"How are you talking to me right now?" Ant said, before he'd fully thought the question through. "You died hundreds of years ago."
"I am not entirely certain how I died," Adran said. "What I do know is that I went to check on the egg. My clan had watched for it a long time. I carried our clan's artifact with me, intending to scan it properly once I arrived. Something struck me from behind before I had the chance, though not by any physical means. I felt my soul leave my body, and somehow it attached itself to both the artifact and the egg at once."
None of it fit together properly in Ant's head yet. Hundreds of years. A soul, split between a device and an egg that had somehow ended up in a wasteland cave for Ant to find as a young man with nothing else left to lose. He didn't have the space to make sense of it right now, and he resented that more than he expected to.
The egg, Mahkir sent, quiet enough that Ant almost missed it under everything else happening in his head. He means me. Doesn't he.
Ant didn't have an answer for that yet either.
"Where is the artifact now," Ant asked. "Do you know?"
Adran kept going before answering that either.
"I do not think this is the right time for this conversation, not while the battle remains unfinished." Adran paused, shorter this time. "What I do know is that upgrading your system has let more of my consciousness through to speak with you. I believe Mahkir's evolution left enough room for my memories to come through as well. Until this moment, I did not know who I was myself." He paused again. "As I said, now is not the time."
He's right, Mahkir sent. Whatever this is, it isn't going anywhere. Finish the fight first.
A sharp cough from Kalsar snapped Ant's attention back to the battlefield, noise and smoke and the ground under his feet all reasserting themselves at once. Smoke still rose off the scorched patches where the storm had landed, and bodies lay everywhere between the kneeling survivors, more of them Marigolds' than not.
Rowan reached him a moment later, blood on his hands that wasn't his own, exhaustion written into every line of his face. "A hundred and forty of ours dead, near enough, people and Kithren together. Another thirty in a bad enough state that I'm not confident about any of them yet. Maybe a hundred and ten more hurt in some way that'll heal given time and rest." He didn't soften any of it, didn't wait for Ant to ask either. "You needed to know before you did anything else."
A hundred and forty people who'd followed him into this fight and wouldn't be walking home from it. He'd led them here. Every one of those deaths belonged to him now, and nothing about tonight had prepared him to hear that number all at once. He looked out at the fighters still on their knees, weapons already dropped in the dirt.
Ant pointed to a man he guessed was one of the ones still giving orders a minute ago. "You there, where's the leader of this clan."
The man looked at Ant, said nothing, and tipped his head toward one of the buildings further back, a low stone structure set apart from the rest of the camp with its own wall around it.
"That one," Kalsar said, already moving. "Course it's the one with its own fence."
Ant motioned for Natalia, Andy, and Kalsar to follow, Mahkir falling into step beside him without needing to be asked. Maren would normally have come for something like this, but she needed to be with Axel right now, and Ant wasn't going to argue with that. Rebekah fell in alongside them without being asked, clearly not fully satisfied with taking a stranger's word for anything.
The walk across the compound took longer than Ant expected, weaving between clusters of surrendered fighters and the ongoing work of separating the wounded from the dead. Nobody stopped them. Nobody so much as looked up long enough to try.
"You think he's actually in there," Natalia said, quiet, "or is this someone's idea of buying time."
"Only one way to find out," Kalsar said.
I don't like this, Mahkir sent. Too quiet for a building this close to the fighting.
Noted, Ant sent back. Stay close.
The building turned out to be some kind of study. Books were everywhere, some lying open where they'd been left, others stacked in careful, deliberate piles that looked nothing like the chaos of the rest of the room. Shelves lined every wall floor to ceiling, most of them full, a few gaps where volumes had been pulled and never returned. A single lamp burned low on the desk, the only real light in the room besides what came through one narrow window. The air smelled of old paper and candle wax, nothing like the smoke and blood still hanging over the rest of the compound outside. At the desk sat a small man, somewhere in his forties, partly bald, thick glasses low on his nose as he read. An owl sat perched at his shoulder, perfectly still, watching the five of them with far more attention than its handler was currently sparing.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Ant made a noise in his throat. The man raised one finger without looking up, a clear enough request to wait. Ant glanced back at the others. Natalia just shrugged. Rebekah's hand hadn't left the grip of her bow.
"Are you the leader of this clan?" Ant asked.
The man set the book down, sighed, and looked properly at the four of them for the first time. His eyes moved over each of them in turn, lingering longest on Mahkir, before coming back to rest on Ant. Whatever he saw didn't seem to surprise him much. "And what," he said, "you assumed that because I'm not a fighter, I couldn't possibly lead a clan this strong? You assumed strength was the only thing that qualifies someone?"
"I never said that," Ant answered, more defensive than he meant to sound.
"You didn't have to. I could see it on your face." He folded his hands on the desk, clearly enjoying himself and making no effort to hide it. "Yes, I'm the leader of Marigolds. And since you obviously came in here with only half a picture of who you're dealing with, let me finish it for you."
He nodded toward Kalsar first. "Kalsar, four-time arena champion, retired at the height of it rather than let age take the title from him instead. Master-at-Arms for Oath of Defiance now, though you held Deputy once too, before the Blackthorn merger moved that title along to someone else." His attention moved on. "Natalia, once led Blackthorn herself, and led it well enough that her people followed her into a merger most clan leaders would never have survived proposing. Deputy of Oath of Defiance now, and the better half of whatever holds that clan together, if I had to guess."
He turned to Rebekah next, his expression sharpening. "Rebekah, leader of the unclanned guilds, a fact I'd wager nobody standing in this room knew about her until just now." He let that sit a moment before continuing. "And Anthony Byrren, formerly of Silverwing, now leading Oath of Defiance himself." He tapped one finger against the desk, drawing it out. "Who am I missing. Ah yes, Andy, once a training officer for the Imperial Guard, removed from the Emperor's side over theories nobody there wanted to hear. I imagine even his own clan never got the full version of that story until tonight."
Nobody said anything for a moment.
How does he know all of that? Mahkir sent, the growl underneath it barely held back. We only just walked in.
I don't know, Ant sent back. I don't like it either.
"Well," Kalsar said eventually. "That's unsettling."
Ant looked at Rebekah first, and the change in her was immediate enough to notice even without looking for it. The easy confidence she carried into everything was gone, replaced by something careful and closed off. On any other day she'd have turned this into a joke inside a heartbeat, some quip about being found out or a wink daring him to ask more. There was none of that in her now. "Rebekah, what's he talking about," Ant asked, keeping it as gentle as he could manage.
"Not now," she said, quiet in a way Ant had never once heard from her. "Later, I promise."
He let it go. Whatever it was, it clearly wasn't going to come out standing in a stranger's study with a battle barely finished outside.
Andy took his turn without being asked. "It wasn't theories nobody wanted to hear," he said, the words coming slow, each one chosen before he let it out. "It was one theory. About the return of Mahkyros. The dragon who fought alongside the mages against the Wraithkin, back when the world still needed that kind of help. King of all beasts, some called him. A Kithren before there was any such thing as a Kithren." He went quiet for a moment, longer than the pause needed. "I said it to the wrong man in the wrong room, and he decided I'd said too much." He didn't offer anything past that, and nobody pushed him for it, not with the man behind the desk still watching all four of them work through it in real time.
Natalia's eyes moved between Rebekah and Andy, then settled on Ant, some unspoken agreement passing between the three of them that this conversation wasn't over, just delayed. She didn't say anything about it out loud. There wasn't room for it right now, and all four of them seemed to understand that without needing to be told twice.
"Interesting," the man said, "that none of you knew any of that already."
"You were the mistake that was never meant to happen." He turned to Ant. "The people in charge made sure you didn't bond, made sure you became a nobody, and yet here you are, with a Kithren, and not just any Kithren. The one people made certain would never be allowed to exist at all."
What is he talking about? Mahkir's voice came through low and taut.
I don't know yet, Ant sent back. Let me work it out.
Ant knew his confusion was showing before he could stop it. "What do you mean? Who are these people you're talking about? Why would anyone want Mahkir to never hatch?"
The man's eyebrows rose slightly. "You mean to tell me that after all this time, you still haven't worked out who's been trying to stop you at every turn? Who kept you from bonding during your ceremony? Who's commanding us, me, Nathan, leader of the Marigolds clan, to destroy your clan from within, even now? Are you really that dense?"
Kalsar's hand had drifted to his weapon without seeming to notice it had. Andy hadn't moved at all, eyes fixed on Nathan the same way they fixed on any Kithren he was reading, taking in details the rest of them couldn't see yet. Rebekah had gone very quiet again, her earlier unease folding into something sharper now that the conversation had turned toward Ant directly.
Ant forced himself to actually think it through rather than react to the insult. He'd never known of any real enemies, not the kind capable of something on this scale. Kris, maybe, but if Kris had been the one behind all of it, he'd have simply killed Ant when he was young rather than settle for the plan he'd actually run, which had never been to kill him at all but to force him into a life without a Kithren instead. Whoever had done that needed something else, such as opportunity, resources, or the kind of reach that could touch a bonding ceremony and never be traced back to it. Someone with standing inside Silverwing itself, close enough to the ceremony to interfere without ever being questioned about it.
He knew the answer now, and for a moment he didn't want to say it. Wanting it not to be true had never once made anything untrue before, and he doubted tonight was going to be the exception.
Ant worked it out, and it must have shown on his face, because Nathan laughed.
Ant? Mahkir pressed, the low taut edge in his voice sharpening. Say it out loud. I don't like watching you go quiet like this.
"So maybe not so dense after all." He leaned back in his chair, a thin satisfaction settling into the corners of his mouth. "The ones responsible for this were, indeed, the Silverwing clan."