, setting it down in the center of the table. The wall clock in the diner showed it was already a little past one in the morning.

“Let's go.”

illusion

My foot tapped the brakes as we coasted down an off-ramp and onto what looked like a small service road, though it was open to public use. It had two narrow lanes with a faded dashed line down the center. There were no other vehicles that I could see or hear, though in the darkness it would be difficult to pick out anything that didn't have headlights turned on.

“How much farther?” I asked, glancing at the clock on the HUD. It was already after two in the morning; I was starting to feel how long I'd been up. The brief battle with the specters took more out of me than my companions. Then again, Soleil avoided direct confrontation and the Relic spirits were, well, immortal constructs of astral energy.

“The map doesn't show any features here, but I believe what we're looking for is in that small building about a hundred meters ahead.” Tsubame leaned between the two front seats and pointed to a dim light on the right side of the road.

I killed our headlights, plunging the world around us into darkness, and allowed my eyes to adjust to the low-light conditions. I couldn't see much in the way of detail, but it seemed like our destination was a small shed next to what looked like a cellular communications tower.

“In there?” I frowned. “That little shed?”

Tsubame nodded and gestured to the tower. “Yes. This tower is no longer in use; I don't believe you can see it well enough in the darkness, but the antenna arrays have been removed. The metal of the structure itself shows signs of weathering that wouldn't be present on a functional comm tower.”

“It's also too short for the geography around it,” Misaki added. “Those stacked shapes near the base are probably sections of the tower that were dismantled so that low-flying aircraft and drones don't crash into it.”

“So you're saying this site is pretty much abandoned.”

“Except for our summoner, yeah.”

I slowed the car and stopped it about thirty meters from the old comm shed. The site itself was surrounded by a rusted chain-link fence topped with even rustier razor wire. There was a gate, but it didn't appear to be locked.

“I can feel traces of miasma,” I murmured as I opened the car door and stepped out onto the pavement. “The specters were definitely here—and recently, too. Like within the last hour or so. The lines of force are still pretty twisted up.”

Tsubame turned to Soleil as the four of us made our way to the gate. The girl nodded and manifested the Bright Swallow in her right hand. Polished steel glinted dully in the dim ambient illumination.

“I'm heading in first,” Misaki announced. “Karin, come in behind me, then Soleil. Tsubame, take up the rear.”

None of us spoke as she took several strides forward and unlatched the gate. It was, like everything else, rusty, but the hinges moved with surprising ease and lack of noise. I sniffed the air as I passed through the gate.

“Someone greased this not long ago.”

“I don't like this.” Misaki's ears flicked back and laid against her head. “There's something not right here. Be on your guard.”

She beckoned for us to cross through the fenced-off area. The auto-lock's indicator LED was green, meaning the system was open and the door unlocked. I nodded wordlessly back to her. It was a trap, of course, but with nothing more to go on, we had no choice but to stick our hands in and hope we were fast enough to avoid its jaws.

Spell-flame flared up around Misaki's hands and she stepped out of cover. Her booted foot came up and planted itself solidly on the door, kicking it open with enough force to send it bouncing on its hinges.

We rushed inside, killing magic ready at our fingertips, but it was quickly obvious that we were the only people anywhere near the abandoned cell tower. Misaki let her spell-flame wink out and the four of us stood inside the small building, exchanging quizzical looks.

“There's no one here,” Soleil blurted, pointing the blade of the Bright Swallow toward the ground. “Shouldn't a mage be here or somewhere near here?”

“I was certain that this was the location.” Tsubame turned a shame-filled expression away from the rest of us, but Misaki wasn't having that. My wife shook her head vigorously at the other Relic spirit.

“No. You weren't mistaken, but there is something strange about this place.” She closed her eyes, her ears drooping and her tail slowing its usual swish. A moment later, her eyes opened and she turned to stare at one of the equipment mounting racks inside the old comm substation.

“What is it, love?”

Misaki didn't bother to turn toward me. “I can feel deflections in the ambient mana; the source is… something in this rack. Whatever it is, it's probably disguised or hidden in one of these old switching modules.”

I didn't respond to that. The situation was getting weirder and weirder. Soleil and Tsubame stood warily on guard while Misaki placed her hand atop each of the old pieces of comm hardware. All of the modules were supported by sliding tracks and secured with thumb screws, which was a good thing because nobody thought to bring a screwdriver with us. There was probably something in the car, but Misaki was able to remove each of the modules from the rack without much trouble.

“It's this one,” Misaki noted, tapping a black metal box whose function was unknown to me. A few cables were still plugged into the back panel, dangling behind it as Misaki turned the box around. She studied the module for a moment before placing her hands on either side and sliding the top panel away.

“What the hell?” My wife's eyes became as wide and round as saucers. “Karin, you need to take a look at this. You too, Tsubame. Get over here, now.”

The urgency in her words broke me out of the lull I'd allowed myself to fall into. My gaze sharpened and I knelt down next to the box Misaki had opened. Inside the metal casing would normally have been some sort of electronics, but they'd been removed in order to hide something else inside.

A small square device constructed of metal and plastic had been stuck to the interior of the rackmount module with black tape. The little thing wasn't all that much bigger than my phone, but was more irregularly-shaped and a lot heftier. One side of the device was taken up by a small cylindrical object that plugged into a connector with a locking sleeve. The whole thing looked like it'd been hastily assembled from whatever parts happened to be available.

“I… don't really know what I'm looking at, love,” I admitted after a moment. “I've never seen anything like this before. I mean, I know it's not a bomb, but that's about all I know about this whatever-it-is.”

Misaki shook her head. “You've seen something like this before, though this one's larger and in a different configuration since it wasn't designed to be worn. It's a Spell Engine, Karin—and a powerful one at that.”

“What the hell?” I blurted, echoing my wife's earlier exclamation. “That thing is a Spell Engine? It looks like it was cobbled together out of random garbage.”

“A prototype, maybe.” Misaki closed her eyes and started to trace a series of runes in the air, presumably casting some sort of detection spell that would tell us what the odd Spell Engine was doing.

I glanced at Tsubame, who seemed to be staring off into space but was probably trying to get a read on the binding invocations she'd been tracking ever since we fought the specters a few hours earlier. Both Relic spirits were absorbed in their tasks; Soleil and I kept a sharp eye out for any trouble that might show up.

“Got anything?” I asked.

“Quiet. I'm trying to read the invocations encoded into the Spell Engine.” Misaki's ears flicked with annoyance. Her brow furrowed as she examined the device. If it was anything like the Spell Engines AEGIS issued to their front-line hunters, there would be at least one method of astral manipulation embedded in the unit's circuits.

I stifled an impatient sigh and warily kept my eyes on the fenced-off area around the old shed. The minutes passed with no dark spirits or dirty-tricks teams appearing to take us out. If this was a trap, it was a pretty bad one. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that something was very, very wrong.

Misaki looked up from the cobbled-together Spell Engine, her expression even more grim than it was before. Tsubame wore an identical look. It was obvious they solved at least a part of this puzzle… and the answers were not good ones.

“The Spell Engine contains only one encoded invocation.” Misaki tapped the device's main body. “The whole thing seems designed specifically to empower that single invocation and maintain it for as long as possible on a single mana cartridge.” She twisted the cylinder and disconnected it from the Spell Engine.

Tsubame's eyes narrowed fractionally. “The lines were just severed.”

“Sometimes I hate being right,” my wife muttered. She picked up the inactive Spell Engine, deprived of its power source, and stuffed it into a pocket.

“The specters that attacked us—they were bound to that thing?”

Misaki offered a nod of confirmation. “Yeah. It's brilliant, really. Spell Engines have their own astral pattern, similar to that of a human mage, but they're just machines. They don't have a mind for the miasma to degrade in the first place.”

Her implication wasn't lost on any of us. I felt an icy chill run down my spine that had nothing at all to do with the temperature. One of the major limitations to a summoner's power was their own vulnerability to miasma corruption. It wasn't possible to bind a specter without temporarily absorbing a portion of its essence. If a mage summoned too many specters at once or kept them bound for too long, the risk of permanent damage would rise exponentially.

Arcane houses tried to find ways around this, of course. During our time with AEGIS, Misaki and I helped take down a mage clan, the Black Thorn, that traditionally raised the family's daughters to become living anchors. Through intensive training and early childhood indoctrination, priestesses of the Thorn were used to bind specters until the miasma eventually killed them, ensuring the health and longevity of the clan's male summoners.

I shivered, remembering that dim chamber deep within the heart of the Black Thorn's headquarters, a half-dozen young girls with bodies warped and twisted by years of constant exposure to miasma. It was one of the worst things I'd ever seen in my life.

I shook the horrible memory out of my mind and turned my thoughts back to the matter at hand. In its own way, this revelation was even worse than the rituals of the Black Thorn. Using Spell Engines to bind specters meant that no living mage would be exposed to miasma for long periods of time, completely eliminating the risk of corruption. The devices would only be limited by the energy required to maintain the binding invocations.

“With enough of these things…”

Misaki's ears drooped even lower. “Yeah. The design isn't that complex, the material cost pretty much negligible—the only problem would be sourcing enough quintessence for mana cartridges to keep them powered.”

“Not even a problem,” I pointed out. My head was really starting to hurt now; I pulled a cigarette from my pack and lit up. “The data Amber took contained early prototype designs for both Spell Engines and Emulated Relics. They're probably harvesting miasmic cores from their own summoned specters.”

“I hoped that following the specters to the one who bound them would at least give us some clue as to what happened to Meilin, but this looks like a dead end, Karin.” The fur on Misaki's tail stood out, emphasizing her obvious agitation. “We're no closer to figuring out where she is than we were hours ago.”

That didn't sound right. There was something else going on here. Why did the specters attack us? We all assumed it was because we were getting too close and that Meilin's captors wanted to discourage further pursuit. It was a reasonable enough explanation, but after the battle was won, we weren't able to pick up Meilin's trail at all.

Tracing the source of the specters only led us here, to an empty old shed. There was no sign of our missing friend at all. We had nothing more to go on. It was a dead end. We were right back to square one with nothing to show for it but a colossal waste of time.

A waste of time…

“This isn't a dead end.” I felt suddenly lightheaded, as if all the blood had just drained away from my head. Which probably wasn't too far away from the truth.

“What?”

“It was a trap, all right, just not the kind we were expecting,” I snarled as a sudden sharp spike of anger and fear set my blood on fire. It was obvious. Too damn obvious. I should have realized it the moment the specters attacked us, and yet we all still fell for it.

“What are you—” Misaki broke off, her shock sending a ripple through the fur on her tail as the realization sank in. “Oh, no.”

Tsubame frowned. “Is there something wrong, Karin?”

“Yeah, there's something wrong.” Inky swirls of black collected in the ruby fury that burned in my eyes. I forced myself to breathe, to calm down, but it was hopeless. There was no possible way I could be calm right now.

“We have to go back home—now.”

silent elegy

/

--

“Mama, I want to stay up with you.”

Amber's lips curved into a faint smile as she looked down at the tiny little kid. Alicia's runt-like size sometimes worried her—after all, the life she and her adoptive daughter lived wasn't exactly the safest. It didn't help that the brat's talent for astral manipulation had already put experienced adult mages to shame.

Twelve years old and she already boasted a repertoire twice as deep as most mages four times her age. Alicia's particular affinity for restorative magic was notable, as well—it was one of the most difficult powers to wield, typically requiring decades of intense training and practice to perform without harming the patient.

And yet this shy, sweet little kid made it look easy.

“Okay, okay, you can stay up with me.” Amber patted the spot next to her on the couch. The television was on some channel that Kotori and Yuto had been watching; the two of them had already been sent to bed. Under ordinary circumstances Alicia would be dozing peacefully as well, but things had been so busy recently neither of them had much time to spend with the other.

Alicia plopped down on the couch and snuggled up against Amber's shoulder. Her thick, wavy brown hair was much longer than it had been when the Swordlady had first rescued her from her House Kihara captors. The girl flatly refused to have any length removed from her hair, insisting that she wanted to let it become long enough to fall all the way down her back.

“I wish you could spend time with me more,” Alicia murmured. “You're always out working. Always on some mission or whatever. And now Aunt Meilin is missing and something bad might be happening to her.”

“Don't worry your cute little head about it.” Amber wrapped a strong arm around Alicia's shoulder. “Karin and Misaki are on the job, and they've got Tsubame and Soleil along to help. Doesn't get much stronger than that team, right?”

Alicia didn't seem convinced. “A-and I'm worried about Soleil, too! I know she can fight and has the Bright Swallow, but she's still a kid like me. She's really tough, but not like you, or Misaki and Tsubame. And… you got hurt, too.”

“What happened to me is different.” Amber kissed the worried child's forehead and changed the subject. “Your skin feels a lot softer than it used to. And are those hips I'm starting to see? We're going to have to buy you some new clothes soon, the way you're filling out since you started on your meds.”

The girl blushed and she giggled. “Um, Mama, you're bad with girl clothes.”

“Fair enough. Maybe you should go shopping with Misaki instead.”

“I want to get some new skirts and dresses. And shoes. And, um, I really want some pretty bras, like Soleil has,” Alicia murmured, looking away from Amber as her cheeks flushed even darker.

Amber gazed at her adoptive child, suppressing a rueful chuckle. “You've been pushing for that hard recently.”

“W-well, I mean, Soleil is only a year and a half older than me and all the other girls at school already have them. I feel kinda… embarrassed when we change for gym.” Alicia fell silent and pretended to focus on the television.

There was more to it than that, Amber knew. She'd spoken with Karin and So-yi rather extensively on the subject. Alicia was hitting the age where most children started to express their gender strongly. Fortunately, the private school she attended had a very good reputation with transgender kids. While Amber was happy the girl didn't face discrimination from the faculty and rarely from the other students, she knew enough from her conversations with So-yi to know that most of Alicia's distress would come from dysphoria about her own body.

Amber wanted to minimize that as much as possible. Almost immediately after she took Alicia in as her own, she started her adoptive daughter's treatment process. Several sessions with counselors and doctors later, Alicia was given her first prescription for hormone therapy.

In truth, there hadn't been many changes to Alicia's appearance so far, but it had only been a few months. The doctors assured Amber that the course of treatment was tuned specifically to approximate unaided puberty. With the exception of menarche, Alicia would hit all of the expected milestones as she grew through her teenage years, just like the other girls her age.

“Mama? Hello? Did you hear what I said?”

Amber shook herself out of her own private thoughts and turned her attention back to her daughter. “No, sorry, I was just thinking.”

“That's weird,” Alicia pointed out. “Are you really okay? Did Misaki really fix everything properly?”

“She did, don't worry about that. I just need to rest before I'm back at one hundred percent again. Now, what were you asking me?”

“Just the same thing I was already talking about, Mama. It's okay, right? There are girls in my class younger than me who have them already!”

“Fine, fine, we'll get you some bras. You little brat.”

Alicia pouted. “Hey! I'm not a brat!”

“Yes, you are.” Reaching out with her right hand, Amber tousled the girl's hair and chuckled softly. “Every human younger than the age of twenty is a brat. Except for maybe Kotori. She's got better manners than most adults I know—including myself.”

“That's because she likes you, Mama,” Alicia announced. “Like, likes you likes you.”

“Oh? You mean the same way you like Soleil?”

The girl's blush returned with even more intensity than before. “M-Mama! Don't tease me so much. It's really embarrassing.”

“But we're the only ones out here.”

Alicia shook her head. “Yoshiko is in the kitchen drinking tea and Nicole is working on the computer at the dining table. Only So-yi, Kotori and Yuto are asleep right now—even the baby is awake.”

The Swordlady wasn't surprised. Unlike Kotori, Alicia's affinity didn't lie in the elements wielded so effortlessly by Misaki and Tsubame. Out of all of the Ashley friends and family, Alicia's astral pattern was closest to Karin's, albeit considerably smaller and lacked the weight of a Relic's incredible power.

She also lacked training, but that was merely a function of time and practice. When Amber first rescued her from Kihara's people, she demonstrated the ability to quickly learn invocations from other mages simply by watching.

“Alicia, what do you think about learning magic from Karin and Misaki?”

The girl's eyes widened. “Really? They would do that?”

“I'm sure they'd teach you, though with Kotori and Yuto here now I don't think there's really enough room in this house.” Amber's lips curved into a wistful smile. “Maybe they would, though. You should ask them.”

“Shouldn't you ask them, Mama?” Alicia's eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Lazy.”

That got a laugh out of Amber. The Swordlady pulled her adoptive daughter up on top of her lap and clasped her hands around Alicia's slender waist. “Hey, now. You're getting older and becoming more grown-up, right? So you need to ask them yourself, if you really want to learn. I'm sure Karin will talk to me about it, but just to make sure she has my permission.”

Alicia rolled her eyes in mock exasperation. “Fine, I'll do it. Lazy.”

“Quiet down for now and I'll find us something to watch together.” Amber picked up the remote and started thumbing through the listings. “Is there anything here that looks interesting to you?”

“I don't want to watch TV with you, Mama,” Alicia complained. “Let's go into the kitchen and make hot cocoa. With marshmallows.”

“Okay, fine. Let's go.”

Amber allowed herself to be led into the kitchen. Just as Alicia informed her a moment before, Yoshiko sat in her customary place at the table, sipping at a steaming cup of green tea while reading something on her tablet. Her daughter-in-law sat across from her with an open laptop and several pages of handwritten notes. A half-full glass of red wine sat within easy reach.

“Feeling better?” Yoshiko asked, looking up from her tablet.

“A little, yeah.”

“Mama, hot cocoa. With marshmallows.”

“Okay, okay. Give me a second.”

Yoshiko started to push her chair back, but Amber held up a hand to stop her. “I'm not feeling so messed up that I can't make my daughter some cocoa.”

“Misaki made some raspberry guimauve a few days ago,” Nicole said without looking away from her screen. “They should be in the plastic bin in the cabinet over the stove. We had to keep them where Yuto couldn't reach.”

Alicia gazed at Nicole quizzically. “Guimauve? What's that?”

“They're homemade marshmallows—ah, here it is.” Amber opened the box and gently picked up one of the pink-tinted cubes, handing it to Alicia. “Here, munch on this and give me a few minutes to make your cocoa.”

The girl stared apprehensively at the fluffy, sticky confection in her hand before taking an experimental bite from one of the corners. Her eyes widened in pleased surprise as she chewed and swallowed. “It's so good!”

“The little fox is becoming quite an accomplished homemaker,” Yoshiko commented, pouring herself a fresh cup of tea from the pot that sat in the center of the table. “She made the kimchi in the fridge, too.”

“Misaki made that? I'm impressed.” Amber took a pot out of the cupboard and set it on the stove, pouring a little milk into the pan to heat. After a few moments she started to mix cocoa powder, salt and a sliver of butter into the gently-simmering milk. It only took another minute or so for the ingredients to dissolve completely. Amber poured the cocoa into two mugs—a small one for Alicia and a larger one for herself, leaving enough room to put a little something extra.

“Here you go.”

Alicia took the offered mug, complete with floating pink marshmallow cube, and took a seat at the table. She sipped at the hot beverage and watched as Amber opened up a bottle of Irish crème, topping off her own mug with the potent liquor.

“Thanks, Mama. This is really good.”

“Glad you like it, little monster. I'm not completely inept in the kitchen, despite what certain sisters who shall not be named might claim.” Amber's smile faltered slightly as her thoughts turned to Meilin. She'd been doing her best not to think too much about what might have happened to her.

“I'm sure Aunt Meilin is okay.” Alicia placed a small hand on Amber's and squeezed it gently. Amber knew the girl was every bit as apprehensive as she, despite the feigned certainty in her voice. “Even if she got into trouble, Karin and Misaki and Soleil and Tsubame will for sure help her.”

“You haven't heard anything from Karin yet?” Yoshiko inquired.

Amber shook her head, her expression grim. “Not yet.”

“I swear, my impossible daughter exists entirely to turn all of my hairs gray—”

A loud gasp and a crash of breaking pottery cut her off. Amber, Yoshiko and Nicole all whirled toward the sound. Alicia had dropped her mug, the ceramic vessel breaking on impact with the tiled floor. Hot cocoa spread out from the broken mug in a small puddle. Turning her attention to her daughter, Amber tried to head off the inevitable tears at the accident.

“It's okay, honey, it was just a mug—”

Amber stopped in mid-sentence. The expression on her adoptive child's face wasn't the expected chagrin. Her stormy eyes were wide as saucers and her face had gone so white that Amber was momentarily afraid she'd pass out.

“Alicia, what's wrong?”

“Th-there's… something… coming,” she stammered out. “S-something that feels… c-cold and dark and scary.”

Yoshiko's eyes narrowed and she met Amber's gaze squarely. “What's she talking about? Is she sensing something?”

“I think so.” Amber nearly leaped from her chair and scooped up the black nylon case containing the Shattered Sword. She unzipped it and drew out the blade, leaving the scabbard inside.

The instant her hand touched the hilt, Amber felt it too. It was a familiar sensation of deep soul-freezing darkness, of disgusting corruption. Sensing her urgency, the Shattered Sword began to spark and hiss, tiny tongues of purple-white lightning arcing from each of the deep fissures and cracks in the blade.

“Get everyone together and lock the doors and windows. The instant you hear the fighting start, get in So-yi's van and get the hell away from here,” Amber snapped, snapping the Shattered Sword around in a tight flourish. “I'll take care of our unwanted visitors.”

“Mama, don't,” Alicia implored. “Stay with us!”

“I can't, honey. They're after me, I'm sure of it. If we all try to run, they'll just follow. I have to try and stop them here.”

“B-but—”

Amber shook her head sternly.

“No buts, Alicia. Do what Mama says.”

--

Amber dashed out of the side door, gripping the Shattered Sword in her right hand. Her left held Karin's automatic, the compact firearm loaded with a full magazine of MQ rounds. She had only one reload for it; the Swordlady hoped she wouldn't need it.

That hope started to evaporate as the presence of miasma became close enough for her to resolve into distinct entities. They were specters, of course—AEGIS had done a pretty thorough job of cleaning up the last surviving demons after the mission to destroy their source had been successful.

Months ago, Karin detailed her final conversation with the duplicitous Nergal, the ruthless and deadly Director of AEGIS. With the Third Pillar's spell-weaving destroyed and the temple ruins reduced nearly to rubble, spectral essence was no longer intercepted during the summoning process.

Arcane houses realized this quickly and once again began to build up their strength through pacts with the dark spirits. Their summoners no doubt felt the sundering of such a powerful invocation reverberate through the astral flow as surely as if they'd witnessed it themselves.

The return of the specters was bad enough on its own, but the increasing permeability of the boundary that separated this world from the source of astral energy compounded the problem. Many arcane houses had already discovered that they could summon and bind even more powerful and intelligent specters than ever before.

Put in that light, could she blame Elias for strengthening Luna with the former members of House Kihara? Maybe. But there was no way she could excuse him for allowing them to summon specters. Luna had existed for centuries as a neutral player, an organization that sought to preserve astral lore for the future, for the sake of all.

It had never quite been like that, though. Her memory of her last meeting with Elias was fractured and damaged; no matter what she did she could not recall what had actually been said between them. It was irrelevant, though—with the irresistible magical compulsion gone, Amber was able to think critically about Luna's actions, past and present, for the first time she could recall.

The Order's neutrality was an illusion. Their stated mission was the accumulation of astral lore, yes, but in a world where magic ruled, arcane knowledge was power. From where she was standing now, Amber understood there was never any real difference between Luna and any other arcane house.

Amber's willfulness led to this. It was not her fault, but she would still own the situation and deal with it as best she could. The Swordlady, now vagabond, would not break her promise to Karin.

The Shattered Sword blazed with purple-violet brilliance as the first of the specters attacked. Miasma bolts streaked out, but Amber was far too quick to be taken down so easily.

Breaking into a charge, Amber roared out a challenge and swept her blade around, angling it for a devastating slash that would rend spiritual substance as easily as it cleaved flesh and bone. The Shattered Sword hummed with barely contained and unstable power as it hewed through the first shardwight's body. The thing exploded into countless glassy fragments as the Relic's blade destroyed its miasmic core; Amber didn't stop but charged right through. A large shard of crystalline talon glanced off her shoulder.

There were at least a dozen specters nearby, but Amber could only see three—all of them shardwights. They moved with preternatural agility, dodging and weaving with such speed that her eyes could only perceive a dull reddish blur. Her initial charge took out one of them, but the rest kept their distance from her, darting in only to make quick claw strikes that she parried with the Shattered Sword.

“You want to play? Fine, let's play.”

Amber growled low in her throat and slammed the Relic point-first into the concrete driveway. With a thought she commanded the weapon to release a pulse of power into the ground. An expanding shockwave of crackling energies blasted outward, slamming into the specters with incredible force.

One shardwight leaped back, narrowly avoiding the shockwave that had knocked its companions off their spindly legs. Amber raised Karin's automatic and placed the sights over the spirit's cadaverous chest. She squeezed the trigger twice in rapid succession and rushed forward, yanking her Relic from the ground as she moved.

Dim purple radiance blossomed from the points of impact as the lines of force that directed astral energy and miasma began to twist and tangle. The shardwight screeched in otherworldly agony—and was abruptly silenced by a heavy horizontal slash that cleaved the dark spirit in two.

Amber blinked and her vision swam. Waves of nausea washed over her, but she managed to shake the momentary dizziness off. The after-effects of the mental domination felt like a lead-lined blanket settling over her thoughts, muddling them, compromising her ability to maintain awareness of the battlefield.

It's going to get worse the longer I fight, she told herself. With two specters down, Amber fixated on her two remaining opponents. The shardwights seemed to understand how badly outmatched they were—both now kept a respectful distance away from her as they circled around. They were searching for some kind of opening, some vulnerability they could exploit to take her out. Shardwights were relatively intelligent spirits with a good grasp of tactics, even if they were incapable of human speech.

The shardwight to her left, somewhat larger than the other, darted back, thrusting its impossibly-sharp claws into the ground in preparation for a prodigious leap that would take it clear over her head. Amber wasn't about to let that happen.

Trailing a nimbus of blazing purple lightning, the Shattered Sword arced up and slashed as the thing sailed overhead. The shardwight shrieked with a sound like nails on slate as the blade bit deeply, taking off most of a leg and spoiling the spirit's leap. Amber backpedaled as the crystalline monster fell heavily to the cracked driveway.

Its companion rushed forward, claws leading as it charged. A booted foot lashed out and struck the creature's center of mass; Amber pushed all of her not-inconsiderable weight into the blow and shoved her opponent backward. Her sword swept around in a downward-angled cut, striking the dark spirit a glancing blow.

“Come on, you can do better than that,” she taunted.

The larger shardwight howled and tried to stand, hopping on one foot—it would have been comical had the situation not been so dangerous. Miasma boiled forth from the dark spirit's severed leg and started to coalesce into physical matter. Amber knew it would be able to regenerate within a few moments if left unmolested.

Her right hand came up and fired a shot with Karin's automatic. She had no chance of missing at near point-blank range, even with her non-dominant hand. Dusky purple light burst against the roiling miasma and the shardwight's scream told her the MQ round had done its job. It won't be regenerating that leg any time soon.

The wounded shardwight was engulfed in a billowing cloud of black mist—it had teleported away, fleeing the battlefield until the effects of the malformed quintessence wore off. That left Amber with only one opponent… for the moment.

What the fuck is taking them so long?

The garage door wasn't opening. Her fight with the four shardwights hadn't been quiet by any means; Yoshiko and the rest should have been able to hear it. Why weren't they leaving yet?

The answer was obvious, of course.

Amber let out a wordless berserker scream and exploded into motion. She dropped Karin's pistol, taking the Shattered Sword in a two-handed grip, and charged directly inside the last shardwight's guard. The thing hissed in triumph and flexed scimitar claws, sharp and strong enough to strike Amber's head from her neck with ease.

At the last instant, the Swordlady altered the vector of her charge. The dark spirit's claws swiped out with decisive power, but Amber dropped low. She gritted her teeth in pain as the shardwight's talons slashed into her right shoulder. Blood poured from the deep gashes, but it wasn't a fatal wound by any means.

Purple-white radiance blossomed from the Shattered Sword's blade as Amber, well inside her opponent's guard, brought the blade up in a powerful backswing. Glassy talons flew through the air as she severed the shardwight's hand a split-second before she drew back and rammed the Relic's point through the dark spirit's miasmic core.

It didn't even have time to scream before it died, the spirit's physical manifestation disintegrating into a pile of sparkling gray-white ash. The miasmic core itself pulsed once before the Shattered Sword obliterated the dark power within.

Growling in frustration and growing fear, Amber swept her blade around, clearing it of ash. The garage door should have opened by now. Yoshiko, So-yi, Nicole, Rowan, Kotori, Yuto… and Alicia—they should have all been well away from this place by now.

But the door didn't open.

Blazing arcs of lighting wreathed the Relic's blade as Amber brought it up and around, making three shallow slashes against the thin metal of the door. She stepped back and watched as it fell away, the edges still glowing with borrowed heat.

Amber had erred, and badly. The specters hadn't come for her at all.

The garage was empty of life. So-yi's van sat inside, the electric motors still cold. Amber took a halting, stiff step forward. The sliding side door to the van was open, but nobody was inside. Hastily-packed bags had been tossed on the floorboards, but there was no sign of either Karin's family… or Amber's adoptive daughter.

The Shattered Sword cracked and spat, lightning crawling across the fissures in the blade as the power of the weapon reflected the emotional state of its wielder. Miasma still hung thick in the air; the astral flow was distorted badly, enough so that even Amber could feel it without much effort. But the specters were gone. She could no longer sense even a single active miasmic core.

“I… no,” Amber moaned as a wave of nausea washed over her. Her stomach lurched and she bit back the urge to vomit. “No, this… this can't be happening.”

“But it is happening, and it is your fault.”

The sound of booted feet behind her—it was a person, not a specter.

And that voice…

--

Amber turned toward the voice. Her expression was frozen in a horrified mask, her eyes wide and round. A cold numbness seeped through her body; the Shattered Sword dropped from nerveless fingers to clatter against the concrete.

“You should have listened to Alicia,” Meilin stated in a cold tone. “If you tried to escape with them, perhaps you would have evaded the specters. But then again, perhaps not—I doubt a civilian vehicle would have been able to outrun four shardwights.”

“Mei, what are you—”

The older woman's voice grew even colder. “How many times have I told you never to call me that?”

Amber's face went white. “So it really is you.”

“What, did you think me to be a specter masquerading as your sister?” Meilin's lips curved into a cruel smirk. Her left hand came to rest on the pommel of an unfamiliar sword sheathed at her hip. “No such luck, I'm afraid. I am indeed the genuine article.”

“I don't understand.”

Meilin's expression was scornful. “Of course you don't. It's painfully obvious that out of the two of us, I was the one who ended up with all the brains. You've always been the brawn, my dear sister—though as you know, I'm rather good in a fight myself.”

Dizziness washed over Amber as she tried to focus, tried to make some sort of sense of this inexplicable situation. What the hell was going on? Why was Meilin here? Why had she suddenly become so hostile? The psychic damage caused by the mental domination magic made it difficult for her to think properly.

The mental domination magic…

It had to be. Had Amber been able to think clearly, it would have been obvious from the very start. Now, however, it was far too late.

“He got you, too,” Amber murmured, her voice barely audible.

“What did you say, dear sister?”

“You've been put under a powerful mind-control invocation.” Amber took a step toward her sister, holding her hands out to show that she meant no harm. “It was Elias's doing. He's been playing us all the entire time, using some sort of magic that lets him compel absolute obedience.”

Meilin's cruel smile widened. “Oh, yes, I'm very much aware of that.”

Amber froze in midstride as the dominated woman drew her slender sword with a single fluid motion. It was a masterwork piece, as fine a blade as Amber had ever seen. The metal of the blade was tinged a dark blue color, polished so finely that it gleamed under the harsh quartz streetlights. Silver runes were etched into the flat of the blade, imbuing the weapon with astral energies.

“Lord Elias has blessed me with an unwavering resolve.” Meilin dropped into a guard position and her cold brown eyes hardened. “I have been enlightened. I understand my Lord's purpose and will with every mote of my spirit.”

A soul-freezing chill ran down Amber's spine. Her fragmented, fractured memories seemed to re-align with Meilin's words. Jumbled, disjointed images of her last private audience with Elias flashed through her mind. She could see it clearly now—in each memory, the darkly brilliant form of an ancient and vastly powerful artifact.

Amber knew now that there would be no reasoning with Meilin. The power of the mental domination was too much. Amber had only recovered from it as she did with Misaki's help—and the protection of the Shattered Sword. Her bond with her Relic had shielded her mind from the bulk of the compulsion's power, albeit imperfectly.

But Meilin had no such protection. Her psyche had no defense whatsoever against the intrusions of the artifact… and, by extension, the desires of he who wielded it. Tears welled up in Amber's eyes, but she refused to shed them. Now was not the time to cry.

“He was after Karin's family,” Amber managed after a long moment. “Why?”

“My Lord requires her abilities for an important service, one that she would never perform voluntarily. Leverage would be absolutely necessary; it is well-known that Karin Ashley values her family above all else.”

Amber's expression darkened. “Why doesn't Elias just use his powers to compel her service? Seemed to work pretty fucking well on you.”

“The Mindfang cannot enlighten an astral being,” Meilin replied matter-of-factly, without even a hint of anger. “Lady Ashley's fusion with the power of the Blade of the Nine-Tailed Fox has altered her fundamental essence. Her appearance and mannerisms notwithstanding, she is no longer human.”

The Swordlady nodded slowly, her eyes burning with wrath. They'd all assumed this was the case for quite some time. Misaki predicted it shortly after Karin was rescued from AEGIS custody, but the change was becoming even more pronounced as of late. Still, hearing it spoken so plainly unsettled her.

“Why are you still here, then?” Amber demanded. “Elias's pet specters did their job. Why didn't you leave with them?”

“I was given an additional task that I must complete.”

The Swordlady glanced at the Shattered Sword, still lying quiescent on the ground.

“Lord Elias has revoked your title,” Meilin continued, flourishing her blade with a practiced ease that spoke of great skill—skill that Amber knew her sister shouldn't have. Meilin was never very interested in learning how to use a sword. “I have come to reclaim the Shattered Sword for the Order and my Lord.”

Amber's eyes narrowed. “It's bound to me. If you take it, I'll die.”

“I know.”

Meilin's charge was expected, but the sheer ferocity behind the attack left Amber's eyes wide with horrified disbelief. A blue flash of astral flame wreathed her sword as she executed a perfect disemboweling strike, but Amber backpedaled, dropping into a roll and scooping up the Shattered Sword as she went.

“You will yield!” Meilin's voice sounded strange, almost as if it had been amplified by the same magic that controlled her, as she swept her blade downward. Amber managed to just keep her dominated sister at bay. The Shattered Sword rang a high note of steel on steel as she parried a skull-splitting cleave. Sparks wreathed the Relic's blade as Amber let herself fall into the controlled battle rage that enabled her to so effectively wield the weapon's wild and unpredictable power.

Amber growled deep in her throat as she threw all of her weight into the parry, throwing Meilin back several steps. Her sister may have borrowed the knowledge of a master warrior, but that kind of skill didn't simply exist in the mind. A true fighter's art was burned into each and every fiber of her being.

“Good,” Meilin purred in a voice that sounded nothing like her own. “Very good. I was hoping you'd make this… interesting.”

The Shattered Sword pulsed with arcs of electricity as Amber stepped forward into a flurry of slashes, a precisely-calculated sequence of attacks that pushed Meilin's blade high and allowed the Swordlady to step inside her guard. She altered the direction of her swings and slammed the heavy pommel into Meilin's midsection, blasting the breath from her body. Amber knew the blow had to hurt terribly, but an eldritch light burned within her sister's eyes and she ignored the pain.

“You can do better than that,” Meilin wheezed. The domination pushed her to disregard her body's condition; she stepped to Amber's right side and slashed at the woman's hip, but the strike was deflected.

The enhancement doesn't extend to her physical abilities, Amber thought as she back-stepped, avoiding several wild slashes that she knew were all feints. Parrying any of them would leave her open to a deadly riposte. She's ignoring pain, but her body just isn't built for this. If I can wear her out, she'll falter and I can take her down safely.

Amber twisted the Relic around, altering her stance to let Meilin past her outer ring of defense. This wasn't a wise decision to make under ordinary circumstances in a normal fight, but the Swordlady knew if she could bait her sister into making enough full-power swings, her strength would run out rapidly.

As she predicted, Meilin's sword came up high before lashing out with a devastating descending-angle slash. Amber stepped forward and parried without much strength, allowing her opponent's blade to push hers back. Meilin's lips curled into a frustrated snarl as her own attack caused her to become overbalanced; she'd expected Amber to put her weight and strength into the block.

A booted foot lashed out and caught Meilin across the exposed hip. The blow was powerful enough to send the smaller woman reeling, widening the gap in her defenses even further. Amber took full advantage of this and pounced, bringing the Shattered Sword high above her head in a two-handed grip.

Roaring out a tortured battle cry, Amber swung downward, aiming the Relic's heavy pommel directly at Meilin's forehead. It would just take one solid blow to knock her unconscious—then Amber could restrain her, tie her up with something and wait until Karin and Misaki returned.

Apparently Meilin realized this, too; her eyes widened in alarm as the rounded steel pommel swung inexorably toward her forehead. She had no time to avoid the blow. With all of Amber's considerable strength behind it, Meilin had no chance of shrugging it off and remaining conscious.

Indescribable pain exploded from Amber's lower back. Her swing faltered as she was jerked backwards by something incredibly, inhumanly strong. The Shattered Sword fell from her hands and clattered to the concrete. She felt herself being lifted as she was pulled away; her feet dangled nearly half a meter above the ground.

Amber's chin slammed against her collarbone and her eyes widened in horror. Blood poured out of her body from a terrible wound. The glossy black blade that transfixed her seemed to boil her blood. Filthy smoke streamed from the curved sword as it was ripped from her back—and she understood.

The specter strode around to stand next to Meilin. It was of a type Amber had never seen before; a tall and gaunt ethereal knight clad in ancient, fire-blackened armor. Like all specters, it seemed almost insubstantial, glowing with a dark radiance as it exuded thin plumes of miasma. The spectral knight regarded its blade as Amber's blood vaporized off the surface. Trails of reddish smoke intermingled with the black miasma.

“Good work,” Meilin told the knight in a crisp tone. “Retrieve the Shattered Sword.”

The spectral knight seemed unwilling to comply with the command, but Meilin's scowl deepened. Amber knew that the specter wouldn't be able to resist her sister's commands if it had been bound to obey. With halting steps, clearly understanding the inevitable doom that awaited it if it were to lay hands upon a Relic, even a damaged one, the spectral knight knelt next to Amber's broken body and took the Shattered Sword in one hand.

The effect was immediate; the blade began to spark fiercely. Tongues of violet-white lightning arced from the fissures in the metal, striking the knight's armor. The specter didn't seem to register pain, but Amber knew it wouldn't be long until the Relic's power destroyed it outright.

“Return the Shattered Sword to Lord Elias before your physical manifestation is destroyed.” Meilin barked.

The spectral knight nodded. Miasma formed around it, a bit more sluggishly than it would ordinarily, and the creature vanished into the astral flow. Amber was dimly surprised the dark spirit was able to teleport at all with the Shattered Sword in its hands.

“Y-you planned… this?”

“My Lord planned it.” The dominated woman returned her sword to the scabbard at her waist and walked to where Amber lay bleeding on the ground. “I would not dare take credit for his brilliance. While Lord Elias could lend me the knowledge of his own swordcraft, we both understood the enhancement's limitations.”

Amber coughed wetly, spraying flecks of blood. The ghostly knight's thrust was on the wrong side of her chest to hit her heart, but it had torn one of her lungs apart. It was collapsed and the other lung was filling with blood.

She knew it had been intentional; she had to stay alive long enough for Elias to safely place the Shattered Sword in containment. Another cough wracked her body and sent jolts of terrible pain burning through her, but they felt distant, disconnected. Almost as if she wasn't really feeling it at all.

“He… knew,” Amber gasped. “That you couldn't beat me.”

Meilin nodded. “I only needed to distract you for a short while.”

“Meilin…”

“The spectral knight's blow was carefully struck. You will feel the pain fade as the Relic attempts to repair the damage, but it will not be successful.” The dominated woman shrugged and lifted her right hand. Cerulean runes appeared, graven into the still air. “Once my Lord seals the Shattered Sword's essence, the bond will be severed permanently.”

Amber opened her mouth to respond, but no sound came out. Blood trickled from the corners of her mouth and her vision went blurry for a moment. She watched as the runes Meilin traced—runes she shouldn't have been able to use—pulled mana from the environment and absorbed it into her body. Her form started to become indistinct as she faded away into the astral flow.

Closing her eyes, the former Swordlady found some measure of strength as healing energies poured through the bond from the Relic. Just as Meilin told her, it was nowhere near enough to save her, but perhaps it would be enough to strike a final blow.

“Damn it,” Amber groaned. Her arms wouldn't obey her mind's commands. She felt as weak as a newborn kitten, and the nausea had returned and redoubled in intensity. Focusing every ounce of willpower she had, Amber pushed herself up into a sitting position and waited while the waves of dizziness subsided.

Her body was all but dead at this point. Liters of blood, tainted black from the miasma of the spectral knight's sword, had spilled across the concrete. The terrible wound in her chest continued to bleed, but the astral bond allowed Amber to cling to life by a slender thread.

Getting to her feet was a bit more difficult, but she discovered the more she drew upon the Relic, the less pain and discomfort she felt. The nausea was gone; the ground beneath her no longer seemed to buck and sway beneath her feet. Amber felt her thoughts sharpen, the haze left by the psychic damage lifting away. Cold flames filled her spirit as the Relic poured more and more astral energy through the link.

Amber opened the door to So-yi's house and took hesitant steps inside. Her strides were wobbly at first, as if she were learning to walk again inside compressed time. By the time she made her way to the kitchen and sat down, she no longer felt any pain at all—or anything else, for that matter.

The Shattered Sword's power kept her spirit alive while her body died around it. With icy clarity she knew that she should feel repulsed by such a thing, but she took solace in the fact that it would end soon enough. Once Elias contained the Shattered Sword within an appropriate barrier, the flow of mana would be cut off and it would be over.

She pulled her phone out of her pocket. Her hands no longer shook as she very deliberately dialed a secure comm line—one Meilin had given her, years ago, when she still worked as an operative for AEGIS.

karin's chapter

/

requiem

small wishes

“Karin, for the fiftieth time, please slow down.”

I blinked as I glanced at the navigation display, quickly making the adjustment. I'd somehow managed to get the car going sixty kilometers an hour above the speed limit. The car slowed as I applied brakes. Misaki was right; no matter how urgent I was to get back home, getting pulled over by the cops wasn't going to make it faster.

Besides, I suspected that it was already far too late. The best we could do would be to make it back to So-yi's house without getting into a wreck or being pulled over.

“We're almost there,” Misaki assured me.

“I know.” I licked my lips—they felt dry and cracked—and merged into the next lane as we approached the off-ramp that would take us to the surface streets. “There's no reason to risk ourselves. They're already gone.”

My wife's ears flattened against her head. “You don't know that for sure.”

“I do. We've been kept away for hours. That's more than enough time.”

Misaki didn't respond to that. None of us spoke, in fact, as I steered onto the street that would take us to my sister's neighborhood. There was nothing to say at this point. The best we could do is make it home and try our best to rest and prepare for whatever would happen next.

There was no doubt in my mind that Elias was behind all of this. No one else, save for AEGIS, had the data necessary to construct Spell Engines. The specters that attacked us were summoned and bound using methods unique to House Kihara's mages. Literally since the day Amber worked with Misaki and Meilin to rescue me from AEGIS, Elias had been trying to convince me to serve him.

What was still missing was the “why.” It wasn't AEGIS. If he wanted my help in dealing with Nergal, he would have gone about it in a very different way, I think. No, Blondie wasn't the reason—there was something else he wanted from me. Something that I'd never agree to do of my own volition.

My expression darkened as I recalled Eirene's words the last time I'd seen her. She had been furious, railing at Nergal for killing the Third Pillar of Heaven, her former ally Orn Thaal, before she could interrogate him. Nergal's words, later, once we'd gotten back to the States, replayed in my mind.

The Astral Terminus. Only a person who had fused with a Relic could enter. Perhaps he wanted me to open a path through the boundary, allowing him access to that seemingly-limitless source of reality-bending power. Elias would realize Isao Tsukimura's dream and become the sole governing intelligence of the Terminus, controlling every aspect of the astral flow. All of magic would bend to his will and he would become, for lack of a better term, a god.

Luna really hadn't been any different, after all. Every powerful arcane house aspired to gain mastery over the astral flow. There were countless legends about how it could be done, but from Eirene I knew only the one. I wouldn't be surprised if the lord of every major House knew this. The irony of the situation wasn't lost on me. For centuries, all of these men fought and killed and died and caused so much suffering in order to realize complete fusion with a Relic. Then I bumbled my way into this world and ended up becoming the first person to survive the merging process in centuries.

It wasn't that I was some kind of “chosen one.” I was just convenient, a handy tool that Eirene could use how she saw fit. I fit her requirements: I had no knowledge of magic or the lore that surrounded it, I was not a part of any existing power structures and my natural astral pattern was a useless jumble.

I was also a soft-hearted crybaby and a mushy romantic. I think that may have been the part of me most significant to Eirene when she chose to make use of me. I acted tough, and maybe I was pretty tough, but when it came down to it, I had no interest in power. I just wanted to love Misaki, be with my family and live my life—which would apparently be extremely long—in peace. I didn't want to control anyone and my ambitions didn't extend very far.

“We're here,” I said as I took the turn onto my sister's street. I frowned as I slowed the car and stopped at the curb, gazing at my wife. “You can feel it, can't you?”

Misaki nodded.

“The astral flow is badly distorted,” Tsubame agreed. “There were many specters here. Recently.”

I killed the engine and opened my door, stepping out onto the pavement. It didn't take me long to see the signs of battle. The garage door had been cut open, a large section of it laying on the driveway. Fissures split the concrete in multiple places, but I was most drawn to a dark stain that pooled around a circular spiderweb of cracks. I recognized the damage done to the ground.

“It's a lot of blood,” Soleil observed, wrinkling her nose. The girl shivered slightly but otherwise showed little reaction to the gruesome scene. “But whose?”

I struggled to blink back tears. I knew who fell here.

“It's Amber's.”

Soleil and Tsubame stepped forward, standing behind Misaki. The Bright Swallow appeared in her hand, manifesting itself from within her spirit. I didn't think it was necessary—I doubted very much that we'd find battle here. It was already over, and we were too late to change anything.

Misaki tapped her key against the auto-lock and opened the door. The inside of the house looked almost exactly as it had before we left, but it was empty. I couldn't sense the emotions of my family, nor could I feel Amber or Alicia.

I did sense someone else, however.

Silver-white runes blazed into existence and I held my right hand out, disintegrating energies ready to be released. We walked slowly into the dining room—and even though I expected what I saw, my eyes filled with tears.

Amber lay upon the floor, her eyes closed, her hands clasped over her chest. Her skin was a mottled grayish color, marred by the presence of countless ruptured blood vessels. I recognized the effects of miasma poisoning, but I knew that wasn't what killed her. Dark, half-dried blood soaked her shirt around a gaping, charred hole that went all the way through.

There was someone else in the room. I didn't recognize them by appearance, but I didn't have to. I knew who they were by the subtle deflections of loose mana that scattered away from the astral flow, caused by the presence of an active Spell Engine.

“Karin Ashley, I presume?”

I nodded.

“My code name is Ceres. I'm with the Directorate of AEGIS.”

“I guessed as much.”

I wiped the tears away from my eyes and approached Amber's body. Ignoring the AEGIS operative, paying no attention to anyone else in the room, I knelt next to her and placed my hand on her forehead. It was cold.

There was no way I'd be able to stop the tears any longer.

I collapsed next to her and cried—I don't know how long. I sat there sobbing for what felt like an eternity before Misaki's warm, gentle hands pulled me to my feet. She guided me to a chair, her lips moving as if she were saying something to me—her own eyes were filled with tears, too—but I couldn't understand the words.

Petal-soft lips pressed against mine, so very delicately. Misaki had never kissed me so gently. I blinked through the tears that made my vision so blurry I couldn't see; my wife reached up and wiped them away with a cloth.

“M-Misaki… Amber is—Amber… my friend is…”

“I know, love,” my wife murmured into my ear. “I know.”

I sniffled and blinked, smiling through the tears at her. Thanks to Misaki, I felt the bright emotional pain start to lessen somewhat. I had no idea if it was because I'd become more than just human, but I was able to take the sadness and close it off from my mind. It wasn't gone. I wouldn't erase it; I refused to erase it. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. There were things that had to be done. Grief would have to come later.

“I'm so sorry, Miss Ashley, but there was nothing I could do to help her by the time I arrived,” the woman named Ceres said in a tone that rang with sincerity. “She contacted the agency through a secure emergency line that I suspect was given to her by Star, years ago, when she was still a part of AEGIS.”

“W-what happened?”

Ceres glanced at Soleil with some level of consternation, but understanding flashed in her eyes when she realized the weapon the girl held was a Relic. The AEGIS operative turned her attention back to me and clasped her hands on the table.

“From the preliminary investigation, it was determined that a force of approximately twelve to sixteen specters and one human attacked So-yi Ashley's home a little less than three hours ago. Four of the dark spirits engaged in combat with Amber while the remaining specters abducted the house's other occupants: Yoshiko Ashley, So-yi Ashley, Nicole Marina, Kotori Takeda, Yuto Takeda and Alicia Cross.”

The soft thunk of a heavy-bottomed glass being set on the table broke me out of my own miserable thoughts. I studied the tumbler, filled with ice and whiskey, before lifting it to my lips and downing the potent drink in one go. I coughed, sputtering for a moment, but the taste of the liquor brought a smile to my face.

“Amber's favorite,” Misaki said, sitting next to me. She held the bottle containing the booze in question and a glass of her own. I stared at her, eyes wide and round, as she poured her own glass and refilled mine.

Shakily, I held the glass up and clinked it against my wife's. I wasn't really a fan of whiskey on the rocks, but this one… this was for Amber. I tipped the glass back, sipping it this time. Even though the Relic had done a number on my body in more ways than one, I could still get drunk. As much as I wanted to, now wasn't the time. There was work to do.

“How do you do it, love?”

Misaki sipped at her drink. “Hm?”

“Be so wonderful.”

“Just a talent of mine,” she replied without missing a beat.

The woman named Ceres cleared her throat self-consciously. I felt a surge of anger; I didn't exactly have a high opinion of the agency at this point, especially not the high-ranking Directorate people who reported directly to Blondie. Misaki caught my reaction and shook her head slowly.

I forced my head to cool off a bit, even though I resented having to do that. And why the hell not? Amber was dead. Meilin was missing and none of us knew whether or not she was even alive at this point. I was about to give Ceres the full brunt of my grief-inspired anger, but I stopped.

The Directorate wouldn't be involved, wouldn't have sent their agent to my home, if there wasn't something worse just over the horizon. I fixed a cold stare on the woman and waited in stony silence for her to continue.

within the blood

“So that's what happened,” Misaki murmured. “How terrible…”

I leaned back in my chair and stared hard at Ceres. There was more, much more, that had nothing to do with my family or friends. Something else, something far worse, that she was holding back for some reason.

I think I understood why, too.

“Why are you here?” I asked. “I mean you specifically. Why are you here? Why not a regular AEGIS investigator or spirit hunter? Or even a squad of heavy troopers?” My voice took on an acerbic edge as I continued. “What about this situation interests the high and mighty Directorate of AEGIS?”

Ceres's lips compressed into a grim line. “This incident is related to another. One of AEGIS's most important installations has come under attack.”

I blinked in surprise.

“Under attack?” Tsubame echoed.

The Directorate operative began to pace around the dining room. Amber's body was no longer present—it had been carried out on a stretcher. Ceres promised to ensure that the local authorities wouldn't be allowed to investigate. I accepted this without reservation; the agency would do its best to keep this under wraps. If there was one thing AEGIS could be counted on to do, it was covering things up.

“Two days ago, several members of the Directorate arrived at the agency's primary research and testing facility. I am not privy to the nature of their visit, but I understand that Director of Operations Nergal was with them.” Ceres clasped her hands at the small of her back and she turned to face me.

The AEGIS woman was neither tall nor imposing. In fact, she looked unremarkable, the sort of person who could easily melt into a crowd. I judged her age somewhere in her late thirties or early forties, though she appeared younger. Her faintly dusky complexion was almost light enough to pass as white, but dark enough to blend in nearly anywhere she went. Bright brown eyes were framed by straight brown-black hair cut in a neat bob. She was dressed and made up attractively, too, but not so much that she stood out. I suspected this was deliberate.

“At 0200 hours this morning, all communication with the research facility was cut off. It was immediately determined to be the result of aggressive action by an unknown enemy force. Systems at the base possess multiple redundancies; an equipment malfunction could not possibly be at fault.”

“No comms at all?” My expression was dubious. “Not even personal phones?”

Ceres shook her head. “The facility is a highly restricted area. Personal electronics are strictly forbidden. All communications equipment on site is completely isolated from public lines. The base can only communicate with the rest of the world through AEGIS's own encrypted satellite network.”

“That doesn't seem very smart,” Soleil observed. “Centralized functions like that are easiest to take out.”

The AEGIS woman blinked and stared at Soleil in astonishment. I suppressed a smile and took a sip of my drink—this time, just water. Our toast to Amber was likely the last bit of alcohol that would pass my lips for a while. “Don't write her off because she's young. Soleil is, in many ways, more competent than most of the adults I know. Including myself.”

“The possibility of a large-scale attack against the facility was not adequately considered,” Ceres admitted in a grudging tone. “We did not approach the problem from the correct angle. Our defenses should have been more than sufficient to repel even the most well-executed infiltrations from the most powerful arcane houses.”

“But you never prepared for an army, did you?” I drummed my fingertips on the table and sighed. “Especially not one made up mostly of specters. That's what's going on, isn't it? That's why you're pacing around my sister's dining room, so anxious and afraid you can barely stand it.”

Ceres's eyes flashed with anger and she opened her mouth to object, but I held up a hand to stop her. “Don't bother denying it, just say what you came here to say.”

“Very well,” Ceres agreed. Her expression darkened as she continued. “Our control of the facility has been compromised. Shortly after losing communications, the remaining members of the Directorate at headquarters dispatched surveillance drones to the site. We lost all of the drones, but we were able to receive some image data through satellite uplink before they were destroyed.”

She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a large phone. Tapping the screen a few times, she opened a video file and started playback. I watched the grainy, low-quality image—likely all the resolution the drone could have managed with so little time to send the data before it was destroyed—and felt my heart drop somewhere into the bottomless pit that appeared in my gut.

It was easy to pick them out even through the digital haze. The place was crawling with hundreds of specters. The video played for only a few more seconds before the signal was lost in a flash of dark radiance.

“So many,” Misaki murmured.

Ceres slipped the phone back into her pocket. “We are still trying to learn as much about the situation as we can before committing to an appropriate response. The agency isn't equipped to deal with threats like this—never before has anyone managed to successfully summon and bind so many dark spirits simultaneously.”

“They're using Spell Engines to do it,” I muttered. “That's how they're getting past the binding limits.”

“What?”

I set my empty glass on the table. “We were attacked by a group of ten specters earlier this evening. Tsubame was able to trace them to their source; we discovered a prototype Spell Engine designed specifically to bind multiple specters.”

“You know who is behind this attack,” Ceres reasoned.

“I do. There's no way this could possibly be a coincidence.” I rubbed tired eyes with the back of my hand, trying my best not to succumb to the tremendous physical and emotional exhaustion I felt. “Luna obtained engineering data for early Spell Engine prototypes when they rescued me from AEGIS custody. With that data and the cooperation of absorbed House summoners, the Order was able to quickly build an army of dark spirits without incurring the usual risks.”

Ceres didn't respond to that.

“Let's get to the point, then.” I took a cigarette out of my jacket pocket and lit it, blowing a plume of smoke toward the open window. “You were sent here to get our help in retaking the facility, I assume.”

“Correct.”

I puffed away on my smoke for a long moment.

“No.”

Ceres blinked as if she hadn't heard me correctly. “What?”

“I said no,” I repeated, staring hard at the baffled woman. “AEGIS has used me and my family far too many times already. Besides, I have more important things to worry about. Like my family. Elias has them and the longer I wait, the harder it's going to be to find out where. I can't waste any time trying to help you take back some secret base.”

The older woman's expression soured. “I need to speak with my superiors in private.”

“Fine.” I shrugged, trying to convey as much disinterest and contempt as I could manage. “You can go out back on the deck to have your private conversation.”

Ceres excused herself and walked through the common room and out the sliding glass door onto the patio. I could see her from where I sat; she pulled her phone out of her pocket and dialed a number.

“Do you think they'll try to force us to cooperate?” Tsubame asked.

“Wouldn't be out of character. Coercion and manipulation is all part of the game, I suppose.” I stubbed out my cigarette in the glass ashtray at the center of the table and lit another one. I hadn't chain-smoked in months, but I was not having a good day, to put it mildly. “In that they aren't any different than the other arcane houses and mage organizations all struggling for power and dominance.”

“The human who fought with the specters,” Soleil mused, changing the subject abruptly. “Ceres said she wasn't able to identify them.”

“Probably one of the Order Magicians, sent to oversee the specters tasked with abducting my family.” I scowled and went into the kitchen, refilling my glass with water and retrieving a few strips of spicy beef jerky. Mama made batches of the stuff every so often to keep Misaki-friendly snacks on hand. “The Shattered Sword is gone, too—no doubt Elias sent one of his people to safely transport the Relic back to him.”

Soleil shook her head. “I don't think Ceres is telling the whole truth.”

“Obviously.”

“She knows who it was and I think we can guess, too.” The girl pulled her glasses off and wiped the lenses clean with the lower hem of her shirt. “I think it was Meilin.”

“The mental domination magic.” Misaki's ears twitched and her tail lashed back and forth as she contemplated Soleil's words. “Without a Relic to protect her mind from intrusion, it's entirely possible that Elias was able to subvert her completely.”

“It would explain a lot,” Soleil added. “Amber was killed by a thrust from behind. She wasn't feeling good but I don't think she would have lost to specters alone.”

“There were over a dozen here, according to Ceres,” Tsubame objected. “They could have overwhelmed her by attacking simultaneously. Perhaps she was engaged in combat with some of the dark spirits while their allies prepared an ambush?”

“But there isn't enough ash for that. If they all attacked at the same time, Amber would have killed a lot more than three of them. Especially if they all attacked at once; her fighting style is best against multiple enemies.”

I hadn't even thought of that myself, but she was right. There was no way Amber would have only killed three of the specters before going down herself. I felt an uncomfortable coldness settle over me as Soleil's implications started to sink in. Words couldn't adequately describe just how incredibly fucked the situation was rapidly becoming.

“Let's not wildly speculate for now,” I said, trying not to think about how Amber must have felt in those final moments. “I'll press Ceres for more information when she comes back inside.”

Right on cue, the sliding glass door opened and the agent of the Directorate strode into the dining room. She kept her phone in her hand and met my gaze squarely. I had to hand it to her—she was one cool customer, that was for damn sure.

“I have been authorized to share all of our information with you, regardless of security clearance,” Ceres stated. She extended her phone out to me, the device open to another video feed. “There's something here you should see.”

“More drone footage?”

“From a low-altitude type,” she confirmed.

I shrugged and tapped the screen, starting the video playback. Again the stream was stuttery and low-resolution, but instead of a wide overhead shot of the facility, this drone sailed through the air perhaps only a meter off the ground. Flashes of negative radiance caused the image to flicker; I could hear distorted screams of pain and the otherworldly triumphant shrieks of dark spirits.

The little drone flew fast and I was having trouble focusing on individual figures, but something caught my eye and I tapped the screen. I felt the blood in my veins turn to ice water as I advanced the footage frame by frame. I couldn't make out facial features, but that group of women and children being led inside a building by what looked like a human Luna agent…

My irises deepened to the pure black of fear as I pushed the phone away, unwilling to watch any more of the feed. I didn't need to see any more. Ceres put the device to sleep and slid it back into her pocket.

“So that's how these two 'incidents' are related. You knew he had my family there before you even arrived here.”

“Yes,” Ceres replied, her face becoming stony and expressionless.

“Why?”

“I had to obtain permission before—”

I waved a hand impatiently, cutting her off. “No, not that. I mean, why does he have my family with him? Why take them to the AEGIS facility? I'm not stupid, Ceres. I know you know something; you damn well better tell us. Now.”

“We have suspicions, not knowledge,” Ceres corrected. “If our theories are confirmed, you will be the first person to know. Until then, I have to ask that you trust me. It's a lot to ask, I know, but please, cooperate with me. The consequences will be disastrous should AEGIS fail to recover the facility.”

“This is your bargaining chip, then?” I sighed, clenching my hands into fists in my lap, and turned to meet the agent's eyes. “I help you liberate your facility from Elias's army and you help me get my family back?”

Misaki's emerald eyes smoldered with rage. “Nothing has changed. You people are incapable of even the faintest notion of honesty or integrity. And you always get what you want in the end, right?”

Ceres shook her head. “Please, that was not my intention—”

“Bullshit,” I growled. “You knew what showing me this would do!”

“I've been placed in charge of the liberation of our facility by the Directorate,” Ceres explained. “They have granted full authority to make any deal necessary with you and your friends to secure your cooperation.”

I blinked, surprised. I expected more unsubtle manipulation, but… was Ceres really writing me a blank check here? Or was this just yet another way to mess with my head? I decided the best thing to do was to test it, see how far she was willing to go.

“You already know what I'm going to ask for,” I stated, my tone flat. “And I already know your answer is going to be an evasion or a deflection. Don't fuck with me, Ceres. I'm extremely fucking sick of being jerked around by your people.”

“I assure you, this is no bluff. The Directorate is willing to entertain any and all demands you might have in exchange for your assistance in retaking our facility.”

“This whole thing must really have you scared.”

Ceres grimaced, avoiding my gaze. “It is absolutely crucial to the security and safety of the citizens of this nation. We are willing and able to grant whatever it is you might want, so long as you agree to help us prevent imminent catastrophe.”

“Fine—you want to deal, then let's deal.” I slapped a palm down on the surface of Mama's antique wooden table. “I want AEGIS to immediately cease all attempts to gain access to the Astral Terminus. No more plans to sever the connections between our world and the astral world. I will not stand by and let millions of innocent children die because a bunch of adults who should fucking know better are terrified of change.”

To her credit, Ceres didn't even flinch. Her iron-hard gaze didn't waver even in the slightest.

“Done.”

hope

I yawned and opened my eyes. A brief instant of confusion quickly gave way to memory and understanding; I was on an airship, headed for one of AEGIS's most secret fortresses. My phone sat on the small rimmed table next to my bunk and I picked it up, glancing at the time. It was a little past ten in the morning.

Sunlight streamed in through the vessel's windows. I sat up and managed to get up off the bed without stumbling too much, adjusting myself to the peculiarities of walking on an aircraft in flight.

“Good morning, sleepyhead.”

I smiled as Misaki opened the door to the small cabin and walked inside. She was already dressed, her hair combed out with wavy locks cascading down and around her shoulders. The swishing of her tail was regular and her ears stood up straight, swiveling idly to catch the sounds around her, all of which plainly broadcast her hopeful mood. I didn't need any sort of empathic telepathy to know how she felt—her fox-like features were more expressive than anything a human face could ever manage. Not to mention the fact that she was, well, my wife.

Misaki held out a travel mug with a lid fastened securely to the top. I took the coffee and immediately downed a huge swig, grimacing as the hot liquid seared its way down my throat.

“Don't drink it too fast or you'll burn your tongue,” she chided, sitting down on the cot next to mine. Sleeping together on the airship was out of the question, so she made sure to grab the closest empty one she could.

“Thanks for the coffee.” I sipped more slowly this time, only mildly surprised that it was my favorite dark roast. Ceres wanted our morale to be as high as possible, of course; I was sure she studied the agency's file on me back to front long before she ended up in So-yi's dining room. “I take it our hostess asked you to wake me up?”

Misaki nodded. “Ceres wants all of us to meet her in the conference room on the upper deck in ten minutes. Tsubame and Soleil are already waiting.”

“Probably a strategy session.” I yawned hugely, stifling the creeping lethargy that threatened to steal over my body with another swig of bitter caffeinated brew. “No breakfast first?”

“You should've woken up earlier.”

“Fair enough. I'm sure we'll have time to grab something before we land.” I glanced around the small cabin and frowned. “Where's the gear bag Ceres left for us?”

“I gave it back to her,” Misaki replied. “We have something much better, thanks to Tsubame pulling an all-nighter.”

I blinked as Misaki held out a rolled cloth bundle. The instant it made contact with my skin, I felt the subtle thrum of power imbued into the fabric. Taking the garment by the exposed edge, I unfurled the bundle and understood.

“It's got so much magic crammed into it I can feel it singing through the fibers.” I held the one-piece article of clothing up against my body. It was similar in design to Tsubame's fighting dress—and just as brief in the hem. I felt a faint blush touch my cheeks. “Couldn't she um, have made it a little longer?”

“Feeling a little self-conscious?” Misaki giggled and gestured to the clothing she already wore. “She made one for each of us and they're all like this. A longer skirt is a liability in battle, especially in close quarters.”

“Couldn't she have built shorts into it or something?”

“Reduces freedom of movement.”

I gave her a sidelong glare and rolled my eyes. “Now I know the two of you are just fucking with me.”

“Maaaaaybe.” Misaki giggled, but her mirth quickly faded. “In all seriousness, Karin, it's cold out there. The invocations laid down into the fabric of these will protect us from the extreme conditions better than full arctic gear—not to mention providing defense against miasma and magic. You'll be far warmer and safer in this than anything Ceres can offer.”

“Fine,” I grunted.

Still giving my wife the evil eye, I dug a pair of panties and a sports bra from the small day pack I managed to throw together before Ceres herded us off to the airport. The close-fitting athletic top would keep things from flopping around in the middle of a fight—not exactly something I wanted to be worrying about while people and dark spirits were doing their best to kill me.

Unlike Tsubame's fighting dress, mine lacked the wide-open back—which made sense as I didn't have wings—and had short sleeves. The rest looked pretty much identical, with the same general silhouette and abbreviated skirt, though the colors were different. Instead of white and blue, mine was a pure black with subtle pink-violet trim and details.

As I pulled the garment on, I felt the fabric draw inward of its own accord, the threads shrinking and contouring to mold themselves perfectly to my body. I wasn't too surprised—it was basically made of magic, after all. Next came a pair of high black boots, solid and snug with good ankle support.

“Ready?” Misaki asked.

I gave her a quick once-over and nodded. My wife's fighting dress looked vaguely reminiscent of the ornate yukata she wore when I first met her. Flame-red cloth was accented with white detailing. I was forced to admit that the effect was certainly stunning, the crimson fabric setting off the red-tinged-gold of her hair and the fur of her tail.

She rolled her eyes and grinned. “Karin, stop staring at me like a lovestruck kit. We've got work to do.”

“I can't help it if you make me feel like a lovestruck kit,” I shot back. Misaki stuck her tongue out at me and opened the door leading out of the small cabin and into a short hallway that opened up into the middle deck's operations area.

The interior of the AEGIS mobile command airship looked more like the inside of an office building without the floor-to-ceiling windows. Rather than the rows of seats that typically filled the interior of civilian aircraft, the airship's operations area contained eighteen different monitoring, tactical and logistics workstations. A dozen AEGIS personnel sat in floor-mounted swivel chairs, tapping out commands and speaking quietly into headsets as they worked.

“The stairs are over there, near the corridor to the bridge.”

I followed the direction my wife pointed and started to pull myself up the steep set of spiral stairs that led up to the second deck. “This thing is huge. I can't even imagine how they figured out how to make something like this fly at all, much less without wings.”

“Huge arrays of repulsion pads,” Misaki replied. “The design is way too expensive for commercial use, but that sort of thing doesn't bother AEGIS. Apparently they have four airships of this type. They can fly nearly anywhere, double as a seagoing vessel, don't need a runway to take off or land and can even hover in place.”

I shot my wife a suspicious look. “You've been grilling the crew, haven't you?”

“Well, sure. Why not? For once, we're the ones who have the agency over a barrel. I'd like to know why, but they're not especially talkative outside of a few interesting but ultimately trivial bits of data.”

I nodded slowly as we stepped off the stairs and onto the upper deck. All four of us, including Soleil, had been immediately put on our guard by how quickly Ceres capitulated to my demands. I had no idea what her “theories” were, but I suspected it probably had something to do with some research or experiment kept in the facility itself. Some weapon or secret that AEGIS would do just about anything to keep it out of the wrong hands.

“Good morning, Karin.”

I smiled at Tsubame as I took my seat. “I managed to get some sleep, after all. Do you know how long it'll be before we land?”

A locked door at the other end of the conference room opened and Ceres came in. No longer clad in the MIB getup, the Directorate agent looked cool and comfortable in a gray shirt and black nylon pants studded with pockets. A compact automatic rode in a hip holster on her right side and she wore a Spell Engine on her left hand. The utilitarian-looking short sword strapped to her left hip was undoubtedly an Emulated Relic, though it looked different than the type I'd seen while I was working for the agency.

“We'll be landing in fifteen minutes,” Ceres said, sliding a chair out from under the table and unclipping her Emulated Relic's molded-thermoplastic scabbard before sitting down. “I wanted to brief the four of you with your part in the mission to retake the facility.”

“I take it we won't be fighting alongside your people.”

“Correct. Our units will fight more effectively on their own.” Ceres tapped a command into the conference table—identical to the type used in AEGIS outposts on the ground—and the large displays on the wall behind her lit up, showing a detailed map of the facility. “You four will be operating independently, but in concert with the AEGIS units.”

“What are the operation's primary objectives?” Soleil asked. “Do you have any data on the enemy's fortified positions and regular patrols?”

Ceres no longer looked surprised by the young girl's impressive grasp of tactics. It was funny while it lasted, but I suppose Soleil's repeated displays of competence beyond her age finally convinced the Directorate agent.

“The primary objective is a clean sweep. We want to destroy or unbind as many specters as possible. The enemy's strength lies in their ability to maintain this army of dark spirits.” She tapped a command into the table and the images changed. Some of the screens showed satellite and drone photographs while others were threat maps, with icons and colored sections displaying the concentration of enemy targets.

“But that's not what you want us to do, I take it?”

“No, our units will engage the specters directly. The Directorate respectfully requests that you and your friends avoid confrontation as best you can and locate the enemy force's commander.” Ceres's gaze went cold. “We have no information on the commander's location. You'll have to track them down yourselves.”

So far it was going about how I expected. Elias's mental domination magic wouldn't work on any of us, either by virtue of being a spirit ourselves or being bound to one. That meant Blondie was probably immune, too. Ceres's people couldn't fight against someone with the power to turn them against their own allies—though I doubted the power was something he would or could just use casually.

There was still the matter of whatever Ceres was hiding, though. I figured now was as good as any time to try and dig it out of her. I didn't think she'd be willing or able to reveal anything useful, but it was worth a shot.

“What's so special about this place that the Directorate would forfeit the agency's entire goal to keep safe?”

Ceres didn't respond immediately. That in of itself was interesting; I expected more of the same evasion and deflection and need-to-know-basis bullshit, but it seemed like she was steeling herself to consider some terrible secret that unnerved even someone as unshakable as she.

The older woman powered the briefing display off and the screens behind her winked out. “I was not attempting to obfuscate the truth when I identified this facility as AEGIS's primary research and development laboratory. That is true—this is where the first Spell Engines and Emulated Relics were designed, forty years ago.”

I blinked. “AEGIS has been active since the early 2000s?”

“Longer,” Ceres corrected. “The agency was first chartered in 1982. It began as a small organization, created by secret presidential executive order, assigned with the task of keeping the shadow wars between arcane houses from spilling out into wider society. With the aid of independent spirit hunters and mages and the cooperation of several arcane houses, we were able to keep the danger contained.”

“You had the cooperation of arcane houses?” Misaki echoed.

“The wisest and most powerful house lords knew that if their powers became public knowledge, they would be unable to survive the social and religious backlash.” Ceres leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms over her head. “Without their cooperation, we never could have achieved containment. We created this game and acted as referees. You and Lady Ashley both worked for AEGIS for several months; you must have realized that you were only assigned to chastise those Houses who broke the rules.”

“Yeah, we figured that out.” I reached into a pocket and pulled out a cigarette, paying no attention to the “No Smoking” sign overhead. Ceres wrinkled her nose in anticipated disgust, but made no effort to protest. “There were lots of times where we were ordered to leave summoners alone, even ones we knew were binding specters and using them to bend or break the law.”

“Shortly before the appearance of the miasmaform entities,” Ceres continued, doing her best to ignore me as I lit up and puffed away, “you no doubt noticed a change in the cases you were assigned.”

“We kept getting handed kill orders. Meilin tried to fight it because I was still pretty messed up after our encounter with Isao Tsukimura. I didn't really think much of it at the time—I figured our battle with Tsukimura impressed the agency's leadership.”

“That was part of the reason for our decision. Your defeat of Lord Tsukimura led to the complete annulment of one of the more dangerous arcane houses. We were impressed with the power you and Misaki possessed and wished to make more effective use of your skills.”

“And the other part?”

Ceres sat up straight and met my gaze squarely. “The agency's leadership has always disagreed on how best to fulfill our mission. For decades, two factions have struggled against each other internally. The older, more conservative members of the Directorate support maintaining containment and secrecy, while the younger and bolder desire to excise the corruption from our world entirely.”

I didn't respond to that but it did fit in with what I already knew. I blew out a plume of smoke that was quickly sucked into an overhead vent and put my spent cigarette out in a half-empty plastic cup of water. The ash turned the clear liquid a dark, dingy gray.

“When you signed on as a collaborator, the membership of the Directorate was skewed more toward the reformists than the conservatives. Our Director of Operations at the time, code-name Erebus, was somewhat moderate but still supported greater regulation and lesser freedom for arcane houses.”

“Was he the one who originally came up with the long-term plan to win Karin's loyalty and use her to reach the Astral Terminus?” Misaki queried.

Ceres snorted with obvious derision. “Of course, Nergal would tell you all about it. Are you also aware of the political machinations he put into motion to oust Director Erebus and take his place?”

“You mean the whole thing with turning my comatose body into a science experiment?” I rolled my eyes and flicked more ashes into the cup. “Yeah. Blondie told us about that, too. I'm guessing he planted the seed of the idea into Erebus's head and waited for the harvest. He was the number-two man in the agency before AEGIS took me prisoner.”

“It was the operation that freed you and exposed proprietary AEGIS data to the Order of the Moon that ultimately convinced the Directorate to force Erebus to resign, handing interim leadership over to the Vice-Director.” Ceres reached under the table and pulled a small glass ashtray from a storage cabinet, sliding it across the polished acrylic surface. “Nergal waited years for his rival and mentor to make a mistake. After taking over as acting-Director, he quickly made alliances and deals within the agency and the president, ensuring that he would remain in that position for as long as possible.”

“Nergal is a reformist, then,” Tsubame reasoned.

“None more outspoken or passionate. It seems he told you many things, but I doubt he related any of his own personal history.” Ceres's grim expression somehow managed to become even grimmer. “Nergal started at the bottom and clawed his way through the ranks; unlike Erebus and many other Directorate members, he was not a presidential appointee. It was his brilliant mind and sheer tenacity and determination that won him the position of Vice-Director ten years ago.”

Soleil frowned. “Why is he like this, though? Did something happen to him when he was a kid? Or did something happen to his family?”

“In early 2026, Nergal worked as a controller for AEGIS, leading the operation to eliminate a rebellious House. They targeted and threatened his family, but still he would not bend. The eldest son and heir to House Vinlan burned his home to the ground while his wife and children were inside. There were no survivors.”

I couldn't say I'd guessed it was something like this—the whole time I thought Nergal was just that cold and calculating. What Ceres told us brought the whole picture into focus. Blondie wasn't just another amoral sociopath in government; no, it was personal, which actually made me feel a lot better about the whole situation.

“They weren't killed by a specter?”

“No. The son of House Vinlan invoked astral energies and incinerated Nergal's home with his own power.”

“It makes sense,” Misaki murmured. “Someone who has nurtured such hate for such a long time as humans reckon these things… his determination has become obsession.”

“It makes sense, but we still need more.” I smiled at my wife and then shot a sidelong glare at the Directorate agent. “What's your stake in all of this, Ceres? Why are you so eager to see Blondie removed from consideration? Plus, you still haven't explained to me why this facility is so damn important.”

“I was just getting to that,” the older woman remarked, her tone becoming somewhat annoyed. “I represent the interests of the conservative majority. We inside the Directorate opposes Nergal's plan to sever our world's connection to the Astral Terminus.”

My smirk was more than a little smug. “It's about time someone in the agency had some sense in their heads.”

“Yes, though perhaps expressing these sentiments to the Director was not the wisest course of action,” Ceres admitted.

“So Blondie and his supporters came here, to this facility.”

There was a beep from the console on the table. Ceres pressed a button to dismiss the notification. “We will be landing shortly; the time we have to talk is running short. I will be frank with you, Lady Karin of House Ashley—we are equally fearful of what anyone will do with the sealed entity underneath this facility.”

I really didn't like the sound of that.

“When you say things like 'sealed entity,' you start to concern me, Ceres. Explain.”

“In the facility's sub-basement levels, three hundred meters below the surface, the agency has kept an astral entity imprisoned for half a century. It is like nothing we've ever encountered before—a being of incomprehensible power.”

“How the fuck did you trap something like that?” I demanded. I lit another cigarette, my mood growing even worse than it already was. It seemed like every time I turned around I was being asked to clean up the messes of irresponsible assholes with far too much power put in their hands.

“With the aid of powerful mages and spirit hunters, AEGIS was able to place the being in a temporarily powerless state. It bought us sufficient time to construct a vessel capable of keeping the entity unconscious and safely contained.”

“And you think Blondie's going to try and what, wake it up and let it out?” I gawked at the older woman. Was he really that far gone? “What the hell for?”

Ceres shook her head. “He plans to absorb the being's power, energizing the Synthesized Relic so that he might fuse with its essence. If successful, we predict that Nergal will be able to enter the Astral Terminus at will.”

white void

It felt decidedly strange to stand in a raging snowstorm, wearing nothing but a very short dress and high leather boots, without shivering in the slightest. Snow and ice pelted my bare face, arms and thighs, but I felt only the faintest impact and none of the cold. Tsubame's astrally-imbued tailoring skills were second to none, I had to admit.

Neither Misaki, Tsubame nor Soleil seemed to mind the fact that their legs were bare and their skirts were fluttering around their waists. My wife's had a notch for her tail and I suspected she was happy to wear something that didn't force the fluffy thing through a small hole cut through the fabric.

I reminded myself that warriors had worn similar garments into battle for centuries, and they didn't even have real underwear, just dangling loincloths. It was all silly shit in my own head, anyway—nervous thoughts from an anxious mind. I doubted very seriously the specters would care if they could see what color my panties were.

None of us could actually talk over the howl of the wind in our ears. It didn't matter; we all knew what we had to do. The AEGIS command airship had landed about a kilometer away, in a small, sheltered bowl in the rocky terrain. It would remain there until the operation was completed successfully.

While Tsubame had covered my armor, the arms were pretty much left up to AEGIS. My forearms were encased in armored bracers with leather half-gloves; a shaped plate of hardened steel six millimeters thick protected my arms. They also let me pull off one hell of a backhand strike. Weapon-wise I was carrying an AEGIS-type compact assault/sniper rifle with an advanced computer-aided targeting system. A compact automatic pistol was holstered low on my right thigh. Both were loaded with high-potency MQ rounds.

I still didn't feel very safe, nor could I manage to approximate anything resembling calm. Not with my family in Elias's custody, anyway. None of us had any idea where they were being kept, but we all figured if we found him, we'd find my family.

The tactical data Ceres provided was several hours old, but it gave us a starting point. Blondie and the facility's security forces were still putting up a fight; they'd managed to dig their heels in deeply in the Security Area. Elias may have had some knowledge of the place, but this was Nergal's home turf. He immediately set up in the most defensible spot he could and the result was a stalemate.

Ceres and her force—partly comprised of AEGIS front-line hunters and heavy troopers working together with special forces units on loan from the military—would attempt to tip the balance by assaulting key strategic locations held by Luna's specters and mages.

We also had a threat assessment, though none of us were willing to treat it as the gospel truth. Specters were a lot harder to count than people, especially since a number of them had innate powers of concealment. Even if we assumed the numbers were off, the assessment suggested Elias and the summoners of the absorbed Houses had brought forth over six hundred dark spirits.

I peered through the nigh-impenetrable white haze and my eyes narrowed slightly. The Relic fragment grew warmer as I drew upon the near-limitless source of mana. Small things like enhancing my sight had become so natural that I no longer needed to invoke the power through inscribing runes. The more I became accustomed to the Relic's essence and the more my own essence changed, the easier it got.

My enhanced vision cut through the swirling, howling flurry as if the skies were perfectly clear. I could make out the edges of buildings, dark shapes that loomed above in the distance. We were at the edge of the facility's borders—now it would be time to find a way inside the complex itself.

“The facility maintains a repulsion field around the edges,” Tsubame cried over the shrieking winds. As a daughter of the astral wind, her voice seemed to resonate through the gale-force currents of air, rather than being drowned out by them. “It's only twenty meters from here!”

I nodded wordlessly and turned my attention to the snow piling up twenty meters in front of us. There was no visible sign of the repulsion field itself, but I had a pretty good idea how to find it. Such a field couldn't be projected more than a few dozen meters at the very most. Somewhere, buried in the snow nearby, were the emitters that maintained the outer walls of this high-tech fortress.

Ceres and her people would have little trouble in circumventing a repulsion wall; they'd be dropping in from the air. For us it would be something of a problem. I had no idea if this would alert Elias to our presence, but there wasn't much else we could do. I held my hand up and gestured for the others to stand back. I hoped a sudden electrical discharge striking an emitter would probably be dismissed as a consequence of the inclement weather.

Misaki's tail curled around her left thigh as she stepped back. Both Soleil and Tsubame watched anxiously as I approached a small, oddly shaped hillock in the snow. According to Ceres's data, the landscape around the facility had been leveled off during construction. I turned to my wife and gave her a querying look.

“It's warmer than the surrounding area,” she confirmed, her bell-like voice barely audible over the wind. That was enough for me; as a spirit of astral fire, Misaki could sense the most subtle concentrations of heat, even in a whiteout like this.

Holding out my right hand, I felt the connection between my awareness and the astral flow. Lines of force arranged themselves, linking together to form a sort of circuit that would convert the raw mana into electrical potential. The primal everystuff coalesced into a bright arc of lightning that shot from my hand to the top of the snow mound. A loud crack reverberated through the frigid air.

The mound exploded. I shielded my face from the expected shower of fragmented metal composites, melted components and refrozen water ice. Blinking the bright afterimage away, I smiled in satisfaction at the blackened crater that had once been a repulsion field emitter.

“We have a gap,” Tsubame confirmed.

No more words were exchanged. We ran as fast as we could through the snow. No matter how deeply I sank into the drifts, my legs remained warm, dry and comfortable. In only a few moments we'd be able to access the facility itself, the bulk of which was located underground and sheltered from the extreme cold.

Ceres's map had our insertion point at a perimeter access point not far from here. We ran toward the small, single-story bunker, more than a little thankful for the cover the snowstorm offered. The weather forecasts suggested our shroud of the elements wouldn't last too much longer; we really didn't want to be caught out in the open after the weather cleared up.

Misaki and I took up position near the door, keeping a wary eye on our surroundings in case our trespass hadn't gone unnoticed. Soleil stuck close to Tsubame, the Bright Swallow manifested and held ready as the wind spirit bent over the auto-lock panel. During her long servitude to House Kihara, Tsubame picked up many useful skills, including the knowledge necessary to hack her way through all sorts of electronic security systems.

Several tense minutes passed before she turned and waved us over. I didn't think we'd been detected just yet, but it made sense to get out of the open as quickly as we could. The auto-lock panel's indicator light was no longer red but instead pulsed amber. The wind spirit reached out and tapped the door controls and the reinforced panels slid open, revealing a dimly-lit metal staircase descending deep underground.

“Nice work,” I commented, finally able to speak without shouting over the wind. With the door sealed I could barely hear the storm outside as a dull, low roar. “I still can't believe Kihara taught you all of this stuff.”

Tsubame's lip twitched into a wry smile. “He was far too trusting in the strength of his bond with the Bright Swallow.”

“So we're inside the facility now, but where do we go from here?” Soleil asked. “This place is huge, like a small underground city.”

I dug my phone out of my pocket and pulled up the map Ceres gave us. GPS wasn't going to help us underground and during a snowstorm, but we knew where we were. I tapped the screen and left a marker at our point of entry.

“We're here,” I told Soleil, holding the phone where she could see it. “The 'sealed area' Ceres is so worried about is in the center of the facility, about two hundred fifty meters below us. I'd bet a bottle of Amber's favorite whiskey that's where our man is.”

Misaki looked dubious. “You think he'll be that direct?”

“Why not? The specters have the defenders bottled up. Yeah, Blondie and the security people have one hell of a fortified position, but as long as they have to defend that position, they'll be stuck and the enemy can move freely.”

Soleil turned the Bright Swallow's hilt over in her hands. “Doesn't Elias want to kill Nergal? Isn't that his objective here?”

“Elias wants to stop him from entering the Astral Terminus, sure, but after what Ceres told us, I'm almost positive the sealed entity is his actual goal. Getting to kill Blondie is just an added bonus.”

“I agree.” Misaki matched my pace as we started to descend the metal-mesh stairs. “By obtaining it for himself he both increases his own power and denies Nergal the necessary means to enter the Terminus.”

“What do we do, then?”

I glanced over my shoulder at Soleil and grinned. “I think I have an idea about that.”

“Care to share it with us?”

“You heard how Ceres talked about the thing.” I let my left hand slide down the railing as I took the steps at a cautious pace. The work-shaft catwalk seemed designed more for cost-savings than safety and the steps were rather steep. “She was very careful not to call it a specter.”

“If it's not a specter, what is it?”

Misaki's ears twitched toward the young girl. “It's likely an astral spirit free of miasmic corruption.”

“My thoughts exactly.” I kept my right hand at my side, free to draw and fire the automatic at my hip in the event of an attack. “I have no idea what AEGIS did to piss it off enough to warrant sealing it away, but I suspect it had something to do with those Houses cooperating with the agency.”

“Karin, you're not seriously thinking of releasing it, are you?”

I regarded my wife with a pensive look. “If we can convince it or help it to cross the boundary back to its origin, neither Elias nor Blondie can get their grubby hands on it and both sides lose their motivation to continue this battle.” I shrugged at the incredulous stares leveled at me. “Of course, I doubt Elias will stop fighting even if the entity retreats beyond his grasp.”

Soleil stared at me. “But Ceres said—”

“That if it got free it could cause untold devastation or whatever. Yeah, I'm aware, but I think it's worth the risk. The fact that AEGIS had to seal the thing away tells me that it isn't bound to anyone. Tsubame, Misaki and I all know ways to reverse a summoning, so I don't think it's too farfetched to try and send it back home.”

Misaki's ears twitched, but she said nothing. Tsubame looked intrigued but worried, likely due to Soleil's emotions bleeding through the Bright Swallow. Obviously all three of them weren't exactly thrilled with the idea of letting the thing out.

“This isn't the same kind of spirit we're used to dealing with,” Misaki argued. Her ears flicked slightly, signifying incredulity rather than any more negative emotion. “How do we even know a reversal invocation will work?”

I shrugged. “I don't see any reason why it shouldn't. The spirit isn't under the influence of a binding invocation; there's no one who can contest the reversal.”

“Karin.”

Damn it, I really hated it when Misaki took that tone.

“I'm against this, too,” Tsubame added, her tone a touch colder than usual. “We don't have enough information to make an informed decision. Perhaps we should learn more before solidifying our plans?”

I wasn't quite yet willing to back down. “The prospect scares me, too, but I can't see a better option. If we fail, one or the other will absorb the spirit's energy and become incredibly powerful. If we succeed but maintain the status quo, we just put the problem off until the next power-hungry asshole gets the same bright idea.”

Both sets of bright, gem-colored eyes fixed me with identical withering stares. I made a frustrated noise and threw my hands up in the air in surrender. “Fine, have it your way. We'll try to learn more about the situation and the sealed entity itself before committing to any single course of action.”

I stepped off the narrow, steep staircase and was more than a little glad to feel the firm, unyielding concrete floor beneath my feet. We were deep inside the facility now, somewhere on the fifth sub-level.

“Look, I don't trust the agency to hold up their end of the deal.” My expression went hard and I turned around. We stood several meters above the “ground” on a series of catwalks, overlooking a massive artificial cavern lined with prefabricated buildings and modular structures. The place really was just like a small underground city.

“None of us do,” my wife agreed. “Let's just focus on rescuing our family and stopping Elias and his army. We can worry about the sealed spirit and the agency's misbehavior after the Ashleys are all safe and sound.”

falling dark

After nearly an hour of traversing the underground facility without encountering a single living being, we finally ran into resistance.

Misaki tapped me on the shoulder and pointed toward a series of catwalks suspended five meters above us and about two hundred south of our position. It was dark up there, but I could just make out their movement.

“I see them,” I muttered under my breath. “A little surprised it took us this long to run into the opposition.”

“The bulk of Luna's forces have been engaged in battle with Ceres and her people.” The wind spirit silently made her way up to where Misaki and I stood. Soleil fell back into a set of favorable shadows and nearly vanished completely. The girl's ability to hide herself from view was remarkable.

“Do we still have no communications?”

Tsubame nodded. “The local comm network has been physically cut off at the hubs. I suspect Elias ordered his troops to ensure Nergal's forces cannot contact anyone or reestablish any sort of control over the facility's systems.”

“Fortunately that doesn't stop sendings,” Misaki added.

“Yeah, but it's not like Tsubame can just keep in constant contact with Ceres.” I grimaced and let my voice drop even lower. “What do you think we've got here? Order Magicians and Luna agents?”

“No.” Misaki shook her head and her tail lashed around violently. “The astral signatures are familiar. I'd say we've just run into a group of former House summoners.”

“They are Kihara. I can sense them.”

“Not just Kihara, but Tsukimura survivors, too—and they've all been placed under the mental domination magic.” My wife's green eyes seemed to burn with ancient hatred. “It doesn't feel all that strong, though. It seems Elias didn't need to alter much of their minds to turn them into useful tools.”

I snorted. “Not a surprise.”

“How many of them are there?”

“Doesn't look like more than six,” I replied. “Any ideas?”

“The comm systems being down hurts them as much as it does us. We need to hit them hard and fast before they know we're here and can alert their master.” The hate and anger in Misaki's eyes flared even brighter. “If Elias finds out we're here…”

My irises shifted and darkened, becoming a deep blood-red. The instant Elias figured out we were here, he'd use our family to force us to surrender to him—unless, of course, he already knew and we were walking right into a trap.

“Yeah. I know.”

“I'll circle around behind,” Soleil offered. “The three of you should rush them, try to overwhelm them. After the initial attack, Tsubame will break off and hide, wait until they're too busy fighting you and Misaki to defend against her attacks from above. Any that try to escape, I'll cut them down before they escape.”

“That seems like our best bet. We have to keep them fully occupied until they fall or one might get a sending off.” I glanced at Tsubame; the wind spirit was already dropping into a crouch, preparing to take to the air. “Hit them with something flashy and attention-grabbing, then fade out and let us handle it.”

“Understood.”

The Relic fragment began to pulse with heat, the wellspring of astral might within seeming to bubble up and seethe. The Relic's essence strained at the edges of my control, wanting nothing more than to release its energies into the world. The power felt almost like a living thing—twisting and writhing beneath my mental grasp, but its will and purpose mirrored my own and would always be in accord with my wishes.

It pulled at my waking consciousness. The Relic was a part of me and would not disobey my commands any more than my arm or leg, but my limbs never attempted to share a purpose with my being. I heard it—or rather, felt it in my mind. It was almost like a voice, but not quite. They were indecipherable murmurs, just barely discernible on the edge of my consciousness—

And then I felt a presence.

It was sleeping. I could tell that it was asleep, but even unconscious, the presence was staggering to behold. I glimpsed the vast, ancient expanse of an astral pattern larger and more complex than I ever believed possible. The innumerable lines of force were woven together in a dizzying fractal lattice that stretched out seemingly into infinity.

My regular human perceptions were insufficient to accept any more than the most basic notion of what slept beneath this facility. An unaided, unprepared mind, regardless of whether it was that of a spirit or a human, would have been completely unable to even perceive the sleeping entity at all.

“Karin?”

I blinked, pulled back into my external reality by Misaki's voice. She gazed at me with no small amount of concern.

“Are you okay?”

“Y-yeah, I'm fine,” I manged. It was abundantly clear that she had no idea what I'd just experienced. “Let's talk about this later. We've got to get rid of these assholes before they notice us.”

“You sure you're okay?”

“No, but that doesn't change what we have to do.” I glanced up at Tsubame and gave her the signal to go, then turned back to my wife. “Five seconds after she's overhead and then blast them with both barrels.”

Misaki grinned fiercely and dropped into a fighting crouch. I unlimbered my rifle and sighted through the scope. The computer-assisted targeting tagged each of the five visible human figures on the catwalk. I was certain they had their barriers raised, but a volley of MQ rounds would soften things up.

Tsubame was in position. Her wings unfurled with scarcely a whisper of the faintest breeze and she shot up into the air. The blue-white flash overhead was the signal. I counted down the seconds: five, four, three, two… one.

“Now!”

The roar of Misaki's spell-flame was nearly deafening, but I ignored it as best I could and lined up my first shot. My finger squeezed the trigger, sending a high-powered MQ round slamming into the closest summoner's barrier. The rifle bucked hard in my hands, but I fully expected the strong recoil; the MQ rounds were heavyweights, high-caliber slugs that had been hot-loaded for maximum velocity.

I smiled in satisfaction as the air around the astonished summoner seemed to shatter like glass and dissipate into nothingness a split-second before a jet of incredibly hot blue plasma vaporized her entire body.

At exactly the same moment, a torrent of blue-glowing mana-shaped feathers rained from the sky, striking at the enemy mages and bottling them in even more tightly. To their credit, they quickly forged a potent defensive shield and struck back with magic of their own. Crackling bolts of lightning and jets of orange-red flame poured down on us from the catwalk, but Misaki was already casting.

Golden light sprang from her fingertips and enveloped us in a nigh-impenetrable bubble of force. The enemy's barrage of magic slammed against the edge of the dome of protection, splattering against the barrier and sheering off like raindrops.

A second hail of spells flashed out from behind a stacked set of metal crates, once again stopping well short as Misaki's shield kept us safe from harm. I flicked the fire-select switch on my weapon, setting it to full-auto fire, and dismissed the long-range targeting scope. The crates were likely heavy enough to withstand small-arms fire and provide decent cover, but I had a way to flush them out.

My eyes hardened and I invoked astral might with a thought. Countless silvery shards of light and magic coalesced above the stack of shipping crates, slashing down behind the enemy's cover. Sections of metal were carved away by the storm of blades and six human figures darted out from behind the boxes.

I let the spell continue to rain deadly shards as I sighted down my rifle's iron sights and held down the trigger. The muzzle immediately started to climb, but I wrestled it back down and loosed a long burst of deadly projectiles. Barriers blazed and failed; screams of pain pierced the still air as more and more shots struck flesh.

“They're scattering,” Misaki warned. She loosed a brief jet of orange-red flames; overcharging her fire took a lot of excess energy, after all. “And I can feel miasma distorting the astral flow. A lot of it.”

“Conjuring up some allies, I see.” With two groups of skilled mages battling it out, the ambient mana was being consumed at a rapid rate. We had to end this as quickly as possible. An area of depletion would drastically reduce our power and tilt the playing field in favor of the enemy.

I slung the rifle back over my shoulder, no longer willing to use ammunition when I could still cast. The Relic fragment's warmth seemed less intense and I had to strain a bit harder to draw on the astral flow, but I found what I was looking for. Power surged through the smooth fragment imbedded in my flesh and filled my body with killing potential.

I caught one of the summoners in the midst of bringing forth some manner of dark spirit or other and loosed a beam of searing white. My aim was true; the disintegrating shaft of light blasted through his barrier and struck him squarely in the midsection. His entire body was suffused with a white glow as his constituent particles were unbound.

We'd killed at least five of the enemy summoners and yet there were at least twelve still hiding amidst the darkened service tunnels. This cavern-like chamber was an ideal place for an ambush, with stacks of crates and sealed containers breaking up the space. Stout pillars held up the sub-levels above, lending our enemies even more cover.

Enormous quantities of miasma pulled across the boundary and coalesced into manifestations of pure evil. I could see them now—these specters were of a type I'd never seen before. The darkness that burned coldly at their cores emitted waves of oily-slick, soul-freezing chill that even Tsubame's astrally-enhanced fighting dress couldn't quite keep at bay. It would have been more than sufficient to sap away all the strength and vitality from an unprotected person.

The source of that cold aura became visible as it glided forward on a roiling mass of twisting miasma. Exceptionally tall and gaunt, I knew without knowing why that we stood before a true spectral lord, a dark spirit vastly more powerful than any we'd ever faced. Two pallid knights stood alongside the lord, their massive swords held ready to defend their master.

“How the hell did they bring that across the boundary?” Misaki breathed in utter astonishment. “The skull-thing's miasmic core is enormous. The knights, too. Karin, these specters are powerful.”

The battle had ground to a halt as the spectral lord and its knights stopped in the very center of the storage repository. Nine summoners, attired in unmarked gray fatigues, emerged from the shadows and surrounded us. I shivered involuntarily as the spectral lord moved closer and the freezing aura intensified.

I glanced at my wife. “How powerful are we talking about?”

“Enough that the both of us together would be hard-pressed to defeat it by itself. With the knights and the summoners…” She trailed off meaningfully.

“Great. That's just fucking great.”

The spectral lord stopped and settled to the concrete about five meters away. I was barely able to keep my teeth from chattering as I shivered from the preternatural cold. I hoped for Ceres's sake and the sake of her people that there weren't any more specters this strong wandering around the complex.

I felt a pang of concern for Soleil, as she was the most vulnerable of all of us. I couldn't see her, though considering her penchant for disappearing from sight, that didn't surprise or worry me very much. I pushed my awareness out into the astral flow, trying to locate the Bright Swallow or Tsubame, but the lines of force were far too distorted from the presence of the super-specters.

“They got away,” Misaki informed me in a barely-audible voice.

I nodded and suppressed a smile. Tsubame and Soleil had wisely chosen to disappear as the spectral lord and its knights crossed the boundary. Relief washed through me; so long as those two evaded capture, we had an ace up our sleeve.

I turned my attention back to the enemy currently surrounding us. One of the mages stepped forward. Something about her seemed vaguely familiar, though I was certain I'd never met her. Glossy black hair was bound back in a tight, thick braided bun. A cruel smile twisted her delicate, youthful features. The summoner looked rather unremarkable, but the way the astral currents moved around her…

“Tsukimura?” I guessed.

The summoner scowled fiercely. “How did you know?”

I shrugged. “The configuration of your astral pattern was familiar. House Tsukimura never would have taught their ancestral style to anyone outside the organization. I just put two and two together, that's all.”

The woman's smile widened even further. “And you are Karin Ashley, murderer of Lord Isao Tsukimura and destroyer of my House.” Her face contorted into a scowl and she spat at my feet. “I am Akane Tsukimura—or rather, I was, before you destroyed everything I have ever held dear.”

Misaki's tail lashed and she narrowed her eyes at the woman. “Held dear? You're a woman. You were as much a prisoner as I was—whether you knew that or not.”

“A prisoner? Hardly.” Tsukimura laughed bitterly before she turned a fulminating glare back upon me. “When you murdered my husband's father and led AEGIS to our doorstep, you ruined everything. House Tsukimura no longer exists. Because of you, my children will have no name and no House.”

So that was it. This woman was an outsider, likely the daughter of an allied house, who married into the Tsukimura family in order to start a branch family and further extend the organization's grasp. Somehow AEGIS missed her, and possibly others like her, during the purge of House Tsukimura.

“I suppose it wouldn't make any difference if I told you he tried to kill me first?”

Akane snorted. “You stole the Blade of the Nine-Tailed Fox and the spirit that resides within. My Lord was more than justified in chastising you.” She straightened up and glanced meaningfully at the spectral lord. “Now is not the time to speak of such things. You will drop your weapons and surrender, or you will die.”

“You think we can't take a bunch of cowards and a few specters?” I tried to put as much scorn and derision in my voice as I could. “The two of us kicked your 'Lord's' ass, remember? Unless you're admitting he wasn't more powerful than a few dark spirits.”

“I don't think; I know,” Akane said, her cruel smile returning. “This area has been depleted of mana; it will take the astral flow some time to return to its full strength. Here, you and your stolen pet are weak—but I am strong.”

“The depletion hurts you as much as it does us.”

Akane reached out and stroked a metal pauldron on the nearest spectral knight. “It affects these specters not at all. No matter how empty the air is, they will be able to draw all the miasma they require from across the boundary.”

Well, I tried. There was nothing left I could do but either attempt to fight and die, or surrender to her. Neither her nor her minions seemed to notice that Tsubame and Soleil were not with us—a good sign.

“Fine,” I snapped and pulled the rifle sling off, tossing it to the ground. I followed it with the automatic and the two knives I carried. It didn't bother me that much; neither of us really needed weapons to fight with. Not that it mattered. “We've surrendered. Take us to Elias.”

“That was always my intent,” Akane agreed. “You may have stolen my name from me, but my new Lord has gifted me with a purpose far beyond what House Tsukimura could have ever hoped for.”

despair

It took another hour of walking—made more difficult by the painful restriction invocations placed upon us both—before we reached the lowest sub-level of the facility. Specters, summoners and mercenary fighters stood guard at the doors, but Akane Tsukimura passed through without a second glance.

The spectral lord and its knight escort were gone, sent away by our captor once we were safely neutralized. The other summoners, expatriates of houses I didn't recognize, were dismissed to return to the fight against Ceres's forces on the surface and throughout the facility.

The sealed area lived up to its name—we had to pass through four separate security doors, all of them so heavily reinforced and armored that they could have shrugged off a direct missile strike. Once we passed through the final gate, Akane led us into a large circular room.

A massive metal cylinder dominated the center of the chamber. Thick cables and tubes ran across the exterior of the cylinder. Most of them disappeared into the room's high ceiling, but some of the smaller lines fed into monitoring stations and other equipment that I didn't recognize.

The north side of the chamber had been converted into a makeshift prison. Glowing planes of astral energy sprang up from continuous invocations inscribed into the floor. The barrier was translucent; through it I could see the prisoners within.

“Karin,” Misaki urged.

“Yeah, I see them.”

Our family huddled behind the barriers, looking ashen and weary but otherwise in relatively good shape. I thanked the stars for such small comforts—apparently Elias chose not to treat them roughly. My mother sat up, cradling Alicia in her arms as the girl slept. So-yi's arms encircled her wife's shoulders protectively while Nicole held Rowan in her lap. My cousins were also asleep, huddled together and leaning their heads on a rolled-up jacket.

“The other prison,” I muttered. “Is that who I think it is?”

Misaki's ears twitched, her eyes wide. “It definitely looks like her.”

The second set of barriers were much stronger than the ones that held our family. As I studied them, I realized that they were also multi-layered. Behind the planes of force was a crumpled, androgynous figure that I'd recognize anywhere.

Unlike my family, Eirene was not in good shape. Even through the flickering walls of astral energy I could see her tailored suit was no longer immaculate. Tattered and torn and stained with drying blood, the shadowy mage was alive, but just barely.

Akane stopped at the primary console between the central containment apparatus and the prisons. A tall, well-muscled man stood facing the multiple displays, clad in a suit of ancient, lightweight black armor that seemed to visibly radiate with power. Without turning around, he addressed our jailer.

“Thank you, Lady Tsukimura. You may leave us now.”

She bowed and stepped back. “As you wish, my Lord.”

I blinked in astonishment. This person was her new lord? Had I somehow been completely wrong about Luna and Elias, or was there something else going on here that none of us managed to figure out?

“Who the fuck are you?” I demanded.

The armored man turned around. I didn't recognize him at all—in fact, I'd never seen him before. His features were rough-hewn and thick, though he had a sort of heavily masculine rugged attractiveness about him. His dark brown hair was worked into a multitude of braids, accented with beads made from semiprecious stones. He wore his black armor with an ease that suggested extensive training and combat experience. Every single thing about this man screamed “warrior.”

His eyes narrowed as he studied me in silence. Those eyes… they were the same unusual, colorless gray that I'd only seen on one other person. His lips curved upward into a wicked smile as he passed a hand over his face. When it was visible again, the man's features had shifted to those of the kindly, middle-aged visage of the man I knew as Elias, the Archivist of the Order of the Moon. On those features, the man's demonic expression somehow appeared even more sinister.

“You are Elias,” Misaki blurted.

“I am, yet I am not.” The armored man shrugged and the face of Elias vanished, reshaping and melding back into the man's natural features. “The man whose face I have worn for twenty years is dead. The one who slew him stands before you.”

“That's fine and all, but who are you?” My irises swirled and darkened to reddish-black, tinged with violet.

“I am Valendir, the Fifth Pillar of Heaven.”

Beside me, Misaki gasped in surprise, but my expression didn't change, though the hue of my irises darkened even further.

“That explains why your astral pattern feels like Eirene's,” I remarked in a clipped tone. “Though it's considerably less complex and has far fewer lines in total. I take it you're not much of a mage.”

Valendir laughed. “Indeed. Astral manipulation has never been my greatest strength. I have always preferred the weight of a good blade to the inscription of invocations. And my blade is the very best of blades.” He reached down with a massive hand and drew the sword at his waist from its scabbard.

I gazed at the sword for a moment, but in truth I wasn't actually paying much attention to what I saw. The astral pattern of the weapon was far more interesting than its darkly ornate exterior. One more piece of the puzzle clicked into place.

“It's easy to be the best when you have an artifact capable of dominating the will of any potential opponent.” I snorted derisively. “How much skill would you truly have against a master of the sword in an honorable duel, I wonder?”

Valendir's smile disappeared. “A question you will not answer, Lady Ashley—as I recall, your swordsmanship is barely above the wild flailings of a raw apprentice.” He sheathed the black sword and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Enough small talk. I assume you understand why you are here? Why I have retained custody of your loved ones?”

“I assumed you needed my help to stop Nergal from reaching the Astral Terminus.”

“Close, but not quite.” Valendir gestured toward the metal cylinder and the monitoring consoles around it. “It is true that I must prevent Nergal from achieving his goals, but I hardly need your help to accomplish that. I require your assistance with something else entirely.”

I blinked. “So you are after the sealed spirit.”

“Indeed. The being sealed here holds immense power far beyond any other in this world. While I admit it would be rather satisfying to watch the life fade from Nergal's eyes, I must place duty before pleasure.”

Misaki's tail lashed in agitation. “Then why do you need Karin at all? Why bother going to the trouble of taking our family hostage?”

“The entity's essence cannot be materialized as anima while it is sealed away.” Valendir shrugged and turned a positively avaricious glare upon me. “Karin Ashley is the only person alive capable of binding this spirit.”

“Look, my ego appreciates flattery just as much as anyone's, especially when coming from the villain,” I retorted, my voice thick with sarcasm, “but I don't think you realize just how powerful the entity is. That thing in there is so far beyond any of us even now, while it's still asleep and sealed away.”

“Indeed, and that is why I need you.”

“Fine. Humor me: how the fuck am I supposed to control an astral being with enough power to qualify as a minor god?” I threw up my hands in exasperation. “Because I've got nothing.”

Valendir's gaze bored into me. “You have absorbed a portion of the entity's essence. The one who summoned this spirit no longer lives; you and you alone have the ability to bind it.”

“What are you—wait. You mean the liquid anima from Orn Thaal's stone circle? That came from this spirit?” I stared at him, disbelief written all over my face. “That's not even possible. This spirit has been sealed away here for forty years.”

“The circle was of recent construction,” Valendir corrected. “The materialized anima used as a conduction medium was extracted from this spirit, fifty years ago. Your fumbling and clumsy dismantling of the Third Pillar's machinations has inconvenienced us greatly, and now you will pay the price for her audacity.”

Disbelief was written all over my face, but… why would he lie? He didn't need to; he had us right where he wanted us. Valendir knew damn well that I would follow his demands to the letter to protect my family. That he had to resort to such methods seemed to bother him more than a little—I didn't think it was so much a warrior's honor as it was annoyance at having the original plan derailed by my “fumbling.”

Or rather, he was annoyed that Eirene found a tool she could use against them. I was getting really fucking sick of being pushed up and down the game board—by Nergal, by Eirene, by this asshole, by Ceres and the conservative faction within AEGIS. As long as I remained at a disadvantage, there wasn't much I could do about it.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to release some of the internal tension along with my exhalation. Valendir was still regarding me with a mixture of contempt and disdainful expectation. I decided to take a bit of a different tack.

“Okay, fine, let's say you've got me and I have no choice but to aid you. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Mister Fifth Pillar, but I have no idea how to bind a spirit of any kind. I've never trained in the art of summoning magecraft; I only know reversal invocations.”

“That knowledge is a sufficient base to build upon. Lady Tsukimura will instruct you in the necessary invocations.” Valendir turned back toward the console and took a deep breath. When he started to speak again, I knew he wasn't addressing us. “We are finished for now. Take our guests to their temporary quarters.”

A slender figure stepped out from behind one of the consoles and strode over to us both. Clad in dark, lightweight armor and armed with a short sword so heavily imbued that it crackled in the still air, the figure stepped into the light.

“Walk ahead of me,” Meilin snapped. “If you so much as twitch your fingers wrong, I will answer with pain.”

I didn't even need to touch her astral pattern to know she was affected by Valendir's sword. Her voice seemed odd and unfamiliar, as if it wasn't her own, and her movements were somewhat choppy. The domination placed on Meilin seemed to be far more potent than that used to ensure the loyalty of the expatriate summoners. Judging by the lack of these effects, Akane Tsukimura was likely serving of her own free will. Not terribly useful information now, but it might come in handy later.

“Nice to see you again, too, Meilin.”

“Be silent,” the charmed woman snarled. She clenched a fist and I felt my arms drawn up against my body tightly, as if an invisible chain encircled me. The restriction invocation Lady Tsukimura used was apparently left open for more than one of Valendir's servants, but more ominous was the fact that she could control the invocation at all.

I felt a sharp pain in my lower back as Meilin poked me with her sword, jolting me from my private musings. There wasn't time to idly speculate on matters that were relatively trivial in comparison. Meilin was my friend, but freeing her from Valendir's control had to take a back seat to dealing with the larger issue.

“Follow my directions exactly or you will bleed.” Meilin spun the blade around and held it out at the ready. “Now move.”

soleil's chapter

/

umbra

recovery

Crouching over the still-warm body of a female summoner, Soleil checked the woman's pockets and pouches thoroughly. After a moment of searching, she found what she was looking for—a passkey that had allowed her access to most parts of the facility.

“Did you find it?”

Soleil turned to Tsubame and nodded. “Yeah. I got it. It looks like C-level, though, so I don't think we can get to where Karin and Misaki were taken with this card. Ceres said it was the most secure place in the entire facility.”

“Anything else we can use?”

The girl held up a compact automatic. “There's this, plus three fresh magazines. It doesn't look like it's loaded with MQ rounds, though, so I'm not sure how useful it'll be.”

“Take it anyway,” Tsubame insisted.

Soleil pulled the thigh holster off the dead summoner and fastened it around her own leg, tightening the straps to fit her smaller frame. She dropped her right hand to her side and let her palm cradle the pistol's grip.

“Ready to keep going?”

“Yeah. Let's go.”

With the dead woman's automatic, Soleil would have the option of attacking from range now, a fact that offered Tsubame a great deal of comfort. The girl's skill at vanishing into the shadows was impressive but it did not make her invulnerable. It was a tactic best employed during a chaotic battle, while her allies attacked openly and directly.

Now they were only two, and neither were suited for direct confrontation in the same way Misaki, Amber or even Karin were. Avoiding the enemy entirely was their only feasible option, but that was not always possible.

“How are we going to get into the sealed area without access?”

“Can you cast a sending to Ceres?” Soleil looked up at her companion, her dark eyes curious. “She might know override codes that'll let us get inside without alerting the enemy.”

“No, I don't know her well enough to establish a connection.” Tsubame frowned and looked away. “We only spoke a little before the mission.”

“It's not your fault,” Soleil assured her, patting the Relic spirit gently. “We'll just have to figure something else out.”

Soleil broke into a half-jog, half-run and stopped near one of the doors leading into the various rooms inside this section of the facility. There was something unusual about this door. All the others were locked and seemed lifeless, but Soleil felt a tickle against her consciousness…

“Let's go inside here,” she suggested. “The card should open this door.”

The girl didn't bother waiting for Tsubame's reply and tapped the passkey against the auto-lock panel. There was a soft clunk as the locking mechanism disengaged and the indicator LED went from red to green. Drawing her newly-acquired pistol, Soleil tapped the panel again and the door slid open soundlessly.

Tsubame frowned. “It's empty?”

“It's not. Come on.”

Soleil stepped inside, her weapon leading. The room was dark and seemed to be devoid of life or activity, but that tickle touched Soleil's mind again—more insistently, this time. She moved deeper into the room, Tsubame close by her side, and the door slid shut, the auto-lock re-engaging.

“I can hear breathing,” Tsubame murmured as quietly as she could. “There is someone in here.”

“Hey—whoever you are hiding in here, you can come out.” Soleil flicked the safety back on her pistol and shoved it into the holster. “We're not going to hurt you.” She turned toward Tsubame and gestured. “Turn the lights on.”

The wind spirit reached out and tapped the illumination controls. Soft yellow-white light bathed the interior and banished the darkness. There was a sudden gasp from underneath one of the desks arrayed throughout the room.

Soleil circled around the desk and knelt down next to a terrified-looking woman wearing a white lab coat over thick, winter-weight trousers and a cable-knit sweater. Her glasses were in the process of sliding down her nose, but she didn't seem to notice.

“I didn't mean to scare you even more,” Soleil reassured her. “We're here to help take this place back for the good guys. You can come on out from under the desk.”

The woman's fearful expression seemed to diminish somewhat. Soleil gave her a warm, comforting smile and reached a hand out to help the AEGIS researcher to her feet.

“W-who are you?” The woman's eyes widened as she settled on Tsubame, her gaze immediately drawn to the feathers intermingled with the spirit's silver-white hair. “Y-you're an astral entity!”

“My name is Soleil and this is Tsubame. She's a Relic spirit.”

The researcher exerted a visible effort to slow her breathing. “I-I'm Lily Nichols. I'm just a technician. I was assigned to the Containment Area.”

“The Containment Area?” Soleil echoed. “What's that?”

Lily seemed not to hear her. “When my shift ended last night, I left through the gate corridor and went up to B7, to my quarters. The general alarm woke me up and I was s-supposed to evacuate to the shelter. But there were those things everywhere! I couldn't… I couldn't get away.”

“Things? You mean the specters?”

The woman's eyes went wide. “Y-yeah, the c-corrupted astral entities. I thought at first that some of the experimental subjects escaped, but the local comms were down. A-and then I saw the summoners.”

“So you hid?”

“Y-yeah,” Lily murmured. “I didn't think they would care much about me. I-I'm just a tech. I just maintain the observation consoles. I hid inside this room and sealed the door up and turned off the lights. I don't even know how long I've been in here… I think I fell asleep for a while.”

“You're lucky they didn't find you. I sensed your astral pattern—that's how I knew you were in here.” Soleil's eyes narrowed slightly. “It was faint, but I could still feel it. You're a latent mage.”

Astonishment blossomed across Lily's face. “W-what?! But how—”

“That's not important now,” Soleil interrupted. “Also, you never answered my earlier question. What is the Containment Area?”

“I don't know if I can tell you…”

The girl sighed. “We came here with Ceres and the Directorate. Besides, this place is totally overrun with summoners and their specters. Now's not the time for worrying about classified information. Is it the same as the 'sealed area?' The place where AEGIS is keeping the entity Ceres told us about?”

Lily blinked. “Y-yes. That's where I worked. The astral entity we call the Celestial is sealed away inside a special stasis module.”

“So you could get through security with your pass, right?”

“Y-yeah, I mean, I have to in order to go to work.” The woman held up her ID badge for Soleil to see. It was clearly marked with a red “S” in the upper-right corner. “You have to have S-level clearance to get through the gate corridor.”

“I doubt the enemy left those gates unguarded,” Tsubame pointed out. “So even if we do have an S-level passkey, we'll be overwhelmed the moment we try to enter.”

“Y-you want to go in there?!” Lily's panicked voice rose sharply. “B-but we have to get out of here! We have to get to the shelter on B1 in the Security Area—”

“No,” Soleil cut her off. “If you don't stay with us you'll get killed. Tsubame can hide you from the specters, but only if you stay close. We have to get in there, anyway—our friends are captured and we need to free them. Plus, we can't let the enemy get their hands on that spirit.”

Lily paled considerably. “B-but I'm just a technician! I can't fight!”

“You can fight, in your own way,” Tsubame said, placing a cool, comforting hand on the woman's trembling shoulder. “You're a technician and you work in this facility. You know many things that may be able to help us.”

“Like if there's another way inside the Containment Area,” Soleil added. She leaned forward and peered at Lily curiously. “Is there another way inside?”

“T-there's a maintenance access shaft that runs down into the control room for the dedicated fusion reactor,” Lily managed. “You can get into the Containment Area from there with S-level clearance.”

“The reactor powers the stasis field keeping the Celestial asleep?”

“Yes.” The technician's voice became stronger as she went on. “If the power fails, the field doesn't go down immediately—there are backups, but they can't last forever. Even if the stasis field were to collapse, the Celestial wouldn't regain consciousness right away. There wouldn't be much time, though, so the emergency access shaft goes directly to the Containment Area.”

“Where is this access shaft?” Tsubame inquired.

“It's on B8. The Containment Area and dedicated reactor both extend up from B10 and through B9.” Lily took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “We're on B6 now, so it's two floors down. When I left my quarters on B7, there were corrupt astral entities patrolling the corridors.”

Tsubame's expression was grim. “They're probably looking for us, too, so we can count on even more patrols than usual.”

“I don't think the Kihara summoners saw us when they were fighting Karin and Misaki, but it's safer to assume they're actively trying to catch us.” Soleil turned to regard the AEGIS technician. “Do you know how to use a gun?”

Lily recoiled in panic. “I've never even held one in my life!”

“Well, you're going to learn.” Soleil drew her appropriated sidearm and held it out for Lily to see. “This gun is pretty simple to use. The safety catch is this little lever here—you switch it with your thumb. This other button on top of the grip is the magazine release. You press that when you run out of shots; it ejects the empty magazine so you can reload. Watch what I do.”

Soleil hit the magazine release, dropping it into her left hand. She held it out for Lily to see. “This is what holds the bullets. We have three more of these. When you load a new magazine, this is how you make it ready to fire.”

She slid the magazine back up into the gun's grip, locking into place with an audible click. With her left hand she grasped the rear of the slide and pulled it back slowly until it locked open, letting Lily see what was happening through the ejector port.

“See that? When you put a new magazine inside, you hit this button here—that's the slide release—to load the first bullet into the chamber.” Soleil's thumb hit the release and the internal spring forced the slide back into position. “Now it's ready to shoot. When you hold it, keep your finger touching the outside of the trigger guard. Don't ever put your finger on the trigger, except when you want to shoot. And don't point it at anything you don't want to shoot.”

The girl ejected the slide again, then manually removed the unfired cartridge from the chamber and pushed it back into the magazine. She handed a very nervous-looking Lily the unloaded weapon.

“Now you do it.”

“I-I'll try.”

Lily took the gun with only slightly shaky hands as she picked up the magazine and slid it into the grip. Her thumb pressed the slide release and she held the pistol out toward the empty room, index finger resting on the trigger guard.

“There, you got it.”

“I don't know how well I'll remember that if something happens,” Lily admitted.

“I hope nothing happens, but I don't think we'll be that lucky.” Soleil unstrapped the holster from her thigh and readjusted the straps before she secured it to Lily's leg. “Make sure the safety is on and put it in the holster. The long black things are your extra magazines. When you shoot, only shoot one shot at a time. Don't just pull the trigger wildly. If we get attacked by specters, just stand behind Tsubame. Regular bullets can't hurt them, so there's no point in wasting shots.”

“G-got it.”

“Tsubame can create a strong barrier to protect you.”

Lily frowned at her unlikely instructor. “How do you know so much about weapons and fighting? You look so young—how old are you, actually?”

“I just turned fourteen last month,” Soleil replied.

“W-what?!”

“Soleil was taken from her home by House Kihara,” Tsubame explained in a gentle tone. “Like all of the other latent children they took, they trained her to fight and kill, intending to forge her into a weapon.”

“Yeah, that. Now Tsubame and I use what they taught me to help stop the corruption. I may not be good at magic, but I know how to hide and fight. Plus, I have the Bright Swallow.” The girl beamed up at Tsubame and leaned against the tall wind spirit. “Tsubame's like my big sister and my best friend all in one.”

“I can tell,” Lily murmured, managing a small smile despite the situation.

“Are you still feeling scared?”

“Terrified. But… I'll help you get into the Containment Area.” The technician slipped off her white lab coat and let it fall to the ground, unheeded. “This attack is horrible… but it's nothing compared to how bad things could get.”

subterfuge

“With the local comms completely shut down, it means the security cameras don't work, either,” Lily said in a low voice. “So even if the bad guys took over the security offices, they can't see anything that happens unless they restart the network.”

“But the doors still work?”

“They're on an independent backup system. That way if there's a problem with the network, you can still open doors and get to places. Otherwise you'd either get locked in, or you'd have to open all the doors.”

“What about the elevators?”

Lily shook her head. “They cut the power to all the lifts.”

“Which means they're probably guarding or at least patrolling the stairs.” Soleil frowned and peeked out around the corner. It was empty and featureless, save for rows and rows of sliding doors with auto-lock panels. Illumination was provided by light panels hidden in the ceiling. “I don't see anything in this corridor.”

“This is the living quarters for B7,” Lily pointed out. “There's nothing in this area that would interest them, so if there are any enemies here, they'll be the ones looking for us.”

“If we're spotted, we'll have to kill them quickly.”

Lily swallowed hard. “I hope we don't get spotted.”

“Me, too.”

Soleil took the lead, with Lily walking alongside Tsubame, keeping close to the Relic spirit. The girl smiled approvingly as Tsubame reached out and took one of Lily's trembling hands. The woman was certainly made of sterner stuff than she realized, but anyone could lose their head in a situation like this.

“I don't feel any distortions or deflections,” Tsubame murmured. “I don't think there are any specters near us. There is a possibility that the enemy commander chose to send only human agents to capture us, as they would be harder to detect.”

“Probably,” Soleil agreed. “I bet they're sending all the specters to the surface to fight against Ceres's army and keep the survivors trapped in the Security complex.”

Lily gasped. “Base personnel are still fighting?”

“Yeah. Ceres's army is going to try and reinforce them before they focus on destroying all the specters. With no phones or radios, though, I don't know if they were able to rescue any of the workers.”

“Do you know how long it'll take?”

Soleil shook her head. “It could take a long time. You know better than we do how big this place is, and there are at least six hundred specters in the enemy's forces. We don't know how many people they have, but even if they didn't have many…”

“It's still six hundred corrupted astral entities,” Lily finished for her. “I guess you and your friends were trying to find the enemy commander, right?”

“Yeah. We think they're already in the Containment Area.”

“How do you know that?”

Soleil glanced back at the woman and shrugged. “I don't know for sure, but we ran into an ambush earlier. Tsubame and I got away, but they took Karin and Misaki prisoner. I think they need her to take control of the entity.”

“Take control of it?” Lily echoed. Her expression was bewildered. “The reason we have the Celestial sealed in the first place is because nobody can take control of it. Otherwise, AEGIS would have neutralized it decades ago.”

“I don't know. I just know that the enemy kidnapped Karin's family… and Alicia.” Soleil's voice cracked slightly as she spoke the name. She let her breath out slowly and continued down the empty hallway. “It's obvious they want to do something terrible.”

“Shh!” Tsubame hissed. “There's a patrol coming around the corridor up ahead.”

“We're close to a large common area and cafe,” Lily explained. “It's a wide-open space with high ceilings. There's not going to be anywhere to hide if we go in there.”

“We're not going to hide.”

Lily blanched at that, but she said nothing and followed Soleil. The girl clenched her right hand and manifested the Bright Swallow. Gleaming silvery-white, the long dagger was almost a short sword when wielded by someone of Soleil's petite stature.

“W-what about cover?” Lily gasped.

“Tsubame can protect us with a barrier. It'll absorb a lot more damage than a wall or corner or crate would.”

The double doors leading to the common area opened soundlessly as the unlikely trio came closer. This time, Soleil darted through the opening without warning. Lily's eyes grew wide and round as saucers, but Tsubame squeezed her shoulder reassuringly.

“She won't be detected. Stay with me. I can't bring my full battle capabilities to bear inside an enclosed room underground, so I'll be focusing on defense.” The wind spirit gazed at Lily with incredibly blue eyes. “No matter how chaotic or frightening it becomes, resist the urge to flee. If you get too far away from me, you will die.”

Lily swallowed hard. “I'll stick with you.”

“Draw your weapon and release the safety,” Tsubame ordered. “But don't fire until I call for it.”

Tsubame strode purposefully across the dimly-lit room. The common area was rectangular in shape, with two long walls and two much shorter ones. The wind spirit, with Lily in tow, walked toward one of the shorter walls and stopped.

“Here. They're coming.”

Closing her eyes, Tsubame's right hand came up and inscribed a runic phrase in blue-white radiance. It was a new spell, one she'd learned fairly recently from Misaki—a modified version of the fire spirit's golden shield of force.

The laminate-paneled floor beneath her feet glowed with a sympathetic shimmer as ambient mana drew itself through the Relic and into Tsubame. Lily gasped in wonderment as a faintly-visible corona of pale blue expanded from beneath the Relic spirit's feet. The dome rapidly increased in size, covering an area roughly five meters in diameter.

“No matter what, do not step outside the shield,” Tsubame stressed. “I can hear them; they know their attempt at an ambush failed. They're going to switch tactics.”

One of the doors on the opposite side of the common area opened. A dark shape was hurled through the gap, clattering to the ground a few meters away. The canister hissed sharply and released thick plumes of white gas.

“Don't be alarmed.”

Lily stared, entranced, as Tsubame held a hand out and pointed, lazily, in the direction of the still-open door. The still currents of air began to swirl and spin, faster and faster, gathering up the chemical agent and holding it within a narrow column of wind.

“That was not a wise decision.”

Tsubame's left hand thrust outward and the roiling column of gas was struck by a wave of compressed air so powerful that it sent tables and chairs flying through the common area. The furniture crashed to the laminate floor, but Tsubame merely smirked at her handiwork.

“They're going to come into the room now. Be ready.”

Lily's hand trembled as she lifted her twice-borrowed pistol. Just as Tsubame had predicted, four figures carefully made their way into the common area. Sending the patrol's knockout gas right back at them was an open challenge. To protect themselves from their own weapons, they all wore respirator masks.

Tsubame placed a cool hand on Lily's shoulder.

“Don't be afraid.”

The world exploded into a terrible storm of fire and lightning.

stained red

Lily screamed and ducked instinctively, covering her head with her arms, but after a moment realized that she was both still alive and felt absolutely no pain. Shaking, she peeked out from underneath her arms and saw Tsubame, her legs planted solidly in a defensive stance.

“My barrier shields us!” Tsubame cried over the roar of the jets of flame and bolts of lightning that exploded violently as it struck the shield. Lily flinched again as she heard the more mundane—but still terrifying—sound of automatic weapons fire.

Dusky purple flashes struck the dome and Lily shrieked in terror. She may have been just a technician, but she knew exactly what those odd bursts of light meant. The barrier's glow seemed to flicker and dim even after only a few direct hits.

“They're using MQ rounds!”

Tsubame nodded grimly. “I know. I'm reinforcing the barrier.”

“It should be gone after that,” Lily gasped, the AEGIS tech's professional curiosity momentarily overwhelming her panic. “How in the world are you keeping the lines of force from tangling?!”

“I can feel them fraying, but it's not so bad I can't hold it. I guess Luna was never able to perfect the process.” Tsubame gritted her teeth from the exertion of both mind and body as she struggled to prevent the shield's energies from unraveling. “We can discuss the particulars later—when people aren't trying to kill us!”

A jet of flame splashed against the dome and both could feel the heat seeping through the weakened portions of the barrier. Tsubame shunted even more mana into the shielding invocation; the dome flared brightly and seemed to thicken.

Lily flinched as a gurgling scream of agony out-competed the cacophony of massed battle spells. She felt her heart leap into her throat as Soleil appeared out from behind a pile of tangled furniture. Blood dripped from the Bright Swallow's blade. The technician stared at the blood as it dripped onto the floor.

“That's one down,” Tsubame observed with satisfaction. “I'm going to cast a barrier break on the closest one. Be ready to fire.”

The Relic spirit traced a series of four symbols and extended her left hand. A slender line of grayish-green light struck the nearest mage, suffusing the man with a faintly shimmering corona. His face contorted in shock and horror as he attempted to back away, knowing full well that his defenses were stripped away.

“Fire!”

Lily lifted her weapon and pulled the trigger. The gun bucked in her hands but she managed to maintain her grip. Untrained and unskilled, the slug ended up burying itself in the man's shoulder—not a lethal hit.

“Again!” Tsubame barked.

Lily dropped the sights on the bleeding mage and fired again. This time, likely more by chance than anything else, her shot struck him in the throat and tore it apart. Gargling horribly, the summoner fell to his knees, clutching his ruined neck as a crimson fountain erupted from between his fingers.

Averting her eyes from the awful sight of the dying man, Lily steeled herself for more blood and violence. There was nothing else she could do if she wanted to survive. She was afraid, but no longer panicking. Pulses of breath and blood thundered in her ears as Lily rode the adrenaline rush with terrified exhilaration.

“Two remain!” Tsubame barked out.

“I did it—I can do this,” Lily breathed, more to herself than Tsubame. The blasts of fire and lightning were gone. She could hear heavy footsteps from the left—

“Die, heretic!”

Lily screamed and was knocked from her feet with such force that the breath had been blown out of her. Tsubame took an evasive step back as one of the enemies walked right through the shield, his hand grasping a long fighting knife. He pushed past Lily and slashed out at the wind spirit, catching her across the forearm.

Tsubame hissed in pain. Blood poured from the deep gash, but she had suffered far worse injuries at Lord Kihara's whims. Enduring a mere knife wound was nothing. The larger issue was that she couldn't fight while continually rebuilding the barrier. Lily was out of the fight for the time being—she was curled up around her midsection, wheezing as she attempted to breathe with what was probably a broken rib or two.

The knife whistled as it slashed out, but this time Tsubame managed to avoid it. It was all she could do until either the rifle wielder ran out of ammunition or Soleil was able to take them out.

Two more MQ rounds splashed against the barrier. Tsubame felt weariness start to creep up on her as she shunted more mana into the spell, reinforcing the barrier and smoothing out the lines of force. She lashed out with a booted foot, but the knife-wielder sidestepped and slashed a long red line into her thigh.

Hurry, Soleil. I can't keep this up for much longer.

“You're tiring,” the knife-wielder taunted. “How much longer can you last? How many more lunges can you dodge?” He laughed cruelly and held his knife aloft so that Tsubame could see the bright blood dripping from the edge. “I'm going to make you bleed even more, heretic.”

Again his blade swept outward. Tsubame back-stepped half a meter, acutely aware that if she stood outside the barrier, the rifle-wielder would have a clear shot at her. From the corner of her eye, she could see Lily struggling to get up, but her gun had been knocked from her grasp and slid across the floor to rest against an overturned table, two meters outside the shield.

“Get away from her!” Lily's arms wrapped around the knife-wielder's legs, desperately trying to slow his advance. The mage grunted in annoyance, tearing his foot free to deliver a solid kick to her head. Her grip slackened and she slumped back to the ground, unconscious.

Lily's failed attempt to grapple bought Tsubame a few seconds, but it had already been too long. The strain of repeatedly reinforcing her shield against MQ rounds was too much; she had no strength left to strike at the knife-wielder.

“Tsubame, drop the barrier!”

Galvanized into action by Soleil's command, the Relic spirit instantly complied and released her hold on the defensive shield. The blue shimmer faded and a feral grin formed on Tsubame's face as Soleil leaped out from behind a table. The rifle-wielder was dead at her feet; Soleil brought the powerful weapon up and took aim.

The mage's eyes widened in shock and horror as Soleil's three-shot burst tore through his body. Blood and dark smoke spewed from the fatal wounds as the MQ rounds mangled the mage's astral pattern. The bolstering energies that lent him heightened strength and speed turned against their caster, searing muscle and sinew from the inside-out.

“That's all of them.”

Soleil slung the assault rifle over her shoulder and walked to the body of the enemy she'd taken it from. The dead woman stared sightlessly off into the void, the front of her gray fatigues soaked in dark blood.

“Lily's unconscious,” Tsubame said.

“Can you heal her?”

“I think so. Maintaining the shield used up almost all of my strength… but I think I can at least wake her up and get her walking again.”

“Good. We can't stay here for much longer or more of them will find us.” Soleil opened one of the larger pockets on the dead woman's trousers and slid out two curved magazines. Both were full and loaded with MQ rounds. “These might come in handy later.”

“Luna's MQ rounds are not very potent,” Tsubame reminded her.

“I know. If they were as good as the ones AEGIS makes, you never could have kept the shield from collapsing.” She ejected the nearly-spent magazine from the rifle and slid a fresh one into place. The other went into a hollow storage area inside the weapon's shoulder stock.

Tsubame knelt down next to Lily's body and placed a hand on her forehead while her free hand traced a very complex series of runic symbols in the air. Soleil watched nervously; healing was one of the most difficult things to do for a mage. It was so easy to make a mistake and destroy tissue rather than rebuilding it.

Blue light pulsed from the Relic spirit's hand into the injured technician's body. The woman stirred, weakly at first, but after a tense moment, a pair of pale green eyes fluttered open. Tsubame smiled and brushed Lily's disheveled blonde hair from her face.

“Ugh… what happened? My head is killing me…”

“You tried to grab the knife-wielder's legs and he kicked you in the head. His strength and endurance were enhanced by an invocation of iron body.”

Lily groaned and struggled to sit up. “No wonder I feel like I was run over by a truck. You healed me?”

“Yes. Can you walk?”

“I… I think so. Let me try.” The technician took Tsubame's offered hand and shakily got to her feet. She winced in pain, but neither fell nor seemed particularly unsteady. “Yeah, I think I'll be okay.”

Soleil extended the dropped automatic pistol to Lily, grip first. “Here. You'll need this again before we're done.”

“R-right.” Lily grimaced and gingerly accepted the weapon. She took a moment to engage the safety before sliding it back into the holster.

“How much further until we reach the emergency shaft?”

“Most of the other techs live here,” Lily explained. “It's close to the main maintenance floor on B8. Makes for a really short commute. We're not very far away from where we need to be.”

equanimity

“Well, here it is.”

The three companions stood in a small niche on the B8 maintenance floor. Shielded from casual view and situated well away from the main corridors, Soleil figured they were well enough hidden for the moment.

That won't last, though.

“Can you get it open?”

Lily frowned at the small sealed hatch. “You said the attackers hadn't taken control of the Security Area yet, right?”

“That's what Ceres told us,” Soleil replied. “She thinks Nergal took command of the base's security force and evacuated as many non-combat personnel as they could. Those who can fight have been defending the area.”

“If they haven't taken the Security Area, then they couldn't have possibly locked down the shaft. I should be able to open it.” The technician walked around to a terminal mounted in the wall and entered in a series of commands. The system beeped twice; Lily slid her ID badge into the card reader.

“Well?”

“It's unlocked.” Lily knelt down to grasp the magnetic seal levers around the circumference of the hatch and pulled hard. The latching pins retracted with a loud metallic click and the hatch swung open. “There we go. The ladder goes all the way down to the reactor control room on B10.”

Lily swung her foot down and placed it upon the first of the rungs, but Soleil held a hand up to stop her.

“Wait. Let Tsubame check to make sure we're not walking into a trap.”

“Oh. Right. Good idea.”

The Relic spirit leaned over the shaft, her eyes closed as she let her consciousness spread out into the astral flow. If there were any specters in the reactor control room, she should have been able to sense them.

Tsubame opened her eyes and shook her head. “I can't feel any distortions. There are no specters down there. I can't sense any human mages, either, but they may be concealing their presence.”

“I doubt there's anyone down there at all,” Lily stated. The technician peered down the shaft and shrugged. “This shaft hasn't even been used since the reactor was constructed forty years ago.”

“We'll go down expecting trouble, just to be on the safe side.” Soleil placed a foot on the ladder and started to descend. “Lily, follow me. Tsubame will go last. Is there another sealed hatch at the bottom of the shaft?”

“There is, but the shaft also opens up at the bottom. I should be able to squeeze past you to verify my ID.”

“Fine. Come on down.”

Soleil could have taken the rungs more rapidly, but Lily wasn't exactly in her physical prime. Not wishing to be separated from the rest of the group, Soleil slowed her own descent. Tsubame came in last, closing the hatch behind them.

Even at such a slow pace, it didn't take Soleil or Lily long to reach the bottom. At the end of the ladder, the tube opened up into a small room about two meters wide. A reinforced door was set in the wall directly across from the ladder, paired with another small terminal and card reader.

Lily walked over to the door and woke the system from standby. She tapped out another string of commands onto the keyboard and once again inserted her badge into the card slot. The terminal chimed and the red light on the door's auto-lock turned green.

“Got it.”

“Don't open it yet. Wait for Tsubame.”

“What's taking her so long?”

Soleil shrugged. “She's warding the hatch. It probably won't stop our pursuers, but it'll slow them down if they have to dispel Tsubame's wards.”

Lily looked stricken. “B-but how will we get out if things go wrong?!”

“If things go wrong, getting out will be the least of our worries. Besides, it's not like it's permanently welded shut. If we really need to get out that way, Tsubame can dispel her own wards.”

A moment later, Tsubame stepped off the ladder and joined Soleil and Lily. “Misaki could have done a better job of it, but I don't think they'll be able to enter the shaft without spending a lot of time on it.”

“Good enough.” Soleil turned to Lily and gestured at the door. “Open it, but let us go in first. If there are guards in the control room, we have to take them out before they can raise an alarm.”

“Okay.”

The technician tapped the door panel and it slid open. Soleil motioned for her to step back as she manifested the Bright Swallow. In the cramped confines of the control room, the Relic's short blade would give her the advantage over enemies with guns or larger weapons.

Soleil peeked out through the open doorway. The control room was rather small, perhaps only sixty square meters or so, and lit well enough that it would be difficult for any prospective ambushers to hide. She let her eyes roam the interior, searching for any sign of movement, but the room appeared completely empty.

“It looks clear. Stay alert.”

The reactor control room was deserted. Three monitoring consoles stood quiescent, all of their multitude of sensors reporting normal statuses. Soleil had no idea what all the different readings meant, nor did she care; the reactor was incidental to their goals. The monitoring consoles themselves, though…

“Lily, is there any way to see what's going on in the Containment Area from here?”

The technician's expression was thoughtful. “Maybe. The cameras in there are separate from the regular security network and I might be able to do a maintenance override to get the feeds in here.”

“Why are they separate from the security network?” Soleil asked.

“A fail-safe in case something goes wrong with the stasis pod. Security can access the stream, of course, but the monitoring cameras aren't really intended for detecting intruders.” Lily pulled one of the chairs out from underneath a terminal and started tapping commands into the keyboard. “Okay, it looks like I should be able to do an override and get S-level access to the Containment Area's monitoring systems. It's not going to be all that useful, though. All the cameras are pointed at the pod.”

“But they're some distance away from it,” Tsubame reasoned.

“Yeah. Well, let me pull them up and you can see for yourself.” Lily pushed her badge into the terminal's card slot and was rewarded with a chime and a new window appearing on the display. “Okay, the override worked. Give me just a minute and I'll have the feeds for you… ah, here we are.”

Six new windows appeared on the display, each showing the viewpoint of one of the six cameras inside the Containment Area. All six were aimed directly at the stasis capsule, but the lenses had a reasonably wide field of view. Soleil studied the high-resolution video streams for a long moment before she tapped one of the windows.

“Are you seeing what I'm seeing?”

“Barrier planes,” Tsubame agreed. “Forming small, confined areas. But if those are actually prisons, why would the enemy keep their hostages in such a place? Why not simply lock them in an office and post guards at the door?”

Soleil's eyes narrowed dangerously. “Psychological impact. So Karin can't refuse to do whatever he wants her to do with her family right there, within easy reach.”

“The Containment Area looks heavily guarded.” Tsubame pointed to the second camera feed. “You can see them at the base of the stasis pod, there—six people. I don't see or feel any specters.”

“Me neither. It feels kind of… strange, too. I'm not really sure, but it's weird.” Soleil gave a slight shrug and turned her attention back to Lily. “You can unlock the door that leads to the Containment Area, right?”

Lily bit her lip and stared at the images. “Yeah. Do you want me to do that now?”

“No, we're not going in there now. Karin isn't in there. They probably took her somewhere else while they prepare to shut the system down.”

“I told you, the cameras don't cover everything. Unless this Karin walks into their field of vision, how will you even know when she's in there?” The AEGIS tech threw up her hands in exasperation. “How do you even know she isn't in there right now?”

“I can't sense Karin in there, so she's not in there,” Soleil insisted. “She's been taken captive by the enemy and has no reason to hide herself. So we have to wait until she does show up.”

Lily stared at the girl. “What? Why?”

“Tsubame's going to contact her with a sending invocation. If she can distract the bad guys long enough, we'll have time to slip out and rescue the prisoners. Without them, Elias doesn't have a way to force Karin to do what he wants. So she'll be able to fight him and put a stop to this for good.”

Tsubame sat down in the chair next to Lily's. “We have no choice but to wait. None of us will make it out of here alive if we try to free them now.”

“What should I do?” Lily asked.

“You should stay in here.” Tsubame's tone was tone gentle and soothing. “Once Karin and Misaki are brought back into the Containment Area, we'll have to strike quickly and quietly. Once we've taken them away from the enemy, we'll need your help to find the best way out of here and back to Ceres's airship.”

“Sure. I can do that.” The woman's voice cracked only slightly. “No problem.”

karin's chapter

/

rift

contact

I sat down in the makeshift “quarters” that Valendir had so kindly prepared for us. In reality, it was just a storage closet. Misaki sat on the floor next to me. I think he expected us to rest—Akane mentioned as much—but cold metal deck plating wasn't the most comfortable of beds.

It probably would have helped to get some rest. The hours of trudging through the massive underground facility would have been tiring on their own, without all the fighting and astral channeling piled on top. I knew we should take a bit of a breather while we had the chance, but my mind was a gigantic mass of stress, anxiety and fear.

The color of my eyes were such a deep shade of dark purple-red that they almost appeared black. It was bad enough that the Pillars of Heaven spent the past twenty years subtly manipulating Luna to their own ends. It was bad enough that Valendir took my family hostage and was now using them to force me to bind an astral being so powerful it almost hurt to think about it. It was bad enough that Eirene got her ass handed to her by her former comrade and probably couldn't help us.

All of that was bad enough, but right now the worst of it was the damn binding invocation that Akane Tsukimura had attempted to teach to me. She was nasty, impatient, contemptuous and generally just an awful bitch. I felt sorry for her kids.

“I don't know if I can cast this binding,” I muttered aloud.

“You were able to reproduce the symbols properly.” Misaki's tail curled around and sat upon her lap. She ran her fingers through the fluffy golden fur. “That Tsukimura is a terrible teacher, but I know you can do it, love. You won't fail.”

I grimaced. “Thanks, but I'd just as soon not be encouraged. The last thing I want to do is help Elias—Valendir, rather—get his hands on that much power. Who knows what he'll even do with it?”

“Nothing good,” Misaki said, leaning her head against my shoulder.

“I hope Tsubame and Soleil haven't been captured.”

“I don't think they have.”

My expression became dubious. “Even if they haven't been, it's not like there's much they can really do to save our asses—”

Karin!

I blinked and broke off suddenly. Tsubame's voice in my head wasn't my overloaded mind playing tricks on me—I could feel the lines of force linking my astral pattern together with hers. I allowed the connection to strengthen so that I could reply.

Tsubame! What's going on?

There was a brief pause. We're fine. We've managed to evade capture thus far. One of the facility's technical staff helped us find an alternate way into the Containment Area. You aren't in there, are you?

No, I replied through the link. Listen—Elias isn't really Elias. He's actually Valendir, the Fifth Pillar of Heaven. He's been secretly subverting Luna for the past twenty years.

Shock rippled through the psychic link. What?!

Yeah, my reaction exactly, I agreed. Valendir wants to release the spirit inside the stasis pod and have me bind it so that he can take its power. That's why he's got my family—I'm the only person who can do it, apparently.

Tsubame's response came a moment later. We have a plan, but we can't do anything until you're in the Containment Area. You have to create a diversion, do something to turn their eyes away from the prisoners so we can free them.

You've got a way to get them out?

One of the Containment Area technicians, a woman called Lily Nichols, has been helping us navigate the facility, Tsubame answered. She should be able to help us evacuate the prisoners and rendezvous with Ceres's forces on the surface.

All right. I took a deep, steadying breath and let it out slowly. Misaki was staring at me, but I ignored her for the time being. We'll figure something out, don't worry. Can you dispel the barrier planes?

Easily, so long as we're not being attacked.

The swirling reddish-black of my irises lightened somewhat. Good. We'll make sure Valendir and his cronies have eyes only for us. As soon as all hell breaks loose, get in there and pull them out.

We'll be ready, Tsubame assured me.

And with that, the contact was broken.

“Was that Tsubame?” Misaki asked.

“Yeah. I have no idea how the fuck they managed it, but they're in position to rescue our family.” I closed my eyes and leaned back against the cold metal wall. “We need to create a diversion, keep the enemy focused on us long enough for Tsubame to dispel the barrier planes and get them out of there.”

My wife's ears twitched thoughtfully. “We can't attack them openly. That would only prompt Valendir to make use of his leverage. It needs to be something else, something that doesn't appear to originate from us.”

“Right. Got any ideas?”

Misaki's expression became pensive. “Actually, I do.”

I listened attentively while she outlined her plan. Once she was finished, I stared at her with devious admiration. Simple, brutal, dangerous—my smile shrank as I realized how eager Amber would have been to participate in such an absurd stunt. That wound was open and bleeding and things were just too chaotic for me to tend it properly.

“You think you can do that in that short a period? Valendir's going to get suspicious if I spend too long drawing the binding circle. We can probably only expect to get one or two extra minutes before he starts the torture.”

“I can do it,” Misaki assured me. “I just need to be on that side. By the time Valendir's people get everything under control, it'll be too late. I'm more worried about you, though. I know the Relic fragment has changed you a lot, but your body is still… somewhat fragile.”

“Hey, it was your idea.” I crossed my arms over my chest and sighed. “I can't go in there with defensive invocations active if we want to pull this off. I'll just have to hope I can bring one up fast enough after the fact.”

Misaki's ears drooped. “Yeah, I know…”

“We should try to get some rest. We're going to need all the energy we can possibly muster, and then some.”

My wife nestled in closer against me as I stretched out on the ground. The metal deck plating wasn't comfortable at all, but with Misaki next to me, it didn't really matter much. I smiled and let myself sink into the gentle warmth that radiated from her body, a few degrees higher than the human average.

“This isn't exactly ideal,” she pointed out.

“I don't care.” I put my arm behind her and held her close. “I'd sleep on a bed of nails if it meant getting Misaki snuggles.”

Misaki giggled. “Fortunately, that won't be required.”

retaliation

I woke sometime later—I wasn't sure exactly how long I'd been asleep, but I doubted it was much more than two hours. Misaki was still asleep, her head resting against my chest, the tip of her tail twitching every so often. I didn't want to wake her, but I was certain we were about to have visitors.

“Wake up, love,” I whispered into the nearest fox-like ear.

“Mm.”

“Valendir's cronies are going to bring us to the sealed area soon.” I attempted to rise into a sitting position, but Misaki let out a dismayed whine and clung more tightly to me. “Come on, get up. We have to be ready when they come back and take us.”

“No,” she insisted. “Mine.”

I sighed in exasperation and, after some effort, managed to sit up on the floor with Misaki still on my lap. Her ears flattened forward and she visibly pouted, but finally got off of me and stood—then stiffened, the fur of her tail standing starkly on end.

“They're outside.”

I nodded and got to my feet just as the auto-lock's red indicator switched to green. The door slid open, revealing Akane Tsukimura and four other people I didn't recognize, all wearing Luna's standard gray uniforms. The summoner's expression twisted into a sneer of hatred as her eyes fell upon me. She lifted a large, wicked-looking pistol that I recognized as a very old “broomhandle” design that fired rifle rounds.

“Come on out, one at a time.” The Tsukimura summoner jabbed her weapon in my direction. “Slowly. Resist at all and you know what will happen.”

“Fine.”

I walked out first and stopped near Akane's escorts. All four of them were armed with assault rifles; two of them were currently aimed at me. Considering this was me and Misaki they were dealing with, I figured their weapons were all loaded with MQ rounds.

It didn't matter that much, though. With luck, Misaki's plan would take most of Valendir's minions out of the fight before it even began. Tsukimura would probably make it, as would the Order Magicians, but both Misaki and I had an ace or two up our sleeves.

Our “quarters” were on B10, not far from the sealed-away spirit, kept in the huge circular chamber that Tsubame called the Containment Area. We kept pace with Akane as she led us back to Valendir and the entity. The four rifle-wielders marched behind us, their weapons poised and ready to fire.

It only took a few minutes before we were back at the gate corridor leading into the Containment Area. Only the exterior gate was guarded by specters, a pair of ghostly knights like those Akane summoned before taking us prisoner. The three subsequent gates had human sentries—as before, no specters were inside large circular chamber.

The sealed entity—I could feel it again. The awesome scale and scope of the imprisoned entity's astral pattern was bewildering to contemplate, so I made a point to keep my mind to myself. Even without actively concentrating, the sheer power contained within that stasis pod made the air seem heavy and oppressive.

It was likely that the aura of the sealed entity was keeping specters from entering the Containment Area. There weren't many other explanations, though considering the potency of the spirit's presence, I expected its influence to stretch considerably farther.

I frowned as Akane Tsukimura led us across the circle and toward the monitoring consoles where Valendir now stood. He still wore the same black, miasma-infused armor as before. The richly-decorated dark hilt of his mind-controlling sword gleamed bloodily with garnets and rubies in the brightly-lit chamber. Once again, the Fifth Pillar didn't bother to turn around before addressing us.

“Lady Tsukimura, you and your subordinates are dismissed.” His order was precise and delivered with the conviction of a seasoned military commander. “Rendezvous with Unit Seven in the Security Area sub-levels and take command. I want the Director taken alive. He is still of some use to me.”

Akane bowed deeply. “As you wish, my Lord.”

“Do not fail me, Lady Tsukimura.”

My lips twitched faintly as the Tsukimura summoner's step faltered for the barest of moments. Then she was gone, leaving through the same gate corridor we'd just passed through.

“So Blondie's still out there fighting,” I observed with more than a hint of smugness in my tone. “I'm impressed. Even after we trashed Orn Thaal's demon-maker together, I never thought he had the moxie for a fight like this.”

“To be fair, he is the type who avoids revealing his true capabilities unless he has no choice,” Misaki opined.

Valendir turned and crossed his huge arms over his equally-massive chest. “It matters not at all. There is no hope for the Director and his allies. A mighty army of the Hells has been enslaved to serve the cause of righteousness. Pitiful Nergal may hold the Security Area for a day, perhaps two at the most.”

The fur on Misaki's tail rippled. “Aren't you forgetting something? Like maybe the force that's up there taking your 'mighty army' apart? Your hold on this place isn't anywhere remotely as secure as you think it is.”

“Irrelevant,” the Fifth Pillar insisted. “The extreme secrecy by which this facility operates only strengthens my position. AEGIS will receive no further reinforcements. If they fail to regain control, the agency's leadership will have no other options but to enact cleanup protocols and purge the entire facility.”

I groaned aloud, my features twisted into a grimace. I knew Valendir wasn't lying, despite being unable to read his sense hidden within a thick fog of miasma—his expression radiated absolute confidence. But… what the fuck? Was the government really that stupid? Did they honestly believe simply nuking the place would erase the problem?

“I see from your reaction that you understand.” Valendir gestured toward the stasis pod in the center of the room, only about four meters from where we stood. “It was not long after we asserted control of this place that my warriors discovered the system. It is a truly brilliant design, I must admit.”

Misaki's ears twitched dubiously. “Why didn't you try to disarm it?”

“Fear makes men commit foolish acts and make poor decisions. The purge isn't designed to destroy the Celestial, but to erase the evidence.” His heavy brow angled downward in a contemptuous scowl. “The fools have no idea what they have imprisoned here. No sword of Man, no matter how mighty, can spill the angel's silver blood, and they are bigger fools for fearing political scandal more than power.”

I had a strong suspicion that the only people who did have a true understanding of the astral entity's power were all in this room. Even Ceres, who was privy to all the data AEGIS had on the spirit, had no meaningful understanding. The Pillars had suffused their essence with miasma over a thousand years ago and were definitively the most powerful living magi on Earth—it was no surprise Valendir understood.

The anima that I'd absorbed was once taken from this being. I could feel the spirit's mind and astral pattern so strongly because I had a piece of it within myself. The anima had integrated so completely that I was a piece of the spirit. A small twinkle taken from a blazing star, perhaps, but the connection existed nonetheless, even if I couldn't fully comprehend it. I wondered if Misaki sensed it in a similar way.

Something about the whole situation was still bugging me, though.

“You claim that I'm the only one who can bind this spirit. If that's true, how the fuck did Nergal expect to make use of this thing? I don't really see the Celestial just sitting there calmly while he corrupts it and starts fattening it up for the slaughter.”

Valendir shrugged. “He intended to inject the stasis pod with doses of concentrated miasma over an extended period of time. It would have taken months, but he had no other choice. In its current form, the angel is nearly invulnerable. If it were to be transformed into a devil, however… it would be vulnerable to the power of a Relic.”

I didn't respond to that. It made sense given what Blondie himself had boasted the last time we spoke. Back then, Eirene forced him to reveal his plans, though I knew then and wasn't surprised now that he'd only given a very vague overview of his intentions. It was just like Misaki said; Nergal wasn't the type to reveal anything that could possibly give his enemies—or his allies—any sort of advantage.

“It is irrelevant. My forces have kept Nergal and his warriors trapped within the Security Area. Lady Tsukimura will lead the final charge to crush them and bring Nergal to me.” Valendir turned and strode toward a large workbench that had been brought into the Containment Area from the maintenance floor. “Come. The time for words is over. Now it is the time for action.”

I turned to glance at Misaki and our eyes met. Her left ear flicked three times in a row, silently letting me know she was ready. It'd be even easier now that Valendir ordered Akane Tsukimura and her escorts out of the Containment Area—there were only eight guards in the room now.

I committed their locations to memory. Two stood guard near the barriers holding my family and Eirene hostage. The other six were situated throughout the room, with two flanking the door leading to the gate corridor. Four others were positioned on the catwalks above us. All of them were armed with rifles and none were mages, which made sense considering that I'd be sucking most of the ambient mana out of the room to inscribe the binding circle.

It didn't matter, though. The guards would be incapacitated immediately. The variables had been Valendir and Akane Tsukimura, plus her minions. With the Tsukimura summoner gone, we really only had the Fifth Pillar to worry about.

Perfect.

“Begin the binding invocation,” Valendir commanded.

I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, closing my eyes, focusing my awareness on the innumerable lines of force that made up my astral pattern. The lines shifted, extended outward and linked together with Misaki's pattern. The mana flowed into her and through the connection to me, freeing up more of my concentration to focus on the invocations themselves.

I'd never bothered to learn any binding invocations before this one and I still wasn't entirely sure I had it memorized well enough. Even with Misaki handling the whole mana-drawing process, it was a very difficult casting. Slowly, painstakingly, I traced a wide circle of white-glowing astral energy in the air before me.

Into that circle I inscribed a second, smaller circle. A multitude of argent runes slowly started to appear within the space between the two circles. Lines of blazing silver extended across the diameter of the inner circle, forming a complex geometric pattern of lines.

A master summoner could have done this in a minute or two on their own, but I was the greenest of novices. Waves of weariness washed over me as Misaki shunted more and more mana through the link. Using that formless, infinitely transmutable substance that was somewhere between intangible matter and energy, I constructed an invisible prison that would hold the sealed entity and bind it to this world.

The Celestial didn't fight me at all, which was a very good thing. If it did, I never would have been able to get this far without being struck dead on the spot. The anima that was integrated into my body and the Relic fragment seemed to work like a master key, prompting the spirit to lower its defenses entirely.

With my eyes closed I couldn't physically “see” the binding diagram, but I could still visualize the connections as they firmly anchored the sleeping spirit to this world. The invocation was finished; I opened my eyes and glanced at my wife. Misaki seemed rather unsteady from the exertion of moving so much mana, but the determined light in her eyes told me she was ready.

“It's done.”

“Excellent.” The Fifth Pillar's lips split into a wide grin as he reached down and retrieved a long object from beneath the workbench. “I have prepared the vessel that shall partake of the angel's silver blood. The rite of transcendence begins now.”

My eyes widened in astonished recognition as Valendir unwrapped the bundle and withdrew the Shattered Sword. A hot hurt burned in my heart at the sight; it was bad enough that someone other than Amber held the Relic. That it was in the clutches of this evil piece of shit was almost too much to bear.

The Fifth Pillar of Heaven reverently set the damaged Relic down upon the metal workbench and took a long step backward.

“Begin the shutdown procedure,” the Fifth Pillar barked at the two technicians at the monitoring console. “The spirit is bound and cannot harm us, nor can it resist any spells worked upon it.”

“Yes, my Lord,” the techs answered in unison. The unnatural calm that radiated from the two men was a telltale sign they'd been dominated—I felt the same sensation from Meilin when we were first brought to the Containment Area.

Misaki and I expected at least one mind-controlled technician to be present in the chamber, which meant we were going to kill at least one innocent person. It wasn't their fault that Valendir had turned them into docile tools. I tried to shove the growing feelings of guilt aside. It was either them or my family and the countless others that would follow. Not really a choice at all, but that didn't stop me from feeling shitty about it.

Taking a deep breath, I nodded to Misaki.

devastation

Misaki's spell-flame blazed into existence around her right hand, instantly becoming blue-hot. Without even the slightest bit of hesitation, she loosed a roaring jet of searing plasma at the largest of the coolant lines running from tanks lining the walls, along the ceiling and into the stasis pod from above.

A huge plume of white vapor burst into the air. In the space of a few heartbeats, the entire chamber was obscured by thick, roiling clouds of toxic gases. Misaki shifted her aim, focusing her spell-flame on the metal vent covers, melting them shut and ensuring the emergency systems couldn't draw the fumes out of the Containment Area.

Still holding my breath, I leaped backward and etched a series of runes into the air in front of me. The white sigils flashed with power just as the hot tightness in my chest really started to hurt.

I gasped in a deep breath, ignoring the sickly-sweet chemical stench. Thankfully the invocation worked and I didn't immediately fall into a coughing fit. Breathing was a little more difficult than normal as the vaporized coolant displaced oxygen, but I didn't expect to have to deal with the gas for long before Valendir got rid of it.

Shouts and coughs from the catwalks above were abruptly cut off as the four sentries lost consciousness. I couldn't see the Fifth Pillar through the gas, but I could sense his astral pattern.

“What do you expect to gain from this display of willfulness?” I heard the rasp of metal against metal as Valendir drew his own blade. Flashes of purple-white diffused through the obscuring gas cloud, both letting me know where he was and that he was also wielding the Shattered Sword. “You have only succeeded in murdering innocents and exacting torment upon your family. Perhaps I will have you choose which of your loved ones will suffer first.”

I ignored him and rushed through the opaque shroud of toxic coolant gases, skirting the ruptured pipe by a wide margin. I was currently immune to poisons, sure, but that wouldn't help me if I walked into so much gas that there wasn't any oxygen left for me to breathe. A flash of blue-white from the northern end of the chamber spurred me to move faster.

Valendir's heavy metal greaves helped me keep track of him—the big man's armored boots clanged loudly off the metal floor. He should have been able to find me easily enough, but the Celestial's nearness was likely affecting his ability to discern where my astral pattern began and the entity's ended.

A brilliant pulse of astral energy flared only about four meters from me an instant before the opaque clouds of gas were blown away. Violent winds spun and twisted around an area of clear air—with Tsubame in the center, creating an artificial cyclone that kept the poisonous vapors away from my family.

“I've got them, Karin!” Tsubame shouted over the howling of the winds.

“Get them out of here, now!” A bolt of miasma shot through the gas, slamming into my barrier without breaching it. The sheer kinetic impact of the attack still had me reeling and I stumbled back. Rowan's terrified cries were almost totally drowned out by the sound of my own heart thudding wildly in my chest.

I could see my sister through the miniature maelstrom, pumping her fist into the air triumphantly. “Fight hard, Karin, Misaki! You can beat him!”

“Kick his ass, dear!” Mama roared out, smiling despite the numerous scabbed-over cuts and bruises on her face. “Make him sorry he ever fucked with the Ashley family!”

Valendir growled angrily and extended the Shattered Sword, loosing an enormous purple-violet bolt of lightning that struck Tsubame's barrier with little effect. I grinned and rushed back into the dense white fog. Knowing she wouldn't be able to fight or even avoid attack while maintaining a shield of hurricane-force winds, the Relic spirit obviously made sure to strengthen her defenses as much as possible.

“We're inside!” Soleil's voice rose above the cacophony. “Seal it behind us!”

I focused on the general area where I thought Valendir was and invoked astral power, blanketing the area in a storm of silvery-white shards of light. The Fifth Pillar growled, more in annoyance than true pain, as at least some of the mana-forged blades struck him. I wasn't trying to hurt him, just keep him pinned down for a few seconds.

The sound of the conjured projectiles striking the metal deck almost drowned out the loud, metallic clang of the emergency access hatch closing. I released the storm of blades and held my palm out. A thin line of silvery-white disintegrating energy scythed through the thinning clouds of gas.

“Misaki, now!”

She didn't bother wasting the time it'd take to answer. Spell-flame burned orange-red and twin jets of flame roared as she flash-heated the steel emergency hatch, permanently welding it shut.

I broke into a half-jog, half-run and caught up with Misaki as the toxic clouds were beginning to dissipate even more rapidly. Apparently Valendir managed to get the gate corridor open from the monitoring station—

“Shit!”

I gritted my teeth as a withering barrage of fire and lightning slammed into my barrier a split-second before Valendir appeared right next to me, both swords whirling in a brutal series of slashes. I gasped and tried to back-step into a dodge, but Valendir let his blades lead and closed the gap effortlessly. That deadly tempest of steel closed in—

And stopped short, deflected violently by a very familiar shimmering golden aura.

Spheres of explosive spell-flame streaked past me and slammed into Valendir's chest, each of the projectiles detonating with the force of a small grenade. Misaki charged in right behind the fireballs, baring her small fangs as twin jets of searing blue plasma engulfed his head.

But there were no screams of pain; Valendir calmly stepped back and raised the Shattered Sword, blocking the spell-flame with the flat of the blade. Harsh, mocking laughter rang out over the whooping alarms and my eyes widened, their color darkening to black-tinged violet, as the astral flames contorted and were turned aside by the Relic's innate defensive power.

“Misaki, stop!”

The jets of searing blue plasma were abruptly cut off. I glanced at my wife, standing only about a meter to my right, and then back to Valendir. He lowered the Shattered Sword and leveled the tip of his own blade at Misaki.

“Good,” Valendir purred. Wisps of smoke rose from his blackened armor. “You believe you have outmaneuvered me, Lady Ashley, but I assure you—this has been but a minor irritation.”

“Minor irritation, huh?” A mocking smile spread over my features, the red hue of my irises lending the expression a sinister weight. “You just lost your leverage. Why the fuck would I back down now?”

The Fifth Pillar's brow angled sharply in a deep scowl. “I do not have time for your insolence, heretic. Obey my commands and cease your useless struggles, else I will destroy your precious 'Misaki' and use the Relic to absorb her power.”

“Try it and see what happens,” Misaki snarled.

The air was clear at this point, but I held the neutralizing invocation. Just because I couldn't see the gases didn't mean they weren't still present. The sound of booted feet striking deck plating reached my ears; I didn't even need to turn to look. Valendir's reinforcements had arrived.

“Yield to me, Lady Ashley,” Valendir commanded. “Cooperate and I give you my word that I will not harm your consort or your family.”

I snorted in derision. “I'll take my chances.”

“My warriors will find them and kill them—unless I order them to stand down.”

“You really don't know when to quit, do you?” I shook my head in amazement—then stiffened suddenly. I attempted to suppress any outward reaction as I caught sight of an odd shimmery movement behind him. The color of my eyes remained a dark ruby shade; apparently my rage directed at Valendir was stronger than any of my other emotions at the moment.

“No matter what you choose to believe, I have the advantage, Lady Ashley,” the Fifth Pillar said. “Your precious 'liberation force' is locked in a brutal struggle with my spectral army. It will inevitably end poorly for Ceres and her warriors. Accept the inevitable—and yield to me.”

Eight gray-uniformed fighters rushed to Valendir's side. Each and every one of them leveled their rifles loaded with MQ rounds. The Containment Area had been so depleted of mana that I could barely sense the deflections caused by the tiny crystals of malformed quintessence.

One of the fighters stepped forward and removed her helmet. I showed no outward reaction to seeing Meilin here once again—I knew this was just another dirty trick Valendir would use to impose his will.

“Yield to Lord Valendir's authority, Karin. In a short while, he will become the sovereign ruler of this world and all that exists within it. Pledge yourself to his service and you will reap rewards beyond your wildest dreams! Resist, and you doom yourself and your family to an eternity of torment.”

I was even less surprised when he extended the Shattered Sword toward Meilin, the tip of the damaged Relic mere millimeters from the hollow of her exposed throat. This was the only game he could think to play, apparently. He couldn't threaten my life—he needed me alive and healthy enough to hold the entity. Valendir may have been a skilled warrior, his martial capabilities boosted to superhuman levels through miasma infusion, but he was not particularly smart.

When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. A cliché old proverb, sure, but it fit the Fifth Pillar perfectly. He lived and breathed violence… and that was all he knew.

Meilin's expression was one of complete adoration as she stood beside the Fifth Pillar without the slightest hint of fear. She wouldn't even fight him so long as she was under his mental domination. I knew he could simply order her to maim herself, torture herself, and she would comply eagerly.

“Complete the binding invocation or she dies.” The blade of Amber's Relic sparked and hissed, reflecting the ancient hatred of its current wielder. “How strong is your conviction, Lady Ashley? Strong enough to watch as your friend is slaughtered like swine?”

I glared at him, but the fire was rapidly fading from my eyes. The choice was obvious, really. There was no way I could save Meilin's life and allow Valendir to extract anima from the sealed entity and infuse it into the Shattered Sword.

I took a deep breath and slowly let it out, mentally preparing myself. I had to resist, even if it killed Meilin. Even if it tore my heart in two. My eyes glimmered with unshed tears, the hue of the irises settling to a still, dismal blue-gray.

“I can't let the world be enslaved beneath the thumb of an astral god.” I extended one hand and woke the essence of the Relic bonded to my spirit. A brilliant argent flame enveloped my right hand. Valendir might have been able to deflect Misaki's spell-flame with the Shattered Sword, but he was well aware that my power would destroy it.

“I'm sorry.”

The beam of disintegrating power struck Valendir's outstretched right hand, the hand that wielded the Shattered Sword. Where that line of pure astral annihilation touched, black miasma-infused armor was vaporized—as well as the corrupted flesh beneath.

Valendir screamed in unearthly, inhuman agony. The Shattered Sword clattered to the deck as he stepped back. Silver fire clung to his obliterated limb and began to creep upward, slowly consuming the substance of his being. It would continue to eat away at him, releasing more and more miasma, further weakening him as the rate of disintegration increased exponentially.

The wounded Pillar understood his doom and acted without hesitation. His left hand, still wielding his own sword, slashed downward with brutal efficiency. Streams of miasma spewed from the severed limb. I watched in morbid fascination as the slowly-disintegrating hand and wrist fell away, dispersing into a burst of white sparks.

Valendir hissed in wordless rage, but the pain of his self-inflicted wound no longer contorted his face. With my powers no longer consuming him, his arm would regenerate within a few minutes.

“You have forced me to take my own sword arm. I will exact my price.” He turned, glancing at Meilin, who hadn't even moved. “Sever your right hand.”

Meilin drew her own sword in her left hand and extended her right, angling the astrally-forged blade so that the edge rested against her wrist. I desperately ran through my repertoire of invocations, trying as hard as I could to find something that would incapacitate her—

That strange distortion of light behind Valendir flashed with negative radiance. An abrupt burst of astral power flashed outward and resolved into the familiar form of a tall and slender androgynous woman.

“No.”

A tendril of inky shadow exploded from the ground and whipped around Meilin's sword arm, encircling the length of the weapon's blade and holding it fast. Two more burst from beneath the dominated woman's feet, binding her tightly enough to prevent her from hurting herself. Cries of astonishment and dismay erupted from the remaining seven rifle-wielders as a forest of shadow bindings tore away their weapons and held them fast.

Eirene stood between Valendir and Meilin. At the moment she didn't cut the most imposing figure. Next to the enormous Fifth Pillar, the former Second Pillar seemed almost petite despite her height. Eirene's favorite masculine-style suit was badly mangled and stained with blood, her lengthening black hair a disheveled mess. But her gray eyes burned with far more life and fire than Valendir's.

“Traitorous whore,” he snarled. “You dare stand against me again? Have you forgotten how badly you were beaten? Even with but one hand, I alone am still much more than a match for you!” A cruel grin spread across his face. “And I am not alone.”

Eirene let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “We are all traitors, Valendir. The Pillars of Heaven betrayed those we were sworn to defend. But you are the greater traitor, even to this distorted mockery of the order I once gave my life to.”

“Liar,” Valendir accused.

“I speak only the truth that you have made apparent.” Eirene's lip twitched into the faintest ironic smile. “Orn Thaal's failure to complete the destruction of the Relics created an opportunity that you gleefully seized upon. You desired the Bright Swallow, but I kept it from your grasp. Now you attempt to repair this broken piece with silver blood. There is only one reason you would do this.”

Valendir's scowl deepened even further, but he said nothing.

“I know the truth of Valendir, the Fifth Pillar. You claim to fight as a faithful disciple of the Father, the strong right arm of the First, but I know the truth.” The shadowy mage turned toward me, her expression as grim as I'd ever seen it. “You suspected his true motives, did you not?”

I nodded slowly. “I figured it out when I realized he brought the Shattered Sword with him. He wants to fuse with a Relic himself and take control of the Astral Terminus, just like Nergal does—but I'm pretty sure he doesn't want to sever the connections.” I glanced at Misaki and then back at Eirene. “He's trying to double-cross his master and seize the power for himself.”

Valendir's lethal glare snapped toward me, boring into me. Then he threw his head back and laughed.

“There is no reason to deny it,” Valendir agreed. He glared harshly at Eirene. “The First Pillar, Aestivar, is insane. He cannot even comprehend that almost ten centuries has passed since you broke with the group. You severed his last leashes on sanity when you repudiated your oaths to the Pillars… and to your husband.”

Eirene only stared at him.

“You're infused, too,” I broke in. The flaw in his logic was obvious. “What makes you think you won't end up like your boss?”

“The corruption is a slow-creeping doom. It will not have a chance to find purchase on my soul.” He smiled smugly and jabbed the tip of his blade at me. “As you already observed when I revealed my identity to you, my astral pattern is simple and inefficient. The corruption will spread even more slowly through me than a master of spectral magic as powerful as Aestivar.”

“If you aren't as powerful as him, how do you expect to reach the Terminus before the miasma can corrupt the Relic's essence?” Misaki's ears twitched suspiciously. She maintained her defensive stance, her hands held up and ready to invoke astral power at the first sign of trouble.

“Because the thing AEGIS sealed here is just that powerful,” I observed, feeling a chill run up my spine as I contemplated the overwhelming presence of the Celestial. “It doesn't even matter that the Shattered Sword doesn't have a guardian spirit any longer. His altered nature should protect him from the same spellshock that almost killed me.”

“Yes,” Eirene confirmed. “But you have lost, Valendir the Doubly Traitorous. I will not allow you to repair the broken piece and I will not permit you to spill the silver blood.”

“I see. Then there is no more need for words.”

Valendir extended his fully-healed right hand—even the armored gauntlets had repaired themselves—and clenched his fist tightly. There was a sound much like that of shattering glass from all around us as Eirene's bindings were destroyed. The seven fighters and Meilin, suddenly free from the inky tentacles, lifted their weapons.

The Fifth Pillar took his blade into his newly-formed sword arm and held the blade aloft as he roared out with brutal, deadly bloodlust.

“KILL THEM! KILL THEM ALL!”

red fangs

A shimmering barrier of golden light materialized an instant before seven assault rifles opened up with a withering barrage of MQ rounds. Despite the fact that they were far less potent than the original, I could tell Misaki wouldn't be able to hold the barrier up against that many of them for very long.

Eirene was fighting, too, but I could tell she was definitely not operating at peak efficiency. The wounds inflicted upon her by Valendir were starting to show; her invocations were no longer thought-quick and seemed sluggish, strangely insubstantial.

Valendir charged at the shield and exploded into a dizzying routine of slashes, thrusts and sundering chops that had my wife so far on the defensive that she couldn't even bring her spell-flame to bear. Her hands burned with golden light as she struggled to shunt more mana into the barrier, but the area was badly depleted.

I could barely feel the magic—it was more like a guttering ember than the usual blazing heart of a star—and I knew that under this kind of assault neither of us would last very long. I dashed across the metal deck plating and folded up as I tumbled forward, managing a clumsy roll beyond the barrier's influence. I reached out and grasped the hilt of the Shattered Sword, the only weapon near to hand.

And then nearly dropped it again as the Relic's unbound wild power sent bright bursts of pain shooting through me. I set myself, gritting my teeth, as I stood up, keeping my grip on the damaged Relic, but the chaotic energies only increased.

Belatedly, I brought to mind all of the happy memories I had with Amber. All the times we went out drinking together. When we worked up a sweat sparring together after she insisted on teaching me the art of the sword. I filled my mind with these images, hoping to trigger some recognition within the Relic itself.

Call it a shot in the dark, but I figured at least some of her would have diffused into the Relic's essence.

The furious roiling of power, seeking to reject me as its wielder, began to subside rapidly until it cut away completely. The Shattered Sword had no sentience of its own since the long-ago death of the spirit that once inhabited the blade, but it recognized its wielder in my memories.

“Give the Relic to me,” Valendir demanded.

“No.”

The Fifth Pillar released a flash of black light from his free hand. I felt dizzy and weak as the miasmic blast slammed into me—a familiar sensation that brought with it memories. The first specter I'd ever faced struck me with an identical but much weaker attack which, according to Misaki, had almost killed me.

This time, though, I wasn't nearly as vulnerable.

The Shattered Sword blazed with purple-violet fire as I spun it in a flourish and slashed out at Valendir. The master swordsman laughed and easily deflected the blow, his own sword proving more than powerful enough to clash with the Relic.

“You can't possibly hope to beat me in a battle of blades,” he taunted me. “I refuse to waste my time upon a weakling such as yourself.”

I raised an eyebrow and disengaged, stepping back and holding Amber's sword at the ready. “I'm not exactly giving you a choice in the matter.”

“Ah, but we each have our own opponents.”

I noticed the subtle shift in Valendir's expression almost a second too late. Meilin rushed at me, her sword slashing out in a disemboweling cut that would have spilled my guts all over the deck plating. Somehow I managed to get the Shattered Sword up and parry the blow, but my hands ached and throbbed from the force of the deflected strike. Back-stepping by about a meter, I quickly took stock of the battlefield around me.

Misaki had dropped her wide shield and replaced it with a smaller forward barrier that would be considerably easier for her to maintain. Eirene, severely weakened by the abrupt shattering of her shadow bindings, deflected blow after blow from two of the Luna fighters who switched their rifles for primitive-looking Emulated Relics.

The former Second Pillar wasn't defenseless, though. She forged a dark blade with her shadow magic, but was so tied up with the two she fought now that I knew she would fall if Valendir reached her—

“Eirene!”

The ancient mage turned toward Valendir as he dashed forward, his sword sweeping through the air with an audible whistle. She leaped back and managed to block the strike, but she was outmatched and she knew it.

Meilin's vacant expression of adoration never faltered as her sword worked me relentlessly, prodding and poking and seeking an opening that I had to admit would appear sooner than later. I was bone-weary and Meilin, dominated as she was, fought with a skill and zeal borrowed from her puppetmaster.

It was at that moment that a bolt of inky darkness shot out from Eirene's hand and struck Valendir's sword.

The space around me was instantly filled with an invisible ripple of an immensely powerful astral manifestation destabilizing. I gaped in amazement as Meilin's vicious slash faltered and she blinked, staring at me in utter horror for half a second before falling unconscious to the ground.

“What the fuck just happened?”

“The mental domination was broken!” Misaki shouted, her tail trailing behind her as she rushed to my side. Blue spell-flame wreathed her hands and the two of us charged to Eirene's aid.

Valendir's face was a mask of wrath. He growled and cursed with pure hatred as he brought up his sword and slashed out at Eirene. She raised her shadow blade to execute a riposte, but the Fifth Pillar's raw physical strength was just too much. The blow blasted Eirene's astral weapon aside and sliced a deep, bloody furrow across her torso.

“K-Karin,” Eirene choked out as she fell to her knees. “End it.”

Red blood, not miasma, poured from the terrible wound. She had relinquished her darkness when she renounced the title of Second Pillar of Heaven—and the powers it conferred. Still, it wasn't a fatal wound, especially not for a mage as powerful as she was—but Valendir seemed intent on rectifying that issue.

“I should torture you to death for destroying Mindfang, but alas, I don't have the time to indulge myself.” The dark sword was drawn back over Valendir's left shoulder. “So I'm just going to take your head.”

I heaved the Shattered Sword around as I leaped between the two of them. His blade scythed downward, altering direction in mid-strike, but it wasn't sufficient to slip past my guard. I braced myself for the inevitable bruising impact—but it never came.

The Relic's chipped edge sheared cleanly through Valendir's sword. The severed top half of the blade spun through the air and shattered into tiny glass-like fragments as it struck the ground.

I stared at the ruined weapon in the Fifth Pillar's hand. Eirene had done the same once before, to Nergal's Relic-powered particle beam rifle after he used it to kill Orn Thaal before she could question him. I had no idea she could do something like that with such a powerful artifact. Considering how desperate she was, she might not have known, either.

That moment of shock almost killed me. Valendir threw the remains of his sword at me and charged, swinging both his mailed fists with enough force to split flesh and pulverize bone. I sidestepped the transmuted sword half and tucked my head down, the Shattered Sword streaking out in a deadly lunging thrust that buried the blade deep within the Fifth Pillar's gut.

Violet-white arcs of astral lightning crawled across the dying man's body. The stench of burning flesh filled my nostrils as the Relic's power incinerated his miasma-tainted flesh from within. Valendir's mouth opened to scream, but no sound emerged. Great plumes of corrupt mist rose from his open mouth.

The Shattered Sword, like all Relics, was designed specifically to destroy miasma in any manifestation or configuration. I gripped the hilt with both hands and yanked the blade free as Valendir fell to his knees. The armor around his midsection where I'd stabbed him was already dissolving away, the flesh beneath so obscured by miasma I couldn't tell if it had also been reduced to dust.

I took a step toward the Fifth Pillar and executed a brutal spinning slash that took his head from his shoulders. Miasma burst from the severed neck in a river of tainted smoke, and I shielded my face from the torrent of corruption.

When the smoke cleared, so to speak, there was no trace of Valendir, the Fifth Pillar of Heaven, also known as Elias, the Archivist of the Order of the Moon. Only a small scattering of miasmic ash remained.

The Shattered Sword fell from my grasp and clattered on the deck. Waves of exhaustion stole what little desire I had to remain standing. I was thankful that the battle was over—I hadn't even realized how little I had left in me. I swayed and nearly fell, but was caught in an unyielding, yet soft and warm, embrace.

“I need a two-year long nap,” I groaned.

Misaki smiled at my quip as she supported me. As much as I wished to do nothing but close my eyes and sleep for the next two years, I knew our work here wasn't yet finished. With Valendir and his mind-controlling sword gone, his human agents would likely be out of the fight.

“Dispel the binding invocation so we can get the hell out of this place,” Misaki implored. “Valendir is gone, his mental domination broken and Ceres's people should be able to deal with whatever specters are left.”

“Can't rest yet, love.” I disentangled myself from her, swaying only a little as purpose replaced some of the strength I'd expended in the fight. I walked slowly over to where the binding circle still glowed silver-white, hanging in the air near the stasis pod. “I have something important to do before we can go.”

crossing over

The binding circle flared brightly as I placed my hand within the open center. Tremendous amounts of astral energy were stored within the binding itself—much of the ambient mana around us had been drawn into it. I wasn't entirely sure this would work, but I figured it was worth a try.

There were too many things that didn't make sense about the entity imprisoned here. I knew nobody else—except for Eirene, perhaps—could actually sense the Celestial's presence in the same way I did. AEGIS had no idea how powerful the spirit here was. Blondie might have had some sort of idea, but he couldn't perceive it as I did.

“AEGIS didn't imprison this spirit,” I said as Misaki walked to stand beside me. “They think they did, but that's not really what happened. This entity is beyond AEGIS, beyond arcane houses, beyond anyone in this world.”

Misaki's tail lashed anxiously. “What does that mean?”

“The Celestial consented to be sealed away.”

I turned and my eyes widened in surprise. Eirene stood behind us. She looked haggard and weary, but the grievous slash that had nearly split her in two was already starting to heal. I didn't actually expect it to have killed her, but this was just ridiculous.

“It… consented?” Misaki echoed. “Why?”

“Yes.” Eirene gazed at the stasis pod absently. “The Celestial could not cross over the boundary so long as some of its essence remained anchored to this world: the silver blood drawn from it by Orn Thaal and Valendir.”

Misaki looked dubious. “That doesn't explain why it let AEGIS lock it up.”

“It did not wish to cause harm, but it cannot remain conscious in this realm and do otherwise. The Celestial does not understand it.” Eirene pointed to the binding circle, still burning fiercely as I completed the casting. “For a time, the Celestial sought the missing piece of itself, but it cannot interact with this world without causing destruction. It attracted the attention of many, but AEGIS offered a temporary solution.”

“The entity consented to be placed in stasis, keeping it unconscious and asleep where it couldn't inadvertently destroy anything simply by existing.” I frowned and turned to regard the stasis pod. In the still near-silence of the Containment Area, it was quiescent and seemed harmless. “If it was a temporary solution, I'm guessing the agency was supposed to be trying to figure out a way to send it back across the boundary.”

“They were the wardens. It was House Eridian who constructed the wards that pledged to recover the silver blood.” Eirene's expression filled with sadness. “Who were utterly annihilated by House Tsukimura, only four years after the Celestial was sealed away. The House was purged and all of its lore lost.”

“And without them, the agency had no idea what to do with the thing, so they just, what—intended to keep it sealed forever?” I crossed my arms over my chest and shook my head slowly. “I'm getting really fucking sick of being stuck cleaning up other people's messes.”

“That is why it must remain sealed,” Eirene insisted. “The records of House Eridian's research was lost, taken by agents of Isao Tsukimura. If you release the bindings holding the Celestial quiescent, it may attempt to recover the missing piece of itself. The silver blood has fully merged with the very firmament of your soul. If it is removed, you will die.”

I frowned at that statement. There was just something about it that didn't feel right, exactly. Eirene's words made sense to me, at least as much as they could given my limited understanding of astral manipulation. Leaving the Celestial sealed here would be the pragmatic decision. I mean, if I woke up the sleeping god-thing, I'd be lucky to survive for more than a nanosecond, right? The astral entity would just take the anima I'd absorbed, ripping it from my soul.

Why didn't I believe that, though?

I turned to look at my wife. Misaki's ears flicked nervously and she gazed at me with wide emerald eyes. “Karin… you're not thinking what I think you're thinking… are you?”

For a long moment I didn't answer, instead staring intently at the high-temperature alloy of the stasis pod's external casement. The sleeping being's consciousness was still awesome to behold, but I felt… peaceful, almost. It was difficult to tell where the edges of my astral pattern ended and the Celestial's began.

Absorbing the stolen fragment of this astral entity did more than just grant me the power to bind this spirit—it gave me some measure of rudimentary understanding of the being held here. I had nothing at all to fear from the Celestial. It would be no more dangerous to me than my own thoughts and feelings.

“I don't think—no, I know the Celestial won't harm me,” I said, my voice acquiring a dreamy quality. “Even though the spirit sleeps… it must be so lonely to be sealed away, never knowing if it'll ever be possible to return home. I have to try, at least.”

“No!” Eirene's bone-weary lack of expression vanished in an instant. She stared at me, wide-eyed, and I could sense the fear edging around her carefully-controlled emotional barriers. “You must not sunder the wards.”

“Why?”

Misaki blinked in surprise at my simple question. “Um, Karin, not that I like Eirene or anything, but I think I agree with her on this one. I don't see any compelling reason to let the thing out if you have to die to send it back across the boundary.”

“I won't be dying, love,” I assured her.

“How do you know that?”

“I just know.”

My wife's ears flattened against her head and her tail lashed rapidly. “Karin, don't give me that shit. It's not like we're in a rush or anything here—the stasis pod is still powered, the wards are still active. AEGIS kept the spirit sealed for almost half a century without any problems, after all.”

“Yeah, that's fine and all but you're forgetting one thing—Blondie.” I met Misaki's eyes and saw a different sort of fear there—the fear of losing the one she loved. Memories came rushing into my mind as I recalled a time not too long ago where I felt those very same fears myself.

“But the Directorate has officially condemned Nergal's plans—Ceres promised us that the agency would terminate all efforts to still the astral flow. That was what we demanded in exchange for our help retaking this place!”

“I don't believe she'll be able to keep her promise,” I said, frowning. “It's not that I think Ceres is untrustworthy, but that I don't think she can beat Nergal at his own game. The agency might keep her promise for a little while… but I don't think it'll take very long for Blondie to take control again.”

Misaki grimaced and flattened her ears again. “We could just kill him.”

“Assuming we can find him first,” I retorted, a flare of irritation sharpening my tone a bit more than I intended. “No. We can't take that risk. We already know what he intends to do with the Celestial. If he's successful we're both dead anyway, along with the millions of other people who can touch the astral flow.”

My wife looked unhappy, but she nodded and took a deep breath. “Yes. I know.”

“Besides,” I murmured, my tone becoming soft and dreamy once again, “there's no way I can just let this be. So much loneliness, so much sadness… nobody should have to go through this, human or spirit or whatever. I can't just leave her here.”

Her?

I blinked away a sudden sensation of drowsiness, forcing my mind into a heightened state of alertness. I'd need every single drop of my concentration and focus to make this work without fucking up the process—when it came to summonings and bindings, I was an absolute neophyte. I couldn't let my consciousness get lost within the Celestial's presence, no matter how warm and fluffy and peaceful it felt.

The binding diagram still glowed with pure white light; like all bindings, it was a continuous invocation that would remain active until it either exhausted my reserves of energy or I dispelled it. I started to walk toward the complex arrangement of sigils—

And was abruptly jerked backwards as a slender, inky tendril of magic appeared from the ground, wrapping itself securely around my waist. The shadow binding elongated, lifting my feet several centimeters off the deck plating. It happened so fast that Misaki didn't even have time to react despite her proximity to the caster.

I didn't bother struggling against the binding. Instead I hung loosely, becoming nearly dead weight in the tendril's grasp. It was a little uncomfortable, but the binding wrapped itself around me in such a way that it didn't hurt at all.

Interesting concession to make when attacking someone.

“Let me go.”

“I cannot allow you to risk yourself,” Eirene growled, her usually-serene face a mask of frustration. “I have invested far too much to simply stand by meekly while you foolishly release an astral being of immense power.”

I shrugged, which was actually kind of difficult with the animate magical rope holding me suspended in the air. “I think you're going to have much more to worry about than my 'foolish' behavior.”

Without any further warning, Eirene was struck by a roaring jet of orange-red flames. The shadowy mage grunted in surprise and pain, stumbling backwards a pace, but the attack probably startled her more than hurt her. Wisps of smoke rose from her torn clothing and a spot of partially-singed hair.

“That was a warning shot.” Misaki's eyes flashed dangerously. The fire wreathing both her hands exploded outward, flaring brilliantly blue as she poured more and more mana into the spell-flame. Misaki extended her right hand, condensing the power further and further until it burned like a miniature star. “The next one won't be. Take your hands—and your magic—off of my wife.”

Eirene met Misaki's furious glare with one of her own. “Do not do this. I do not wish to fight you, but I will if I must. Karin must be protected at all costs—even from herself. Even if I must resort to force.”

Still hanging in mid-air, I let out an exaggerated snort. “Valendir beat the shit out of you, Eirene. You may be a thousand years old and know magic back to front, but you're not operating at full power—we both know this. If you try to stop me, it's not going to go well for you at all.”

The shadow binding tightened around my waist; still not quite uncomfortable, but still holding me firmly to where I couldn't get away without dispelling it. Colors swirled in my irises, angry reds warring with dreary blue-gray. I let out a soft, resigned sigh before waking the power within.

Intense white light burst from around my body. The shadow binding that held me was burned away, vanishing into a puff of dusky mist. As my feet touched the ground I moved—dashing hard to the right and diving low as Misaki's projectiles screamed past. Eirene didn't move, but her colorless eyes hardened and dozens of shadowy bindings slashed out at me with the speed of striking snakes.

None of them managed to find a purchase, though. I was fully into the flow, fully attuned to the Relic essence's astral song. Each of the black tendrils dematerialized the instant they touched my body. Misaki continued to fire burst after burst of flames directly at Eirene, but the ancient mage batted them aside with contemptuous ease. For every mote of destruction my wife threw, Eirene disdainfully conjured a glassy black shield of force.

“It is true that I am wounded,” Eirene called out, her voice ringing high over the rippling succession of explosions, “but it matters not. None of your attacks will land so long as I touch the astral flow.”

“We'll see about that,” I retorted.

Misaki lit on the ground next to me, nodding as her ears flattened backwards. Like always, we fought as one, not needing to communicate with words. She knew of me, and I of her, to such a degree that we operated in synergistic harmony. My wife might not entirely approve of my decision to try and help the imprisoned entity, but she could not and would not abide anyone trying to harm me.

The familiar golden barrier of light enveloped us both as Misaki brought up a potent defensive invocation. Eirene's lips twisted into a grimace and the storm of shadow bindings ceased. Negative brilliance flashed against the shield; the former Second Pillar changed tactics, attempting to batter through Misaki's barrier with pure destructive energies.

Both the barrier and the attacks which struck it seemed weaker than usual—the area was still depleted of ambient mana, after all—but it was clear Misaki's defense wasn't going to hold against a determined Eirene for very long. It was up to me to end this little spat before it could lengthen into a protracted battle.

Astral energy surged through me as I “stepped” into the fullness of the flow. As the Relic essence fused to my spirit dragged more and more mana into itself, I was dimly aware that Eirene's blasts seemed smaller and Misaki's barrier less luminous. It was as if I'd cut into the line and began siphoning the power right from the source before it emptied out into the world.

Eirene's focused mien faltered—I think she realized the same thing, or she simply noticed just how much smaller her explosions were. Whatever the reason, I knew that I had the advantage for the moment and I fully intended to take it. Astral energy condensed into a point of brilliant white radiance less than an arm's length away from my body. I didn't want to kill Eirene—she may have had her own agenda, but we fought the same enemies—but I had to make it abundantly clear that we were not hers to control.

My irises faded back to a serene swirl of blues, pinks and greens as I reached out and touched the searingly-bright point of light.

The space around us was nearly torn asunder by the wide, raging column of silver-white doom that blasted out from the point I'd defined. Eirene's eyes widened in sudden shock and horror—her arms came up quickly and I could just barely make out the dark reflections as she manifested a stack of nearly a dozen shadow-shields.

It wasn't enough. The blast of supernal white light ripped through the barriers as if they weren't even there. Eirene's battered body began to dissolve, becoming more and more insubstantial; she was attempting to flee the area entirely by slipping into the astral flow, but there was just too little energy for that sort of invocation. Her retreat faltered and the beam slammed into her.

I heard a shrill shriek of pain and frustrated rage. Eirene was blasted off her feet and flung through the air by the soundless detonation, slammed with incredible force against the far wall of the Containment Area. The sheer violence of the impact would have reduced a normal human body into a pulverized heap of destroyed bone and tissue—nevermind the awesome destructive power of the disintegrating energies themselves—but Eirene was hardly normal.

She hit the ground heavily, landing on her hands and knees. The only visible injury I could see was a cut on her lip, more than likely caused by her own teeth. Eirene struggled weakly to her feet, bright blood smeared across her chin. I met her eyes steadily, keeping my face as expressionless as I could.

“You and I both know another one like that will kill you,” I informed her.

Eirene nodded.

“I don't want to kill you. Our goals are different, our methods don't always match up, but we're fighting the same evil. If we keep fighting and any of us dies, it'll only help the remaining Pillars and their allies.”

“This… is so.”

“We were never friends and only the loosest of allies,” I continued. I found it easier than I'd expected to keep negative emotions from coloring my speech; I had a feeling the sleeping presence nearby was responsible for at least part of this oddly-peaceful clarity of mind. “Making threats against me is one thing, but don't ever threaten Misaki again. If you do, I will kill you.”

The words were spoken without hatred, without malice. They were only a statement of fact, a simple promise of the consequences should Eirene make the wrong choice again. It was effective—Eirene's already fair face went even paler and she nodded wordlessly.

“I'm going to release the Celestial.”

“Karin,” Misaki warned.

“She won't hurt me, love.” I turned to face my wife and leaned forward, kissing her grimy, sweaty forehead. “The Celestial isn't going to just pop out of there and rip the anima out of me. She isn't just some mindless force of astral energy, but a fully sentient, sapient intelligence.”

Misaki's lip quavered. She was fighting back tears. “B-but if things go wrong and the Celestial tries to take the anima back—”

“They won't go wrong, love.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because a part of her is also a part of me. That makes me a part of her.” I shrugged as I realized the difficulty of describing the concept in human terms. “The Celestial isn't going to kill me any more than I'd kill myself.”

“I… I'm still worried,” Misaki admitted.

“I know you are, and seeing you so worried about me hurts, but at the same time it makes me so happy.” I hugged her tightly, resting her head against my chest. “That you love me so much makes me so happy.”

Hands still a little shaky, Misaki grabbed my chin and yanked me down into a kiss so fierce and so hard that I moaned involuntarily. My muscles went limp and I almost stumbled, but a strong, slender arm caught me, supporting me by the small of my back. I closed my eyes, losing myself in the moment.

When my wife finally pulled away, I was gasping for air. Her lips curved into that faint, dangerous smile that she reserved for me and me alone. I loved that smile and I loved what it meant even more.

Abruptly, though, that smile vanished. Misaki's eyes went as wide and round as saucers as she stiffened, the already-voluminous fur on her tail standing out on end. I never thought today was going to end happily, but it wasn't a pleasant feeling to be proven right.

So I wasn't very surprised when I turned around and was faced with that arrogantly handsome blonde man wearing his typical insufferable smug smile. He was accompanied by a slender, dark-haired woman with pale skin and brilliant ruby eyes whose astral pattern fairly crackled with power.

Those things in of themselves were more than bad enough, but the dozen or so assault rifle barrels—all of them held steady and aimed directly at my head—made the situation several orders of magnitude less fun.

enmity

“I was wondering how long it'd take you to show up.” I feigned a yawn, doing my best to look as uninterested as possible. “Though to be honest I'm not surprised you waited until the fight was over to confront us at our weakest.”

“I do prefer the most expedient methods.” Nergal's smirk broadened into a grin that made me want to punch him even more. “In this war waged in the shadows, 'fairness' is nothing but wishful thinking. Now back away from the binding circle—slowly.”

I sighed and did as he instructed, stepping back toward the monitoring console Eirene was leaning against. Nergal stepped forward and examined the binding invocation for a long moment before making a sharp gesture with his hand.

“Kyrie. Can you dispel this?”

The red-eyed Relic spirit was visibly anxious. “Y-yes, but the return overflow of stored astral energy will inflict critical damage upon my physical manifestation.”

“I asked if you could dispel it, not what it will do to your body,” Nergal snapped impatiently. “Your manifestation is expendable and easily replaced. You have five minutes to study the binding circle and dismantle it.”

I glared murder at him, my irises instantly darkening to an angry red. “Still too afraid to get your hands dirty, huh, Blondie? Well, you're too late—the work's already done. All I have to do is touch it and the Celestial will wake up.”

“Approach the circle again and I'll order my men to open fire. I'm well-aware of how badly you wish to see me fail to reach the Terminus; I'm not about to allow you to assert even the slightest amount of control over the sealed entity. Your part in this matter is done, Karin Ashley. AEGIS thanks you for your contribution to our recovery operation… but your services are no longer required.”

Despite her battered appearance, Eirene's brow angled downward in a scowl so fierce it sent shivers up my spine. She held out her right hand and clenched her fist. A shadowy ribbon of force erupted from the ground, slashing out at Nergal and pinning his arms against his torso.

“You will not,” Eirene hissed.

Nergal stared at her coldly. “Release me.”

“I refuse.”

The acting-Director of AEGIS turned his head toward the unit of black-armored soldiers, still holding their rifles at the ready. “Eliminate them.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but we can't do that.”

“What?”

The fighter who had spoken, a muscular woman short-cropped hair and a red band encircling her right bicep, stepped forward. There were more than a few things about her appearance and mannerisms that reminded me of Amber; I felt a fresh pang of grief wash through me.

“Comms have been re-established. I've received priority orders from Administrator Ceres on behalf of the Directorate. You have been relieved of your authority as acting-Director. Our unit has been ordered to assist the main body of the liberation force with clean-up operations.”

“So she has finally mustered the courage to make her move,” Nergal mused aloud before turning an imperious glare onto the AEGIS heavy unit. “I'm countermanding that order. Administrator Ceres lacks the authority to act on behalf of the Directorate without an emergency executive override.”

The soldier shook her head firmly. “EEO has been confirmed, sir—the codes all check out.” She shot a nervous glance at me. Just being present in the Containment Area put her ill at ease, but I knew my own presence was likely just as unsettling. “Administrator Ceres has instructed me to leave Nergal in your custody, Lady Ashley.”

“Interesting choice,” I mused. Though I already knew the answer, I went ahead and asked the obvious question anyway. “Why not arrest him?”

“Administrator Ceres does not wish us to throw our lives away needlessly.” The unit captain's irony was not lost on any of us, including Nergal. “You and your formidable partner are best equipped to handle this situation.”

“Fine by me.” I frowned as the captain gave me an expectant look, then realized that she was waiting for me to give her permission to leave. Very interesting, indeed. “You're dismissed, Captain. Continue your mission as ordered.”

“Acknowledged.” The woman saluted, turned on her heels and barked orders at her unit. The forest of rifle barrels moved away as soldiers turned and left the Containment Area through the still-open gate corridor.

“It looks like this is it.” I shifted my attention back to Nergal, still firmly secured by Eirene's shadow binding. My words weren't gloating and I didn't relish the chance to pay him back for his machinations. I wore an expression of grim finality. “No soldiers, no authority, no options left. And Ceres left your fate in my hands.”

“I am not without options.” His smug little smile was back in place. Nergal still managed to hold onto his composure even after a brutal defeat at the hands of a political rival. “Kyrie, dispel my bonds and destroy them!”

The Relic spirit neither acted nor answered. Kyrie remained where she was, in clear violation of the Relic wielder's command, something that should have been impossible. Her wide-eyed expression was one of pure astonishment as she gazed at Eirene.

“Kyrie! Do as I command!”

The Relic spirit shook her head vigorously. “N-no! I'm not going to listen to you! You don't care about me at all. All you want is to use me, to sacrifice my existence so that you can enter the Astral Terminus.”

“What did you do to her?” Nergal snarled at Eirene. Bafflement tempered the outrage in his voice. “How is this possible? How does she refuse my command?”

“I granted her the power to choose.” Eirene's breathing was harsh and labored from the pain of her wounds, but the intensity of her hate-filled glare was unaffected. “She has not chosen you.”

I glanced at my wife, who wore the same expression I did. I knew Eirene was capable of temporarily disrupting a Relic spirit's command seal—Amber told me about how the former Second Pillar broke Samuel Kihara's hold over Tsubame. Knowing she could do it was one thing, though, but it was a whole different experience to actually watch it happen.

“I'm not going to help you reach the Astral Terminus.” Kyrie shrank back from him, moving closer to Misaki. “This has never been about anything but vengeance. You don't even care that millions of children are going to die as the astral flow stills. All of those lives mean nothing next to your desire for revenge.”

Nergal's carefully-crafted facade began to crack. I felt his sense abruptly, jarringly, as a sea of negative emotions that roiled and churned like a storm-tossed sea. Smoldering embers of rage and hatred and the desire to retaliate blanketed my perceptions. Unwilling to remain in the raging firestorm of this man's darkness, I drew away as if I'd been physically burned by it.

“You don't care about lives.” Kyrie's voice became choked with emotions she wasn't well-equipped to handle. “How could you condemn a million fathers to mourn the deaths of a million children? After what happened to your family?”

Nergal said nothing.

With a final disgusted look, Kyrie turned away from Nergal. She walked across the deck plating, her slow steps purposeful, toward Eirene. Those intense red eyes seemed to grow sad as she regarded the ancient mage.

“You've lost a part of yourself, long ago. It left a void within you.”

“And you were never whole to begin with.” Eirene's voice was solemn as she regarded the Relic spirit. “Those who created you did not fully understand the process. Reckless fools, fumbling around in the dark, but it was not they who would pay the price for their own ignorance.”

“The lore was intentionally suppressed!” Nergal snarled, his voice sounding strangled as the ribbons of shadow pressed against his throat. “We had no choice but to recreate the entire process from the ground up. You took that power from our hands, mage.” He spat out the last word as if it were a deadly curse.

Eirene glowered at him. “You should not have made the attempt. That knowledge was suppressed to protect mankind from itself.”

“You sanctimonious, self-righteous bitch.” The fallen director of AEGIS scowled so deeply that his eyes almost disappeared underneath the sharp slant of his brow. “Protect us from ourselves? That's bullshit and you know it! It was all to safeguard the dominion of mages over the lives of 'powerless' humans—”

With an irritated flick of her wrist, Eirene looped another ribbon of materialized shadow around Nergal's head, gagging him and cutting off his enraged ranting. He strained and struggled against the restricting tendrils to no avail.

“Kyrie.” Eirene regarded the Relic spirit with a cool gray gaze. “Do you wish to be released from this durance?”

Kyrie nodded wordlessly.

“Then so be it.”

The former Second Pillar limped over to where Nergal was still struggling uselessly against his bonds. Decades of pent-up hatred and anger so filled his sense that I didn't think he cared that he was about to die.

“The light was stolen from you. Your soul was left to die a thousand deaths, but your body did not follow.” Eirene placed a hand on Nergal's shoulder. He didn't look at her or even appear to react at all.

Eirene pulled her hand away and clenched her fist. The shadow binding convulsed once, so rapidly and violently that it didn't even seem possible. It was so fast I doubt Nergal actually felt any pain at all—and even if he did, it wouldn't have mattered to him.

Inky blackness blossomed from the tendril and enveloped the mortal remains of the man, vanishing in a shower of darkly-glittering motes of astral light. A black and silver rod, the blade-less sword hilt of Nergal's Synthesized Relic, was all that remained.

Kyrie remained outside of the Relic, but this would only be temporary. Unless it was bound to a new wielder soon, she would no longer be able to maintain her physical manifestation—assuming the Synthesized Relic even functioned the same way as the original artifacts.

“I'm cold.” The Relic spirit wrapped her arms around her own shoulders and shivered violently. I perceived the change at once; the inflow of ambient mana into the Synthesized Relic had ceased, leaving Kyrie without the energy she needed to exist.

“You won't be for long.”

The security system let out a chime and the gate corridor was unsealed, each door opening one after the other. I half-expected another team of rifle-wielding AEGIS troops to start bothering us again, but interestingly enough, only one person came through the hallway and into the Containment Area.

Ceres strode purposefully across the deck plating. She ignored the bodies and blood on the floor, only pausing for a moment to cast a disdainful glance at Nergal's corpse. The Directorate agent walked right up to me, her expression haggard and weary but hopeful and determined.

“I'm sorry I wasn't able to stop him before he made it here, but it looks like you had the situation well in hand,” she remarked in a brisk tone. “I would have liked to see him tried and convicted, left to rot in prison for his crimes… but I'm hardly displeased with this outcome.”

I frowned. “I didn't think you'd come here yourself.”

“As commander of this operation, it's my responsibility to make certain the Celestial's power doesn't fall into the wrong hands.” Ceres reached into her satchel and pulled out a bottle of fresh, clean water, handing it to me. “Now that the greatest threats have been neutralized, my forces and the facility's garrison forces will work together to purge the facility of any remaining specters.”

“So we won, I take it.” I opened the bottle of water and nearly upended the entire thing down my throat. I hadn't truly realized how exhausted I was until the adrenaline rush faded and the flow of mana into my astral pattern was stilled. Yet more proof that I was becoming more spirit than human—I'd unconsciously began using astral energy to keep my physical body performing at full capacity.

Now, though, with the battle over and the immediate danger gone, I was bone-weary and hungrier than I thought possible. At least Ceres brought us some water—I greedily sucked the container dry. Misaki's ears flicked and a concerned expression crossed her equally tired-looking face.

“Yes, we won,” Ceres agreed. Her expression darkened and undercurrents of anger and frustration boiled underneath the surface of her rigid emotional discipline. “We did indeed win, but at what cost? It'll take days of work before we're able to account for all AEGIS personnel stationed here. So many are dead or missing.”

I didn't respond to that. She was exactly right—we'd “won” the battle, completed the operation successfully, but we didn't really “win” by any measure of the word. All of this was so utterly pointless. Ceres never told me directly, but maintaining and operating a facility of this size would require thousands of people.

“There is still so much work to do,” Ceres went on, pausing to gulp down her own bottle of water. She caught the envious look in my eyes and handed me another. “Your continued assistance would be invaluable to the agency, but I can tell you don't have much left in the tank. It's up to you if you want to—”

“A-Administrator Ceres,” a soft voice broke in, cutting her off. Moving very slowly, as if mere walking was severely taxing her reserves, Kyrie managed to come closer. The weakening Relic spirit leaned heavily on Misaki to keep her balance. “I w-wish to help… to repair the damage caused by the Pillars of Heaven… exacerbated by the actions of my former Master.”

Ceres's eyes widened in shock. “Kyrie—of course, the Synthesized Relic. How are you maintaining your physical manifestation?”

“Barely have e-enough mana.” The Relic spirit shivered violently, wrapping her arms around her torso as if she were freezing. “Misaki's helping, but…” She trailed off, unwilling to finish the thought as her expression became increasingly bleak.

“Why not release your physical manifestation, then?” I gazed at the pathetic-looking Kyrie for a moment before noticing the grim look in my wife's eyes. I guess she knew something I didn't, but I pressed on anyway. “Isn't that what Relic spirits usually do when this sort of thing happens?”

“That would be true if Kyrie was the spirit of a True Relic,” Misaki explained, her tail drooping down between her legs. “She's not, though. I'm guessing his people started with an Emulated Relic design and made something approximating a True Relic as closely as they could with the data they had.”

Kyrie nodded as vigorously as her condition allowed. “Y-yes. The research team… they collected as much d-data as they could. It wasn't much—even Luna's archives possessed little useful information.” She shivered and turned to look at me, her ruby irises appearing far more dull and flat than before. “It was only when the t-team… m-m-made use of the dormant fragments—”

“—of the Blade of the Nine-Tailed Fox,” I finished for her, letting out a self-deprecating sigh. “Of course he did, and I missed it completely.”

Misaki's ears shot up in astonishment. “What?!”

“I had no idea.” Ceres's tone was filled with sympathy and self-reproach. “I wasn't privy to the details of the Synthesized Relic project—much of the Directorate wasn't authorized to study a complete record of the research.”

“My f-former Master demanded absolute s-s-secrecy.” Kyrie's teeth chattered rapidly and she seemed to grow physically smaller and less substantial, right before our eyes.

She was dying.

I turned, scanning the interior of the Containment Area, my mood darkening right along with the color of my irises as I realized there was one less person in the chamber than there should have been. Eirene was gone, likely having slipped into the astral flow while we were distracted by Ceres's arrival.

“What is it, love?” Misaki queried.

“Eirene took off, of course.” I bit my lower lip and started thinking hard. It was clear that Kyrie and the Synthesized Relic would perish if we didn't do something, but what that something might have been was—

“Karin.” My wife's voice cut through the tense atmosphere like a blade. “Someone needs to bind to the Relic or Kyrie isn't going to make it. I can't maintain her physical form any longer.”

“I'm aware, but the one person who might know what to do isn't here.” I glanced at Ceres meaningfully. “Unless Miss Directorate here intends to bind to the Relic, I'm fresh out of ideas.”

The older woman's expression was neutral but knowing. She had to have come to the same conclusion—there weren't any other options, really. Kyrie knew far too much about AEGIS for the agency to let her bind to someone else. Assuming there even was anyone else who could.

“I see no other alternative,” Ceres murmured, almost too softly to hear. She walked over to where the two Relics lay, almost side by side, on the ground. It was an interesting contrast—two Relics, both of them damaged but in different ways. Keeping a careful distance from the Shattered Sword, Ceres reached down and closed her hand over the black hilt.

The effect, as I knew it would be, was immediate. Ceres jerked bolt upright as mana surged through her body and into her spirit. A tributary branched off from the astral flow, fusing itself to the edge of Ceres's jumbled astral pattern. I “watched” through the extra senses granted by my own Relic's merging with my spirit. Lines of force twisted, connected, bifurcated and were interwoven into an orderly latticework that was more than enough to handle the task of providing Kyrie and the Synthesized Relic with enough energy to sustain themselves.

Kyrie was already looking much better. Her violent shivering was gone and while she still looked exhausted, her ruby eyes no longer held bleak expression of one facing her own imminent death.

“The binding was successful,” she said in a tone that conveyed great relief. The Relic spirit turned to face Ceres and she bowed deeply. “Thank you, Administrator. I will serve you faithfully as my new Master.”

Ceres looked faintly alarmed and she shook her head. “We may be bound together through the Relic, but I am not your Master. You belong to no one but yourself and I refuse to compel your loyalty by force.”

“Doesn't this sound familiar,” Misaki muttered dryly. I chuckled and nudged my wife none-too-gently in the side.

Apparently I wasn't the only one who saw the obvious parallels.

“However, you are still officially a member of AEGIS attached to the Directorate—that is, if you want to keep your old job.” A faint smile played across Ceres's face. “I'm not going to force you to keep working for the agency, either.”

“If I may, I would prefer to continue serving in my previous capacity as special aide to the Director of Operations.”

The Directorate agent's cheeks flushed almost as brightly as the sudden burst of emotion that rippled through her sense. “I, well—I mean, yes, if that's what you want to do, then you should do that. Though the decision hasn't yet been confirmed—”

“Too late, Ceres,” I interrupted, my lips curving into a smirk. “You know just as well as the rest of us that's how things are going to work out. It was your operation, your command that managed to retake this facility and neutralize a dangerous rogue element.”

“But I did not—I mean, it was the work of many, including you and Misaki!”

I shrugged as if it didn't matter to me. Which was true; it didn't.

“It'd be better for all of us if you just glossed over our contribution,” I informed her, reaching out and snagging another bottle of water from her satchel. I unscrewed the cap and chugged half the bottle in one go. “We'd just as soon not get involved with your official duties any more than absolutely necessary.”

“I think I can arrange that.” Ceres turned toward the sealed gate corridor, probably contemplating the massive pile of work that just got dumped in her lap. “The operation is a success, though there's still plenty of work to be done. AEGIS will be able to handle it ourselves, though. With the facility under our control, your part is finished. An airship is standing by to take you and your family home.”

I turned back to the massive, armored cylinder in the center of the chamber.

“It's not finished yet. I still have one more thing to do.”

dreams

“You're sure about this?”

I shrugged. “Not exactly sure, but I have to do something to help her.”

“I never thought I'd be glad to have a two-billion-dollar facility be rendered completely pointless,” Ceres mused as she gazed at the stasis pod in the center of the circular chamber. “Are you sure you don't need me to bring the techs back and initiate the shutdown sequence?”

“No, I can handle it. It'll be safer if only Misaki and I are in here when I wake the spirit up.” I placed my right hand on the still-glowing binding circle. It felt like a lifetime had passed since I inscribed it.

“The Directorate's given me full authority over the facility.” The older woman turned and gave me an odd look. “I think all of us will be able to breathe a little easier if you can relieve us of this burden.”

“Karin can do it,” Misaki insisted. “You should get out of here, though. Once they wake up, the Containment Area isn't going to be safe for humans.”

Ceres's lips twitched slightly. “All right. Kyrie and I will be heading back to Security to continue overseeing cleanup operations—though I don't think it'll even be necessary. Many of the specters have already been destroyed or banished.”

“Be careful, Lady Ashley,” Kyrie added.

“Yeah, well, we'll see.” I let my finger drift upward, hovering just in front of the central ring of the binding diagram. All it would take would be one touch to complete the spell, binding the Celestial to my will. “Go on, get out of here.”

“Understood,” Ceres replied. “Farewell, Lady Ashley.”

I shook my head slowly at the title. “Lady.” Well, it was my own damn fault—I was the one who blustered and threatened to take Nergal down, informally creating a different sort of arcane house in the process.

Now that he was stopped…

There was still the matter of the First Pillar of Heaven. Valendir may have attempted to double-cross his lord, but I was certain much of what he'd done was part of the First's long-term strategy to gain access to the Astral Terminus. We were in the unfortunate position of not knowing how much of this attack was truly part of that strategy.

“Karin, focus on what you're doing,” my wife admonished. “This is not going to be easy for either of us.”

“Right. Sorry.”

I shoved my worries aside and turned my full attention to the task at hand. Misaki was right; this wasn't going to be easy. It would be almost as dangerous for us as it would have been for Ceres. If we weren't absolutely on top of our game—hell, even if we were, there was still a strong chance that the Celestial would end up accidentally killing us both.

“Do it.”

Misaki traced a series of runes in the air, surrounding us both with her trademarked golden shield of force. I smiled as she continued to channel more and more mana into the invocation, doubling and redoubling, creating multiple layers of protection. She wouldn't be able to do anything else but maintain the shields—the rest was up to me.

I lifted my hand to the center of the binding circle and inscribed a single symbol into the blank spot. The silver-glowing lines burned fiercely, their luminosity increasing so much that I couldn't even look at them. I could feel the mana in the area surge into the circle; a lesser flow poured into Misaki as she focused all of her energy on the shield.

After all that had happened here, the area was nearly devoid of ambient mana, but now it seemed the sleeping Celestial was attracting it, drawing it into the empty space much more rapidly than I expected.

The argent light from the circle was so bright I could no longer keep my eyes open at all, but I didn't need them any longer. The anima I'd absorbed seemed to reach out to the Celestial and nudge them, waking them from their slumber and drawing them out of their self-imposed isolation.

Metal shrieked and howled as the stasis pod was torn from its moorings. Coolant lines and high-current cables were severed—but did not leak or spark. The connections had already been disabled; all that remained were the potent warding fields laid down by a House that no longer existed.

As I brought the spirit out of stasis, Misaki had her own task to perform. Lines of force bridged into her astral pattern to that of House Eridian's wards. My eyes were still closed, but I felt a faint crackle as she coaxed the barriers to expand, covering the entirety of the Containment Area. We hoped that by leaving the wards active we could prevent the Celestial from inadvertently affecting anything outside.

My ears rang as the stasis pod's thick armored casing cracked and was split asunder. The awesome sensation of hugeness multiplied again and again, expanding exponentially as the astral being stirred to wakefulness. Without the anima I'd absorbed protecting me, and by extension Misaki, both of us could have been instantly erased from existence as the astral entity regained full consciousness.

The binding circle dimmed and I opened my eyes. The interior of the Containment Area was utterly empty, a void of colorless nothing, save for a section of untouched reality beneath the shield that Misaki maintained. Behind us, the gate corridor still existed. I sagged in relief—our preparations had been enough.

Within the center of the neutralized space that had once been the Containment Area, the spirit began to materialize from a radiant sphere of impossibly-dense mana. Slowly, gradually gaining form as it woke, the Celestial appeared as a vaguely human-shaped coalescence of something.

Opening its eyes, the Celestial noticed that a section of space near it had somehow managed to stay intact. A very human-like look of pleased surprise blossomed across that face as the Celestial floated closer to the edge of Misaki's shield.

The Celestial stared at me for a long moment and recognition washed through its sense… or rather, my sense. For the tiniest fraction of a nanosecond, the Celestial's consciousness merged with mine.

That infinitesimally small moment of contact was apparently enough for the Celestial to read my thoughts, memories and emotions. I guess I should have felt violated by such an intrusion, but that kind of reaction felt ridiculous. It would have been about as absurd as being upset at myself for dreaming of my own memories.

That tiny, ephemeral instant of total unity faded, far faster than I could even truly process. My body felt stiff and sore. I was tired, having pushed the limits of my endurance beyond the point where I should have just keeled over.

The Celestial seemed to recognize this and it moved closer to me.

“I've waited so long for you to come back to me!”

I frowned as I regarded the partially-corporeal entity. “What do you mean by come back?”

“You're the missing piece,” the Celestial pointed out. “The missing piece of me that was lost, a long time ago. You came back.”

All around me, the emptiness started to gain definition and solidity, appearing almost like a mist or fog. Through the twisted reality I could just make out the shape of the cylindrical stasis pod, the monitoring consoles arrayed around it, even the damage inflicted on the Containment Area by the battle with Valendir.

It only took a few more seconds for reality to reassert itself completely. The large circular chamber looked exactly as it had before I destroyed the wards, as if it hadn't even been nullified in the first place.

“What the hell?” The deep sensation of vertigo that had pervaded my senses was gone, my human perceptions no longer wildly confused by the abrupt removal of physical existence. “How did you do that—?”

“I didn't do anything,” the spirit interrupted. It floated downward, bare feet coming in contact with the metal deck plating. Gravity slowly began to affect the Celestial—no, it was more than just gravity, but also light and sound and heat and everything that meant the otherworldly being had fully integrated into our world.

And she looked almost exactly like me.

“If you didn't do it, who did?”

The spirit pointed. “You did.”

“What?”

Misaki's ears twitched thoughtfully. “I think she's right, love. I'm not exactly sure how I know that, but…” My wife shrugged and her tail bent as it swished to and fro, a gesture that emphasized her simultaneous confusion and certainty.

“How did I do that?” I asked.

The spirit gazed at me with huge blue-pink eyes. “You imparted understanding.”

“To you?”

“Yes.”

My irises shifted, swirling with a vague brown-gray hue. “What sort of understanding did I impart to you?”

“Everything,” the Celestial replied.

“Everything that I know?” My gaze sharpened slightly and I frowned. “You processed all the information in my memories? Is that how you're able to speak our language and communicate with us?”

That brief moment of fully merged consciousnesses had apparently been long enough for the Celestial. “Yes. The rules and framework of this instance are so very different; I didn't understand enough to interact with your world.”

“But you can now?”

“Yes.”

I regarded the spirit for a long moment. It was almost like looking into a mirror… but not quite. The astral entity's physical manifestation was close enough that a casual observer would have a hard time telling us apart.

There were subtle differences. The Celestial's eyes were larger than mine, rounder, a touch more expressive and the irises were a striking blue-pink color. Her hair was the same pure black with streaks of pinks, reds and purples, but it was longer than mine. Other than that, we could have easily been mistaken for twins.

As for why she looked like me—it was probably a result of the memory transfer. It occurred to me that I didn't actually know much about the other world at all. Did beings from the astral even have a physical appearance? Or did they take one on upon being summoned into this world?

“Karin,” Misaki prodded. “You're staring.”

I felt my cheeks heat up as the Celestial giggled softly.

“Right, um, well, I suppose it's good that we can communicate. I released you from the stasis pod and within the binding invocation, so hopefully I'll be able to send you back across the boundary. From what Ceres told us, you've been stuck here for over forty years.”

“Why?”

I blinked, confused. “Wait, what?”

“Why would you want to send me across the boundary?” The Celestial's expression changed, her smile replaced with a puzzled frown. “I was lonely and confused, but now you've come back to me after all this time. Why would I want to leave you again?”

“Um, well, a lot of reasons…” I trailed off, feeling strangely unsure of myself. Why did I want to send her back? I knew there was some reason, the reason I remained behind here after the facility was back under AEGIS control, but…

Misaki, sensing my hesitation, stepped closer to the Celestial. Her ears flicked rapidly in exasperation. “We know you couldn't go back before, but Karin recovered the missing part of yourself. Is there any way for you to re-absorb the anima and then go back home?”

The Celestial shook her head but said nothing.

“No, it's not something I can just hand over.” I turned to my wife and sighed, a mixture of exhaustion and frustration shifting the hue of my eyes. “It's a just a part of me now. It can't be taken from me or separated out from me without killing me.”

Misaki's ears lay flat against her head and she crossed her arms over her chest, fixing the astral entity with a penetrating glare. “So… you can leave, but you don't want to leave without the missing part of your essence, which is stuck inside my wife and can't be removed through any means.”

“Yes.”

“What about going back into the stasis pod?”

“I'm bound through Karin's circle.” The Celestial seemed to shrink away from Misaki, her eyes becoming even more anxiously wide and round. “As long as the binding remains in place, I'm constrained to obey her commands.”

The glowing binding circle was less than a meter away, though its intensity appeared to have dimmed tremendously. When I'd brought the entity out of hibernation, the pattern of lines and runes burned so brightly it hurt to look at them.

I closed my eyes and focused, letting my awareness slip out of the physical and into the innumerable lines of force that made up the astral flow. I expected the awesome complexity and magnitude of the Celestial to overwhelm me—

It didn't. In fact, the astral flow was quiescent and still somewhat depleted. I easily located Misaki's spirit, but the other pattern present was… odd. Though it was eerily similar to my own, the other pattern was more complex, but still well within the expected range for a skilled human mage.

“How did you do that?”

The spirit shrugged. “You came back to me and helped me understand the limitations of this instance. Altering the pattern isn't hard if you know what to do.”

“What does that even mean?” Misaki's nervous tail-lashing slowed fractionally. She shot a baffled glance at me. “What is she talking about, love?”

“She made it smaller.” I marveled at the Celestial and understood what actually took place during the melding of consciousness. It wasn't just that she read my memories—it was an equal transference. “The whole reason she kept breaking reality wherever she went was because her astral pattern was too huge, too complex. The way things work here, the fundamental forces and laws, are different than they are in the astral world.”

My wife gave me a dirty look. “You're not going to just let her loose, are you?”

“That's exactly what I'm going to do. I won't force her to obey me, even if it would be much more convenient for us.” Reaching out with my right hand, I tapped the center of the binding circle. The intricate patterns of lines and runes flared brightly for half a second before vanishing altogether. “And now I can't in any case.”

My wife took a deep breath and let it out slowly, her shoulders and ears both slumping downward. “The agency isn't going to like this at all.”

“I don't give a shit what AEGIS likes or doesn't like,” I retorted. “What have they ever done for us but use us for their own ends? Ceres may be an okay person, I'll grant you that, but she isn't the queen of AEGIS. I'm more worried about the people above her.”

Misaki glared at me. “Why are you—” Her harsh expression faded away as I reached out to take her hands in my own. Our fingers entwined together and my lips curved into a teasing smile.

“It'll be okay, love.” I leaned forward to kiss her lightly on the lips. “Come on, I know you can feel it just as well as I can; reality isn't fraying around her any longer. Now that she knows how to live in our world without accidentally breaking it, what's the problem? Are we going to punish her for what she might do?”

“No, I… I don't have a good argument,” Misaki admitted after a short pause, her tone sharpening just a bit. “I doubt the government is going to agree with you, though. What are you going to do about that?”

Out of the corner of my eye I could see the Celestial anxiously watching us, though she seemed to be considerably less distressed after I dispelled the binding circle. The spirit may have gained enough information from my memories to speak our language and manifest a physical form, but I didn't want to leave her to her own devices in an unfamiliar world that she just now learned how to interact with on the most fundamental level.

“Well, the agency expects an otherworldly entity with god-like powers. That's what they sealed her away forty years ago, after all.” I gestured to the spirit who was almost, but not quite, me. “Does she look anything like an otherworldly entity with god-like powers?”

Misaki made a disgusted sound. “Karin, don't patronize me. AEGIS isn't so stupid that they're not going to wonder why you suddenly have an identical twin sister.”

“As long as she doesn't start unmaking chunks of the universe, Ceres isn't going to give a shit,” I countered. “The agency has a lot more important things to worry about. Just figuring out how badly Blondie twisted everything up is going to keep them busy for a long time. I'm done letting them use us, use me. I'm fucking sick of it all, and I'm damn sure not going to let them keep her locked up out of fear or hope that they might be able to use her power for their own ends.”

Turning away from me, Misaki sighed and her ears flattened forward. “Okay, okay, enough already. You can stop trying to convince me now, love. I can't see how letting her stay with us will make things any more dangerous than they already are.”

I kissed my wife's cheek. “I know you're worried about our family.”

“Yes, and don't say it—I know. If Nergal found a way to make use of her power, it's only a matter of time before someone else does.” Misaki pulled her hands away from mine and turned to face the Celestial. “If she's going to live in our world, we're going to have to think of a name for her.”

“That's true,” I agreed, regarding the spirit thoughtfully. A stray memory rose to the surface of my mind—a story Mama told me once when I was younger.

Thirty or so years ago, when she was still pregnant with me, there was apparently some disagreement over what my name would be. Dad wanted to name me “Emily,” while Mama wanted the name “Rika.” They argued over it for some time; Mama pointing out that it was unfair when my older brother already had an English name while Dad insisted that I be named for his father's grandmother.

Eventually the two compromised and I was named “Karin.” Dad liked it because it sounded like his great-aunt's name, Karen. Mama liked it because it was a Japanese name and could be written in kanji. I'd never had a problem with my name, personally, but I'd always been fond of Rika—even more so since finding out it had been Mama's first choice for me.

Still immersed in memory, I felt a subtle touch on my consciousness that brought me back to the task at hand. The Celestial was gazing at me, her eyes sparkling, and I knew she was the source of that feather-light contact. Her sense radiated with contentment and approval as she absorbed the memories.

“My name is Rika,” she said.

honest wishes

I stood on So-yi's back porch, only halfway paying attention to the cigarette I'd lit a few minutes ago, as I stared out over the rain-slashed sky. It'd been nearly a week since the battle with Valendir and his spectral army at the AEGIS research facility.

After I released the Celestial—Rika, rather—from the warded stasis pod, the three of us met back up with the rest of our family plus Soleil, Tsubame and Alicia. True to her word, Ceres called in an AEGIS airship to take us all home in a hurry, which was a very good thing for all involved.

The transport set us down at a military airfield not too far from So-yi's house; AEGIS arranged ground transport to get us all where we wanted to go. Soleil and Tsubame returned to their apartment… and took Alicia with them. Mama wanted her to come with us, unsurprisingly, but Tsubame correctly pointed out that she needed rest to recover from her wounds. I still haven't said anything to Mama, but I could see the relief in So-yi's eyes when the three of them left together.

As much as both my mother and I felt compelled to bring every broken bird we happened to stumble across into the Ashley nest, our family had pretty much reached maximum capacity. It wasn't fair to my sister or her wife. That Tsubame seemed to both understand this and convey it through subtext surprised—not to mention shamed—me more than a little.

On the subject of family, the Ashley family wasn't weathering the most recent damage as well as I'd hoped. This last crisis drove a wedge between my immediate family and the rest of the family on both the Takeda and Ashley sides.

My aunt Yayoi was terrified and furious. There was little any of us could do to comfort her. Valendir used her children to compel my cooperation. She didn't care that they would always be in danger simply for being mages and much safer and better off if they stayed with us long enough to learn how to use their abilities. It didn't seem to matter how eloquently Misaki argued for their continued training; Yayoi had taken her children and rushed back to Japan.

Barely a word had been spoken to Mama, her own older sister, and she had nothing for me but a pain-filled glare. I couldn't fault her for blaming me. Yuto was experiencing nightmares, vividly recalling the terrible ordeal he'd been put through. Kotori fell into a deep depression, both from the trauma of imprisonment and Amber's death. Neither of them chose to be involved in this and both ended up hurt as a result.

My immediate family members fared better. Neither So-yi nor Nicole blamed me for what happened and Rowan was just too young to understand. My mother, being the fighter she is, was the only one to suffer more than minor physical injury. Misaki was able to cleanse her of miasma and set her body on the road to full recovery.

Misaki and I were already making plans to move into our own place again. It didn't matter if we all lived together or not—those who wished to do us harm would find some way to make it happen. Fortunately, money wasn't a problem, as we quickly discovered when several rather large transfers from the federal government appeared in both mine and my mother's bank accounts.

I grimaced as I blew out a plume of smoke. The operation may have been a success, but I hesitated to call it a “victory.” Meilin, like all the other Luna personnel that Valendir dominated with the power of the Mindfang artifact, was still at an AEGIS facility for treating special cases. Last I heard she was still unconscious, as were most of the higher-ranking Luna agents and members of the Order Magicians.

Ceres told me that it was likely related to how much reprogramming the Fifth Pillar forced upon them. The Tsukimura and Kihara survivors all returned to their senses within hours, dismayed to find themselves firmly in AEGIS custody.

Meilin, Ibrahim, Chief Alex and several other members of Luna's upper echelons, however, remained locked in a vacant, dissociative state. The agency had no idea how to bring them out of it nor how long it would last.

I stubbed the cigarette butt out in the ashtray nearby and lit another one. My coffee was still hot and I just wanted to stand out here and listen to the sound of the rain. Alas, my wishes were not to be granted.

The sliding glass door opened and Misaki emerged. “Karin, Ceres is here and she wants to talk to you.” My wife's ears twitched as she predicted my inevitable argument. “She's here alone and in casual clothes. I'm sure she wants to talk to us a person, off-the-record. Not as the director of AEGIS.”

“Is Rika still asleep?”

Misaki's ear twitched. “I think so.”

“Good. Tell Ceres she can come out on the deck if she wants to speak with us.”

Less than a minute later, Misaki returned with Ceres. The older woman was dressed rather fashionably—and a little more playfully than I'd expect for her age and demeanor. I let one black eyebrow arch eloquently as she stepped out onto the back patio and sat down in one of the nearby chairs.

“I'm sorry I didn't call ahead,” Ceres said. That was a lie, of course—had she done so, I would have told her where to shove it. The director of AEGIS sighed and turned to look at me. “You can probably tell I'm not here in an official capacity.”

“I knew it,” Misaki commented. Then she turned a reproachful glare upon me as her ears pulled back, just slightly. “Karin, be nice. Ceres wouldn't come here like this unless it was important.”

I sighed at my wife and held my hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay. If you're not here on official business, then why are you here?”

“I have something to show you.” Ceres reached into the pocket of her bright purple jacket and pulled out a small universal memory stick. This she handed to me. “Go ahead and plug it into your phone. It's not encrypted.”

My eyes narrowed and I smelled a rat. I didn't know what game Ceres was playing, exactly, but I suspected it had something to do with leveraging my own sense of—

No. That wasn't right. Her sense was all wrong for that kind of thing. All I could feel from Ceres's emotions was a deep, penetrating sense of foreboding. She wasn't the type who spooked easily, either.

Whatever it was, I wasn't likely to find out unless I did as she asked. I slotted the memory stick into my phone's multi-socket and tapped a few commands out. The screen shifted to a folder filled with dozens of image files, apparently all photos. Frowning, I tapped one and enlarged it.

No. It couldn't be.

“What the fuck? Where did you find these?!”

“This is the eighteenth one we've found so far.” Ceres's face was pale and drawn as she turned to regard me grimly. “That's just on the West Coast alone.”

“Eighteen? You've found and disabled eighteen Spell Engines purpose-built for binding specters.” I unplugged the memory stick from my phone and handed it back to Ceres. “I'm assuming you've already analyzed all the recovered units?”

“Yes. You're not going to like what we discovered.”

I puffed on my cigarette furiously. “I already don't like it, but go ahead, lay some more bad news on me.”

“We managed to recover one unit fully intact.” The director of AEGIS sipped at a small mug of coffee that Misaki gave her on the way in. “Our initial analysis determined that while it used the same principles as our Spell Engines, the design of the mechanism is entirely focused on binding specters.”

My wife and I exchanged grim looks. The situation was rapidly headed from Bad Town to Worse Land.

“What kind of gains are we talking about here?” Misaki asked.

“The unit we recovered contained a physical astral invocation pattern, etched into a thin substrate of an as-of-yet unidentified material. The original pattern branches into one hundred twenty-eight individual binding invocations.”

My jaw dropped open. “A hundred and twenty-eight? Did you just say these Spell Engines can bind a hundred and twenty-eight specters each?”

“At this point we can't even call them Spell Engines any longer. The basis for their design made use of our data, but these devices no longer serve as a method for manipulating astral energies.” Ceres turned to face the rain-slashed back yard. “Our tech people have dubbed them 'spectral anchors.'”

Neither I nor Misaki responded for several long moments. Instead I finished my cigarette and stubbed it out, took a few sips from my cooling mug of coffee. Ceres didn't push us or rush us, but merely waited patiently while we digested the information from the memory stick.

“Did the AEGIS teams encounter any resistance when disabling the anchors?” Misaki queried.

“Minimal. All teams reported combat with a small number of weaker corrupted astral entities.” Ceres pulled herself out of the deck chair and leaned against the railing supporting the hard awning overhead. Now that I had a bit of a closer look at her, I could see she looked even more haggard and worn-out than the last time we spoke.

“It's obvious what's happening,” I murmured, my voice barely audible over the steady thrumming of the falling rain.

“We know.” The director of AEGIS tilted her head away, her eyes reddened and puffy from lack of sleep. “We discovered these purely by accident while back-tracing Valendir's activities. AEGIS has no idea how many are still out there.”

“If I had to guess… I'd say you should be thinking in the thousands.”

“We're assuming the worst-case scenario.” Ceres continued to avoid my gaze as she spoke. “You're the first person outside of the agency to know.”

I blinked, surprised. “You haven't even briefed the president?”

“Not yet. I'm heading to the White House after I leave here.”

“So you came to me first,” I mused, intrigued. That Ceres hadn't even notified the big boss spoke volumes about why she was on my sister's back porch this rainy morning. Unlike the politicians that controlled her purse strings, I didn't really believe the agency's new director considered me a threat to be dealt with or a tool to be used.

“I didn't come here to recruit you back into AEGIS.” The older woman's cheeks flushed faintly. She stopped avoiding my gaze and our eyes met, hers battle-weary but grimly determined. “I came here to—”

“Ask for my help in dealing with this problem,” I finished for her. “Unofficially, from the frightened woman sitting on my sister's back deck. Not from Director of Operations, AEGIS, code-name 'Ceres.'” It was an observation, not a question, but Ceres responded anyway.

“My real name is Sophia,” she said with a wry smile. “It's almost a code-name in of itself, isn't it? Even though my family's been citizens of this country for four generations, my mother still thought I'd have an easier life if my name was not so obviously Arabic. She was right. It's a lot easier to be named Sophia in this country than Safiya, even halfway into the twenty-first century.”

“Was that your mother's name?” Misaki asked.

“My grandmother's. I was to be named for her, but my mother didn't agree.” Ceres seemed to grow much more comfortable after revealing a bit about the person behind the office. Her sense was still tightly controlled, but I could feel her relaxing, the iron-hard defenses lowering for just a moment.

Reluctantly, I turned the conversation back to the grim matter at hand. “What do you want us to do?”

“Whatever you can,” Ceres murmured. “I don't have any illusions that we'll be able to locate all of the anchors before they're used to command an immense horde of dark spirits. We have to find them and destroy them, identify the arcane houses allied with the Pillars, locate the place where these devices are manufactured, all while maintaining order and quelling widespread panic.”

I made a derisive noise. “Oh, sure, just all of that stuff. No big deal, right? Look, if there are even just one thousand units, we're talking about over a hundred thousand specters. An army of darkness unlike any ever seen before.”

“The analysis of the anchor we recovered intact suggests they were very easy to mass-produce inexpensively.” There was only the faintest tinge of despair edging Ceres's words. I had no idea how she managed to keep it together so well. “We already know the Pillars and their allies are harvesting miasmic cores from their own bound specters. Their supply of quintessence would be virtually limitless.”

That didn't surprise me very much at all. I suspected Valendir's subverted Luna fighters obtained their MQ rounds in the same manner. Still, though… why did I feel like I was holding a puzzle piece that didn't quite fit? There was something else here, something Ceres and her people weren't seeing.

“There's something not right here.”

Misaki gave me a dubious look. “It seems pretty plain to me. The Third and Fifth Pillars are dead and Valendir was unable to drain Rika's anima. His plan is ruined and now the First Pillar intends to impose his will upon the world through more conventional means.”

I shivered as I lit yet another cigarette. A dark, shadowy chill swept through the astral flow—a too-familiar sensation. Black currents of captured mana contorted and twisted as Eirene reformed her physical body. The rain fell around her but did not touch her, sliding down the intangible surface of a spherical barrier.

“I was waiting for you to show up again,” I said, loudly enough to be heard over the drumming of the rain. “Always making the most dramatic entrances, right when things start to get their weirdest.”

rift

Without a word, Eirene walked up onto the deck and regarded the three of us with those odd eyes of hers. I took advantage of the momentary uncomfortable silence and studied the former Second Pillar of Heaven. Her physical wounds, both those inflicted by Valendir and the few she picked up in our little scrap the last time we interacted, were healed, but her mind didn't seem to be doing quite as well.

Her appearance seemed neglected. Her hair was longer than I'd ever seen it, no longer cut short and neatly styled. The curly black locks still looked glossy and healthy, but they were more unkempt. I figured she'd look just as terrible as she obviously felt, if not for the invocations that maintained her condition and healed her wounds.

“I'm a little surprised you'd come here after what happened before,” I observed, keeping my tone as level and even as I could. I still didn't feel angry with her, exactly; it was more that I remained vigilant and suspicious of her motives.

“There was no other choice.”

I didn't respond to that.

“Why are you here?” Misaki demanded, doing her best to make up for the anger I didn't feel. Her ears lay flat against her hair and she bared her small fangs, letting out a wordless low growl that was far more in keeping with her primal aspect.

Eirene ignored Misaki and turned her dull gaze upon me. “There are tasks that must be accomplished. I have come to obtain your assistance.”

“Are you fucking serious?” Misaki fixed the ancient mage with a withering glare. “After what happened in the Containment Area, you have the gall to show your face here, ignore me completely and then make demands of my wife?”

“Your outrage is both tiresome and misplaced,” Eirene snapped. “Indulge in your false delusion of human emotions or not, it is of no concern to me. I will speak with Karin of these matters regardless.”

I could physically feel Misaki heating up beside me. As much as I would have liked to let Misaki have her way, Eirene was powerful enough that fighting her was a pointless waste of effort. No matter how much I thought we could take her down together, it didn't matter because she'd just escape into the astral flow.

“Not now, love,” I murmured under my breath. Eirene could probably hear me anyway, but I didn't care. Misaki's expression reflected frustration and the overwhelming desire to protect the one she loved. I reached out and brushed the back of her hand—clenched into a fist so tight that a bit of blood seeped out from where her own nails had pierced the skin of her palm.

That simple contact stole much of Misaki's rage. Her tail started to slowly swish back and forth and her ears stood up as she calmed down. My irises deepened to a dusky orange and I regarded Eirene with a mixture of wariness and contempt.

“Sure seems like everybody needs my help,” I quipped, keeping my tone light despite the grim expressions currently on everyone's faces. “Ceres came to ask for our help, too. It seems your ex-husband is getting ready to wage war on the entire world with an army of bound specters.”

Eirene shook her head slowly. “Aestivar… the First Pillar does not desire conquest. His goal is one of transcendence, not of rulership. The angel's silver blood was only one path to his destination. Valendir's betrayal was expected and accounted for.”

“What the hell does that mean?” I demanded.

“The Fifth Pillar has always craved power and control; the corruption only intensified that desire over the centuries. The First Pillar once believed the bonds between us all would ensure loyalty to the cause, but…” She trailed off, her thin lips twisting into a warped sort of smile. “When I could no longer bear to carry the burden of slaughter and severed the link, he could no longer bear to trust anyone, even his closest allies.”

“I'm sure it was very traumatic for you,” Misaki said, sarcasm dripping from every single word. She stepped a bit closer to me, her tail lashing violently, glaring at Eirene with a mixture of contempt and disinterest. “Get to the point or go away.”

“Yes, please, getting to the point would be nice,” I added, earning an approving ear-flick from my wife. “We're all much more interested in what the First Pillar plans to do. Why the fuck would he need with a massive army of specters if he doesn't intend to take control? Besides just causing death and chaos?”

Eirene didn't answer immediately, but when she finally began speaking again, tears rolled down her cheeks. I'd never seen her cry before. It was actually a little unsettling—her sense was awash with conflicting emotions, adrift on a storm-tossed sea of despair. Misaki let out a loud, derisive yip—she didn't believe Eirene's show of emotion was genuine. Not that I could blame her.

“He will call forth a host of dark souls from across the boundary,” Eirene began, speaking slowly and softly. “Once unleashed, they will spread throughout all the earthly kingdoms, slaughtering and devouring, unfettered harbingers of torment… and the corruption will engulf all.”

I couldn't figure it. It didn't make sense, somehow. There was something missing, a piece of the puzzle that was obscured, placed just beyond my reach. Of course Eirene knew a lot more than she was letting on. Even now, when the shit was already in the air and aimed directly at the fan, she couldn't help but try to manipulate me.

But still, there was something…

I felt an odd echo, a weird resonance of my own thoughts and emotions as the sliding glass door opened. Rika stepped out onto the porch, still wearing the camisole and shorts I'd given her to sleep in. Her long pink-streaked black hair was a bit disheveled, but she looked fully awake and alert. I expected Rika to come out and join us with how much my mind was working over the problems, but I didn't expect Eirene's reaction.

Gray eyes widened, fractionally, just for an instant, before she put on a near-flawless poker face and gazed at Rika with feigned disinterest. It was a subtle reaction, one I almost missed, but it was unmistakable. The former Second Pillar was afraid of Rika.

Now wasn't that interesting?

“Good morning,” I said to Rika.

“Morning.” She smiled at me, blinking her huge blue-pink eyes. Unlike mine, the color of her irises did not shift according to her emotional state. Those otherworldly eyes locked onto Eirene and Ceres; Rika's expression darkened. “What are they doing here? Has something important happened?”

“I'm glad you woke up when you did.” Misaki hugged her from behind, her arms and tail curling around Rika warmly. The smile my wife wore was genuinely happy as she leaned against Rika's back and kissed her cheek. “You could say something important happened, yeah.”

“That feels nice.” Rika let out a contented sigh. “What's going on, though?”

Ceres hesitated, but only for a moment. I took that as a good sign she was at least trying to understand the recent and massive paradigm shifts. The older woman was smart and very sharp, but it was clear she was still struggling to understand a concept utterly alien to the human experience.

“Very well; we're going to need all the help we can get. AEGIS has located a number of devices capable of binding a large number of specters to this world,” Ceres explained. “I came here to speak with Karin and Misaki.”

Rika's head tilted quizzically. “You wanted to ask for our help?”

The director of AEGIS hesitated. “For help, yes. I didn't come back to try and bully any of you into the agency's ranks—but this is something that's going to affect everyone, and it's going to start here.”

“We don't know what the First Pillar's angle is, though,” Misaki said as she clung to Rika alone for a moment longer. Her free arm encircled my waist and drew the three of us together; I felt my cheeks flushing faintly. Far from being uncomfortable, Misaki was handling the Rika situation far better than I expected. “I mean, we know he wants to build a massive army of specters, but for what purpose? If he doesn't want to wage war and capture territory, what's the point of raising an army?”

“I don't think Aestivar wants to drown the world in a sea of blood,” I agreed. “There's something else he's trying to accomplish with this.”

Rika disengaged from the Misaki-instigated group hug and fixed Eirene with a cool stare. “You're not going to tell them? Why not? They will find out regardless.”

Eirene stiffened and she scowled, but said nothing.

“Tell us what?” Misaki growled. Her ears flattened back against her head and her tail-swishing picked up speed. Suddenly Eirene was on the defensive; it was abundantly clear that she didn't like it at all.

“I… cannot say.”

Rika shrugged and took a sip from my cooling mug of coffee. “Fine. I'll tell them. It's not actually that complicated—but it's very important if we want to stop Aestivar and preserve this instance.”

“Do not do this,” Eirene cried, sudden and intense anger flaring bright and hot—but not nearly hot enough to hide her fear. “You cannot!”

I felt a faint ripple as power woke within Eirene's astral pattern. A tendril of inky shadow shot out from the ground and wrapped itself rather gently over Rika's mouth. Those blue-pink eyes narrowed in mild annoyance as a burst of power surged through my own astral pattern—or was it Rika's?—and the shadow binding shattered like glass.

“Threats and intimidation won't help the situation.” Rika's expression darkened even further. “I know you don't care about your own existence, but that doesn't give you the right to disregard the lives of others. I'm going to tell them why because they need to know.”

Eirene said nothing, but neither did she try to silence Rika again.

“Aestivar does have an objective. To get to the Astral Terminus, he needs to pass through the boundary—but he doesn't have access rights.” Rika paused for a moment and I could tell she was attempting to translate her knowledge into terms Ceres would be able to understand. “He'll have to force his way through the boundary if he wants to leave this instance and reach the Terminus.”

Ceres blinked in confusion. “Why would he need dark spirits for that? The boundary isn't a physical thing and specters can pass through without much trouble, but we already know they can't take humans across with them.”

“It's a problem of energy requirements,” Rika answered. “It's physically impossible to force open a gate from here. The rules of this instance forbid it.” Her voice—almost, but not quite, exactly like mine—became increasingly grim as she spoke. “Aestivar wants to change the rules.”

“I'm not certain I follow,” Ceres admitted. “What do you mean when you say 'change the rules?'”

To be honest I wasn't entirely sure I understood, either, but Rika's words just seemed to fit as an answer to the question we posed. Before she could answer, however, Eirene managed to find her voice again.

“The First wishes to engulf the world in darkness so deep that evil feeds upon itself and becomes stronger and stronger. When our despair is at its greatest and the people cry out for salvation and succor, the First Pillar of Heaven will awaken the Father and He will cleanse the world of all evil, for all eternity, and bring everlasting paradise.”

So there it was. It was no wonder Eirene tried to stop me from freeing Rika. As a native of the astral realm, she knew better than anyone here what it would take to move from one world to another—and she just told us it was impossible without altering the fundamental nature of our world.

“You knew. You knew it would end up like this,” I accused. “How long? How long have you known he was planning to do something like this?”

Eirene opened her mouth to argue, but Rika fixed her with a glare so cold and hard that the thousand-year-old mage was stunned into silence. The other not-quite-me turned her attention back to the rest of us.

“Long before you ever came in contact with her,” Rika said. “Their plan has been over a hundred years in the making. The Pillars of Heaven stole the part of me that is now you, then used that piece to destroy remote terminals.”

“What—oh, you mean the demons Orn Thaal created?”

Rika nodded, casting a narrowed glare at Eirene. “It's much easier to win if one eliminates the competition. I doubt the Pillars believed their creations could destroy all points of access, but they were largely successful.”

“They certainly tried to destroy all links to the astral world,” I noted in a dark tone. “The demons ate anything that had even the smallest bit of mana in it.”

I felt a subtle shift in my emotions and knew that Rika's mind was somehow affecting mine. Anxiety seemed to drain away and I felt a sense of calm, logical deliberation permeate my consciousness.

“They did try, but as you discovered, it was a diversion. Biological terminals were never a threat to the Pillars' goals. Only the 'Relic' systems were capable of enabling full access to the Terminus—and only via local links.”

“So that leaves us with the boundary,” Ceres murmured. “Its permeability has varied over time, and is more porous now than it has been for centuries… but…”

“It remains an impassable obstacle,” Misaki finished for her. One of her ears flicked a few times as a drop of rainwater made its way through the deck's awning and fell on her head. “What I still don't understand is what a gigantic army of specters has to do with any of this.”

Rika's blue-pink gaze focused on my wife. “For the same reason that you can even exist at all. What is drawn across the boundary isn't constrained by the rules of this instance. By saturating your world with an immense quantity of miasma, it will be possible to break those same rules.”

Neither my wife nor I had anything to remark. Rika's words resonated within the part of me that was her, but even without the odd and sometimes disconcerting sharing of consciousness, I would've still agreed.

It's why we called astral manipulation “magic” in the first place; the ability to perform acts that defy the known laws of nature. Magic was the art of the impossible, a mystical and unknown force, the supernatural made manifest. The ability to call forth and mentally shape this power to our will… it definitely seemed like sorcery, like the power of gods wielded by mortals. The power to make miracles in the Biblical sense, which was definitely how the Pillars saw it.

That was all bullshit, though. It wasn't “magical” at all, but pieces of a foreign universe drawn into our own, warping reality as we knew it. When we invoked astral energies, the effects were localized because we used such a small amount, just what little seeped through the boundary and into our world.

I turned to the former Second Pillar. Eirene's drawn, tired face was expressionless, but it wasn't that difficult to tell how unsettled she truly was.

“You were going to let him do it,” I accused, keeping my tone cool and level. “You were going to keep us all in the dark, let Aestivar infect the entire world, killing or corrupting billions of people in the most horrible way imaginable. Why?”

Eirene looked away. “To… to uplift all, so that no one person will have the power to enslave another ever again. You are to be the harbinger of mankind's transcendence, an ephemeral goddess of evolution. You will break bonds, shatter locks, destroy keys and create a new Eden, an endless paradise where all souls are equal.”

I was too stunned to speak or even think, but I felt a warm, comforting hand placed against my shoulder—Rika's hand. She took a step forward, toward Eirene. The ancient mage shrank away from her in fear.

“You knew Karin wouldn't do this by choice,” Rika stated. “So you sought to force the choice upon her.”

“There is no other way! A pure soul must transcend, else the power will always remain a temptation to evil! You must do this, no matter how steep the cost. Even if billions of people die, you will save yet billions more—”

“Stop. Now.”

I stared at Eirene with the same expression I usually reserved for murderers, rapists, child abusers and corrupt politicians. I knew she had her own agenda this whole time and I figured it was at least partially self-serving. After Blondie let slip his motivations during the heated argument after killing Orn Thaal, I figured Eirene was grooming me to be the one to reach the Terminus.

Why me, though? Why was I the one she wanted? Was I just convenient, then? A perfect patsy, an unwitting pawn who just so happened to have a True Relic drop into her hands. I was an outsider looking in, someone who knew nothing about the world I'd inadvertently become a part of.

“I'm no 'chosen one.' You could have used literally anyone bound to a Relic, but you picked me—why? Was it because I didn't know anything? Did you just need an ignorant outsider, a pawn you could easily move up and down the board?” My voice was bitter, but I found the expected surge of anger to be strangely absent—more of Rika's influence, no doubt.

Eirene didn't say anything, but I didn't really need her to. I knew the score now. We all did.

“I may be clueless, but I'm not the puppet you seem to think I am,” I said, my voice calm and even, but filled with icy determination. “I—no, we are not going to be your tools any longer, nor the government's, nor any arcane house's. We're not going to play someone else's game any longer.” I stepped forward, next to both Rika and Misaki, and fixed Eirene with a challenging stare.

“That's right.” Misaki grinned fiercely, baring her small fangs. “This is our game now.”

“And we're going to change the rules,” Rika added.

“This is the world I live in, the world my family lives in and I'd like us to keep on living in it. If Aestivar wants to turn the world into a literal Hell on Earth, he's going to have to get through us first.”

.

about the author

Hi there! My name is Corinn Heathers, and I'm the author!

Most about-the-author blurbs are written in the third person, but I find it tiresome and dull to do so. So here it is, from the top: I'm a lesbian trans woman, a fairly girly girl, a gigantic nerd who loves role-playing games, visual novels, the occasional anime or manga… oh, and I'm an author of speculative fiction based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

I love to write science fiction and fantasy, or science fantasy fiction, or science fiction masquerading as fantasy and everything in between. As you might have noticed, I write stories with predominately female and queer casts, often with mixed-race or otherwise non-white protagonists and supporting characters.

Celestial Paradigm is the fourth installment in my urban fantasy series, Dawn of a New Astral Age. I've also written stories in my space opera series, Binary System. I've also published multiple short stories; two in anthologies published by Skipjack Publishing, as well as a guest author contribution to my fellow author and close friend K.J. Russell's debut dark fantasy tale, The Dusty Man.

Readers can connect with me through my Twitter account, @syn010110, or by following my Facebook author page (facebook.com/corinn.writes.stuff), though I'm not the most active social-media butterfly. I also maintain a public email account that readers can use to contact me if they wish (corinn.writes.stuff@gmail.com), which I check reasonably often.