Chapter 17

Sister Halcyon arrived to find the Unclaimed already gathered in the waiting area, the group standing in loose clusters. Pyre stood beside Balefor, arms folded, posture stiff in a way that had nothing to do with readiness and everything to do with irritation.

He expected Marrowsven to be with them. Instead, she stood several paces away and hadn’t spoken to the pair all morning, as if she had forgotten slipping through the city with Pyre and Balefor the night before. Balefor had even tried to strike up conversation over breakfast, only to be met with a silence that felt deliberate, final.

“In yet another first of many steps you will be taking,” Sister Halcyon told the group, “today, you will meet recruiters from several of the factions. This is informal and informational, and it is not compulsory for you to pledge an oath to them, nor should you.”

She leveled her gaze at the eight.

“I mean that part. It is too early for oaths. This is both a courtesy for them and a courtesy for you so that you will make a better choice when the time comes. Stabilization before allegiance is how we usually frame it. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get a sponsorship. In fact, we encourage this. They are very different things, an oath and sponsorship, even if the latter generally leads to the former.”

Windscar made a sound with his throat but didn’t say anything else as Sister Halcyon continued:

“Keep your Domain Trial at the forefront of your mind. And remember, they are courting you, and they will lie about each other to win your favor. They may ignore some of you entirely,” she said, eyes jumping past Pyre, “but that doesn’t mean anything. The proof will be passing your Domain Trial, even if you are sponsored by then. Come.”

Sister Halcyon led them down the same corridor Pyre had walked the night before, then through a different door that gave way to an open-air pathway sheltered by intricately carved pergolas.

The Font of Eternity loomed in the distance.

Pyre felt it immediately, a deep, instinctive pull low in his chest, and he hated it. He did not need to understand the Font of Eternity’s power to know what it represented—that it had stood worshiped by factions while Farreach burned. The thought left him hollow with bitterness.

Sister Halcyon and the Eight Unclaimed soon reached a private, outdoor space enclosed by tall walls of smoky crystal. The sky above was fully exposed, an endless expanse where fragments of other realms drifted like constellations.

Stone platforms dotted the plaza floor in a deliberate arrangement, each placed intentionally, spaced far enough apart to isolate yet close enough to compare.

Before them stood the recruiters.

They did not form a unified front, each faction occupying its own space along the plaza’s edge, banners unfurled, colors vivid and symbolic. The legations consisted of two figures: one bearing the banner, the other watching.

As Pyre remained there with the other Unclaimed, he felt the recruiter’s attention settle on him like a weight.

“I just realized I’ve been cooped up for far too long,” Kesh said from Pyre’s right, breaking his attention. The bard grinned broadly at the assembled observers as if this were a festival rather than an evaluation. He took a breath of the outside air. “I say we ignore their scrutinizing faces. They are merely here to judge us, which leads me to believe we should judge them back.”

“Not a bad idea,” Balefor said as Sister Halcyon stopped at a point between the recruiters and the Unclaimed.

She turned back to Pyre and the others. “Today, we are joined by the Luminous Concord,” she said, motioning to the pair at the far end.

They were dressed in white and gold, their robes immaculate, faces serene in a way that felt carefully maintained. Light clung to them unnaturally, softening edges, blurring seams. Their banner shimmered beside them, light bending around its sigil in a way that invited reverence at the same time it expected it.

That’s Lady Freja’s faction, Pyre thought, remembering the woman who had guided them last night.

“As well as the Radiant Fold,” Sister Halcyon said, gesturing to a pair in plated armor, one human and the other a beastman.

They wore plated armor instead of robes, one a human and the other a broad-shouldered beast-man with an ursine cast to his features, the man’s grizzly hand gripping a banner marked with a pair of golden pyramids. Enormous halos hovered just behind their heads, not resting on flesh but suspended in place, radiating a crushing brilliance.

Windscar’s gaze flicked across the banners, then the figures themselves. “What about the Mercy Apostles?” he asked lightly.

Sister Halcyon glanced at him, unimpressed. “The Mercy Apostles would never recruit so openly.”

“And the Heavenly Host?” Pyre asked, figuring it was worth a shot and hoping to be able to openly challenge them.

The response was immediate. Members of both the Luminous Concord and the Radiant Fold scoffed, the sound sharp and openly dismissive. They were not alone. Across the gathering, others reacted in kind, derisive laughs, narrowed eyes, a few even cursing in open contempt. Whatever divisions existed between the factions, disdain for the Heavenly Host was one thing they seemed to share.

“The Heavenly Host don’t generally visit Unclaimed before they have proven themselves,” Sister Halcyon told Pyre, clinical as always. “No more questions. Moving on, we have the Coven.” She motioned to the next pair.

Both members of the Coven were unmistakably demonic, with horns curling back from their brows and eyes burning a deep, predatory red. Their black robes drank in the light of the plaza, and the banner they carried displayed a triskelion of barbed arms.

Sister Halcyon continued, gesturing to a shadowy wisp that barely held a humanoid shape and a woman with an unnaturally long neck, her black dress clinging like it had been poured onto her. “Hectacomb,” she said.

The woman’s elongated neck craned as she held a narrow black banner rimmed in red and fixed to a glaive-like haft, her gaze raking the Unclaimed with naked contempt. The wisp at her side shifted constantly, its outline collapsing and reforming, darkness knitting itself back together as it maintained a black banner with an even darker skull knitted onto it.

“And the Butcher’s Court.” Sister Halcyon guided the gaze of the Unclaimed to a pair dressed in white, the fabric speckled and stained as if by old blood rather than dye. Their sleeves were rolled back, hands bare and steady, fingers thick and scarred in ways that spoke of cutting and separation. One had a simple banner made of white cloth stained red; the other stood with his hands clasped before him, knuckles raw and darkened, as though he had only just finished his work.

Definitely the demonic factions, Pyre thought.

“Then we have the Farbound Delegation,” Sister Halcyon said.

A man and a woman stepped forward, both with long white hair and skirted armor polished to a muted sheen. The man wore his hair bound back from a neatly kept beard, his smile courteous but measured. The woman mirrored him almost exactly, her own smile sharp in the same restrained way, her banner with a mirror-like sheen to it.

“Beside them are the Last Flags.”

One recruiter bore the horned head of a goat, the other the sinuous lower body of a serpent beneath a human woman’s frame. They looked less like curiosities and more like remnants, shaped by eras that no longer named themselves. Their banner hung between them, heavy and scarred, its frayed edges whispering of wars carried forward long after the reasons for them had been forgotten.

“Lastly, we have the Named Mothers.” Sister Halcyon directed their attention to a pair of muscled women with braided hair, their loose robes cinched with red belts and gold buckles. They stood wide and grounded, gray and yellow banners draped across their shoulders like ceremonial sashes, worn with practiced ease. “Step onto your platforms and summon your Sigils.”

Pyre felt the imbalance immediately as he did what he was told.

The Unclaimed were expected to reveal themselves, and the factions would decide whether that revelation was worth acknowledging. As the familiar warmth gathered in his palm, Pyre felt the truth lock into place. In Aevum, being useful was a one-way arrangement.

As it always did, Pyre’s Sigil answered him the moment he focused. The broken black blade formed in his hand, weight settling into his palm as flames climbed its fractured length. Fire gathered along the jagged edge, rolling upward until it crested into a plume that bent and twisted as if alive. Heat radiated outward, subtle but undeniable, the air around the platform shimmering faintly.

Several recruiters shifted their stance, heads turning to him, banners fluttering as if reacting to a change in pressure.

Yet none of them approached. Pyre kept his blade ready, the heat of it a small comfort as he realized he was no longer being tested, only appraised.

The realization burned hot in Pyre’s chest. He adjusted his grip, jaw tightening, suddenly aware of how stiff and performative he must look—blade raised, posture fixed, waiting to be weighed against the others.

Worse, he could feel the attention sliding away from him altogether, the focus drifting elsewhere as if he were no longer worth watching.

The recruiters from the Luminous Concord skipped past Urosh and went immediately for Balefor, their movements smooth and confident. They spoke to him quietly, gesturing at his greataxe as he held it steady, shoulders squared, mane falling down his back like a banner of its own.

Balefor responded easily, nodding along, looking every inch the good recruit they expected him to be with a Domain like Conquest.

Marrowsven drew interest as well, especially from the demonic factions. Hectacomb drifted toward her, its shadowy form coiling closer, while the woman with the long neck approached from the opposite side. The Butcher’s Court followed, the recruiters speaking in low, whispery tones, a menacing nature to the way they stood on the balls of their feet.

Her expression never changed. Marrowsven’s bone blade remained summoned, translucent but sharp, her posture loose in a way that suggested she could move at any moment.

Recruiters from the Radiant Fold, the Coven, and the Last Flags clustered around Windscar. Their attention was intense, voices layered over one another as they spoke, made promises, and offered bargains, each clearly intent on claiming his focus.

Windscar stood tall above them, crescent blade steady in his hand, a faint smile tugging at his mouth. He looked exactly like someone who had known this moment was coming his entire life.

Near him, the Named Mothers stood before Saejin, speaking quietly to one another as his disc-eye hovered in place. Saejin remained still, eyes closed, expression calm, as if the entire exchange was happening at a distance he alone could perceive.

The Farbound Delegation were the last to act. Pyre watched them begin to move, expecting them to stop before another of the Unclaimed, only to realize they were heading straight for him.

They observed him for a time, heads inclined toward one another, whispering to one another in a way that made Pyre acutely aware of how much was being decided without him present. The man with long white hair spoke first. “Pyre of Farreach. You are the one who appeared with a completely formed Sigil.”

“And you do fit our common recruitment strategy,” the woman added.

Pyre blinked, caught off guard by how quickly they’d gone from disinterest to analysis. “How so?”

“We recruit souls from shattered frontier realms.” She clicked her tongue softly. “But your Domain… your Domain is of no use to us. Defiance? Let’s move on, Wilmar,” she told her counterpart. “There is a wrongness here that will not serve us.”

The word wrongness hit harder than any insult he’d heard since arriving in Aevum. Pyre felt it instinctively, the flare of heat in his grip answering his reaction. The flame along the blade surged brighter, higher, as if offended on his behalf.

“No,” the older man said, studying the Sigil with narrowed eyes. “It could be useful.”

She glanced at him. “Useful how? We’ve seen Domains like Fervor and Conviction before. They don’t hold a line when the Deep Nether starts folding in on itself.”

“That depends on who’s holding them,” he replied.

She shook her head. “What we need is so,mething tuned for battle. You know as well as I do what the Deep Nether demands. This,” she said, opening her palm toward Pyre, “is volatile.”

The man considered that for a moment, then nodded once. “Fair enough. There are others worth speaking to.”

They turned away.

“Wait,” Pyre called after them. The word came out sharper than he intended, edged with something raw.

The two paused, glancing back at him.

“Yes?” the man asked.

“You know of my Domain, where I’m from, that my realm was destroyed by the Hunger,” Pyre said. “You recruit people from places similar to mine, yes?”

“What are you getting at?” the man asked.

“Who among us comes from a place like Farreach? Surely you didn’t just come for me.”

“Farreach?” the woman asked.

“My home,” Pyre said. “In what was apparently a frontier realm.”

“Ah.” The man nodded slowly. “You are asking which of the Unclaimed come from a realm that has died like yours. Well, you could always ask your peers, but sometimes there are those who aren’t as friendly or forthcoming as others.” He lifted a hand to Lyra, who stood on her platform with her crown overhead and her duplicate poised beside her. “That one. She comes from a realm like that. Or it is like that now.”

“And it is your goal to stop the Hunger?” Pyre asked. “That’s why you’d recruit someone like me? Like her?”

The two exchanged glances. “Hardly,” the woman told Pyre sharply. “The Hunger is named so because of its nature. We merely play our roles in benefiting from its insatiable nature.”

Then they turned away, the conversation finished as abruptly as it had begun.

Pyre noticed his Sigil’s flames flare quickly and recede, the surge of heat giving way to a hollow, unsettled chill.

The Hunger destroyed my realm, and then it just moved on and destroyed hers right after?

How quickly does this take place? he wondered, the thought unsettling him deeply.

Pyre looked at Lyra, really looked at her now, at the way she held herself—controlled, guarded, as if she’d already accepted something he was only beginning to understand.

When he looked up again, Sister Halcyon stood at the chamber’s center, observing in silence. The Unclaimed continued to be weighed and sorted, while Pyre stood there alone, not quite shunned, but certainly ignored.