Chapter 24

“Step One: Locate the cause of the incursion and eliminate it with prejudice. Step Two: Drive eidolons back to the primary incursion point. Step Three: Force eidolons back through the primary incursion point. Step Four: Seal the incursion point. Step Five: Eliminate all remaining eidolons with prejudice. Step Six: Administer humanitarian aid to locals. Step Seven: Identify conditions that allowed for the incursion to be created. Step Eight: Eliminate those conditions with extreme prejudice. Step Nine: Determine if existing structures of governance contributed to the conditions that allowed the incursion to be created. Step Ten: Eliminate all structures of governance that led to the incursion. Step Eleven: Disseminate educational materials to ensure future sterilization. Step Twelve: Schedule routine visits to ensure continued sterility. 

If Step One fails: destroy the planet from orbit. If Step Two fails: destroy the planet from orbit. If Step Three fails: destroy the planet from orbit. If Step Four fails: destroy the planet from orbit. If Step Five fails: extract survivors and destroy the planet from orbit. If Step Six fails: establish the cause of the failure and eliminate it. If Steps Seven through Eight fail: establish an ongoing Ardent garrison on the planet to head off issues as they arise. If Step Nine through Ten fail: destroy all existing systems and install an Empyrean governor, supported by an Ardent garrison. If Step Eleven fails: destroy all existing systems and install an Empyrean governor, supported by an Ardent garrison. If Step Twelve fails: establish an outpost to maintain surveillance over the planet.”

—Incursion Protocol, General Wartback

Vaelith didn’t look happy, but then she never did. “What do we know?”

Rania gestured up at the prophecy. “The Starbreaker is a mage, gifted, powerful; they experienced tragedy in their life, underwent certain metamorphoses, and were embroiled in warfare.”

Vaelith stared at her blankly. “What do we know that doesn’t apply to everyone we know?”

“The Starbreaker can end the eidolon threat.” Malachai rejoined the conversation. “The exact mechanism that they use isn’t clear yet, but we’re trying to gather more information.”

Still looking more than a little distressed after receiving the full weight of Vaelith’s glare, Rania pushed on. “The Aions seemed to have concerns about the wrong people gaining access to information about the Starbreaker when they were disseminating their vaults, so what they have provided has been fragmentary. We need to assemble the information from across multiple vaults to provide us with the full picture. And some of those vaults have been locked until now.”

Kerbo perked up at this information. “The Aions had them on some sort of timer, so they only opened once the incursion started?”

“In a manner of speaking? There were certain vaults that could only be opened when brought into contact with a specific mage’s signature or a specific eidolon’s. So while the vault itself wasn’t on a timer, it could only be opened once that person was born or the eidolon broke through and was brought there. Assuming that the Aions had foreknowledge of when and where these events would happen… it’s complicated.” 

Sylvas had expected to do a lot more of the talking in this meeting, and he was finding himself oddly charmed by Rania doing it all for him. If he’d been speaking, it would have been his opinion, his interpretation of what was happening, and how they should fix it. But no matter how rough and tumble her life before meeting him might have been, Rania was fundamentally an academic, and she spoke with the full weight of a lifetime of study behind every word.

“So your plan is to…pursue these vaults?” Vaelith had turned her stare to Sylvas now. The eidolon duplicate of Sylvas that he was now occupying, since his original body was still engaged in a race with Kaya to see who could consume the most food on the buffet table.

He shrugged his shoulders. “We can fight the eidolons. We can win battles. But the only way we win the war is to end the incursions permanently.” 

“Then shouldn’t that mean focusing on these temple worlds that reappeared?” Vaelith queried. “By your own account, that seems to be where they are breaking through. If we can seal or destroy them…”

“We might limit the damage, yes,” Rania said as she came to his rescue. “But how many temple worlds are there? We don’t even know. Not with communication down. Not without any way to get around. Even if this mythical Starbreaker doesn’t exist, the information we gather about how the Aions believed the eidolons could be defeated may still prove invaluable. Might help us make better choices in where we focus.”

Vaelith actually seemed to be at a loss for words at that reply, her eyes dropping down to the table in thought. Kerbo glanced at her expectantly, clearly waiting for something more, only to start speaking when she didn’t, “So, where do you need to go to find one of these vaults?”

Sylvas cast his own illusion from memory, the star map to the vault that would be opened by the presence of the eidolon Strife. The one that Bael had betrayed him for a chance to access. “This planet, Leitnir 7. It’s on the border with the Obsidian Dominion, but our sources indicate that it should have a Starbreaker vault.”

“Your sources,” Vaelith said softly. “You mean the seekers?”

This was always going to be a sticking point. But even so, Sylvas nodded. “Yes. Bael gave us the location.”

“From the traitor himself. Even better.” The instructor’s typical scowl returned. “So it’s a trap?”

“Might be,” Kaya said between mouthfuls of crab. 

“But we need to go anyway,” Sylvas added. “There’s a strong chance it will have what we’re looking for.”

Kerbo couldn’t help but bristle a little at the plan, which admittedly was starting to look rather ambitious. “What we need to be doing is to report back to command. You know. To let them know that we’re not dead after that planet they left us on came apart at the seams. Adding onto that, we don’t have the authority to simply pursue our own goals in a crisis like this.”

“You mean the Ardent does not have the authority,” Malachai corrected calmly. “As we are agents of Empyrean Intelligence now, we don’t answer to anyone but the Council, and they have given us our mandate. You are, of course, welcome to come with us or leave at your leisure.”

“That, well, I mean,” Kerbo started to reply, only to look towards Vaelith in askance. “Help?”

“They are right,” the woman stated simply as she looked back at the man and shrugged. “And so are you.”

She paused for a moment in thought before abruptly rising to her feet, Kerbo doing the same after a moment. “Usual protocol dictates that we would try to report in to the nearest command post. However, this incursion is anything but usual. I think that the best course is to discuss our options with the rest of the Ardent, and let you know our plans when we arrive at the Dusont Cluster.”

And with that, the pair left the meeting, exiting thorough the far room door.

“I wonder if they will choose to accompany us,” Malachai voiced the moment that they were gone.

Kaya was the first to answer, though after belching delicately into a napkin. “Honestly, boneboy, what difference does it make?”

“Regardless of your personal power, wars are not won by individuals; they are won through alliances. As enemies of the eidolons, the Ardent are naturally our first and best allies within the Empyrean’s factions.”

“Second best, surely?” Simeon piped up. “Given that you have your own family to count on, too?”

Rania cleared her throat. “And the Hammerheart Consortium. And the Seekers, if you choose to call on them.”

“The Seekers are not trustworthy allies,” Malachai was quick to reply.

“We all want the same thing. We all want to survive this.” Rania then asked with a soft smile, “Doesn’t that make everyone our natural ally?”

Mira let out a snort in between gulps of sparkling wine. “If only people were smart enough to realize that squabbling in the face of the apocalypse is a bad idea.”

Rania looked from Mira, occupying Sylvas’ body, to the secondary body he had manifested using the eidolon. “We really need to get your bodily autonomy fixed. This whole situation is very confusing.”

“Mira behaves herself normally. She’s just…” He trailed off.

Malachai concluded, “A spoiled brat who wanted to eat empress crab and butter sauce.” 

Sylvas opened his mouth to defend her, but he really couldn’t.

Mira glanced around them all, pouted, and then opened her arms out wide. Sylvas felt a tug, and abruptly, he was back in his own body again, profoundly unsettled with the ease with which his other half could fling him around as she wished.

That’s absolutely correct, darling. You are my loyal servant for all time, at my beck and call for eternity, and don’t you forget it.

He shuddered before he could regain control of himself.

Just kidding, darling. Probably.

Finally sensing a gap in the conversation wide enough for him to wedge his way in, Simeon sat up. “Now that all that nonsense is out of the way, why don’t you catch me up on all the latest gossip, dear nephew.”

“Gossip?” Malachai replied flatly.

“Yes, of course! I’m interested to hear all about your new friends and your new job working directly under the Empyrean High Council. My goodness, there is so much that you’ve been up to since the last time that we spoke.”

Subtle.

Now that Simeon had realized that Malachai was, in fact, directly reporting to the Council, he was trying to leverage it for information. Why bother with a spy when you have a nephew in the room where the big decisions are being made.

“We have been pursuing leads pertaining to the matter of eidolons and Aions since our departure from the Ardent. Albeit indirectly. The time that we have spent in direct consultation with the High Council has been limited, though I’m sure Sylvas might be able to tell you more of their inner workings, given the length of the audiences he was granted.”

It was a bit of a cheap tactic, trying to unload his uncle onto Sylvas and hoping that the earlier rudeness might keep the worst of it at bay, but if there was one thing that they’d underestimated about Malachai’s uncle, it was the man’s audacity.

“Is that so?” Simeon forced a smile. “The former king knows a little something about rubbing shoulders with the rich and powerful. How surprising.”

Rania leaned over to Kaya and whispered with a lot less subtlety than she thought, “Did you know he used to be a king?”

Kaya shrugged, licking sauce off her fingers. “Wouldn’t hold it against him if I did know, but it never came up.”

They were stuck in close proximity with Malachai’s uncle throughout almost the entire journey back to the Dusont Cluster. When even Kaya had eaten and drunk her fill, they were shuffled along to an orchestral performance in a section near the rear of the ship that had been retrofitted from a cargo bay into an elaborate theater. The Dusont family were big fans of stringed instruments, it seemed, and while much of the nuance of the music was probably lost on Sylvas and Kaya, both Rania and Malachai looked surprisingly moved by the performance. Simeon, if he’d ever had emotions genuine enough to experience that sort of response to art, had long since drunk them away.

From there, they were invited to an afterparty to welcome Malachai back into the fold, and there wasn’t really any way to get out of it without resorting to the kind of outright rudeness that Sylvas was trying to avoid. Kaya may have been right that they didn’t strictly need the Ardent as allies anymore, but they definitely needed the Dusont Kingdom. Without a ship, they would be worse than useless, and regardless of how uncomfortable with the Dusonts Malachai might have been, they were still clearly a very important part of his life.

There was no more of the sparkling wine when they sequestered themselves in the spacious lounge of Simeon’s chambers aboard the ship. Instead, they had switched to something that had been introduced as Isther Brandy. It looked almost entirely like water at first glance, but when the light caught it at an angle, it shimmered with the same pearlescence that the Dusont family seemed to like to spread on everything related to them. To Sylvas’ untrained palette, it didn’t taste any different from whiskey, if a little bit sweeter, with a hint of burnt sugar somewhere in its makeup, but everyone else seemed to be enjoying it greatly.

The alcohol content is fairly high even for liquor, so they may be enjoying that aspect of it. An aspect that you are sadly incapable of experiencing, darling. Which I have to tell you made my little binge-drinking session earlier considerably less fun than it should have been.

Sylvas spoke softly into his glass, “I’m not ready to talk to you yet.”

Oh, now who is being a spoiled brat? I shower you with gifts, new spells, new contortions for you to put your eidolon through, and when I seek just a single moment of hedonistic pleasure in this dry and dusty library of a life that you’ve made for yourself, I’m the one being selfish?

Sylvas carefully lowered his brandy so he didn’t bite through the rim of the glass in his anger. “I said—”

Oh, it doesn’t matter how long you have to think about things or what you decide, the truth is simple. Neither one of us has any say in this. We’re together forever, so let’s just try to get along with the minimum of friction, shall we? I’ll even teach you how to move one of our minds out of the original body, if you’d like? Then we’re on more even footing?

Sylvas took a steadying breath, pretending to inhale the allegedly complex aromas of the brandy, then let it go. “Alright.”

I will remind you that I can still hear all of your thoughts, darling. Shoving me out of your head and into an eidolon body and then pushing it out of the airlock won’t actually get rid of me.

He managed to hide his smile behind the glass so the others didn’t notice the private conversation he was having with himself. The knowledge of how to do most of the things that Mira could do with his body, spirit, or mind was transfused over from one stable fragment of his mind to the other. Only most, because to grasp it all the way that she did would require a more fundamental understanding of what it was like to live as an incorporeal mind, and he was dealing with enough confusion as it was without adding more in.

And, of course, if I do happen to invent any new ways to manipulate our various component parts, I’ll be happy to share. Provided that you continue to share the odd hedonistic pleasure with me.

“I’m not going to sleep with Hector and tag you in, no matter how many times you ask,” he mumbled.

You are just no fun at all.

“Talking to yourself is never a good sign.” Rania bumped into him with her hip to draw him out of his reverie. 

Sylvas forced a chuckle. “Probably a worse sign when another part of you talks back.”

“So she is just you in a dress?”

For a moment, he was overwhelmed by the mental image, and then by the feelings of Mira’s offence at the image. “I… I don’t even know. When I split my mind, all of my guilt about her dying was still really close to the surface. I’d never dealt with any of it, and… well, things turned out how they turned out.”

Rania laid a hand on his arm. “I just want to know that if we ever break up, there isn’t going to be a copy of me lodged in your skull, popping out to eat shrimp.”

“Break up?”

“Don’t worry about it happening any time soon. Apparently, I’ve got really low standards,” she stage-whispered, as if Mira wouldn’t be able to hear it. “I’m willing to date a guy who still lives with his ex.”

Flustered beyond the point of all logic, Sylvas stumbled on, “I just… I didn’t know we were official enough that we’d need to break up if you decided—”

“Maybe you don’t need to worry about all that right now. Maybe we can just enjoy what we have.” She leaned in against his side, and the tension that had been strumming through his shoulders abated. “Besides, I think we have bigger concerns at the moment.”

He still felt like he was three steps behind this conversation. “You’ve jumped up my list of priorities considerably since I first met you.”

“Not what I was saying, but you are cute when you’re awkward.” She nudged him with her elbow. “I was talking about the fact that you’re the Starbreaker.”

Sylvas opened and closed his mouth, not sure how to respond to that. 

He’d had strong suspicions that the prophecy of the Starbreaker was about him, and the more of the prophecy that he heard, the more he believed those suspicions. The subtle hints of the prophecy, his own brief glimpses of the future, and his unusual advancement all combined with the fact he’d had repeat visits from what was clearly one of the Aions projecting themselves forward through time to take it from suspicion to near certainty in his mind, but he still wasn’t sure. The universe was a vast place; any number of people might have been going through exactly what he was, and he’d have no way of knowing. The Aions might even have seeded the universe with hundreds of potential Starbreakers using their foresight, and he’d be none the wiser.

“We don’t know who the Starbreaker is,” he replied in a careful and measured manner. 

Rania looked at him with a bemusement that bordered on contempt. “We don’t?”

“The prophecy has elements that might apply to me, but I’m sure it has elements that apply to many people. Prophecies are vague.”

“I think we’ve got enough information to be pretty conclusive.” She looked at him sideways. “But if you aren’t sure yet, I’m not going to push you.”

“If I were the Starbreaker… I feel like I’d probably have a better idea of what I’m doing,” he admitted.

“Because it’s ordained by fate?” She wiggled her hands in the air, almost spilling some brandy.

“Because if I’m meant to be the one to put an end to the eidolons, then I’d surely have had some ideas about how I might be able to do that?”

The amusement left her abruptly. “There is still time.”

“I don’t know that there is. The apocalypse is happening now.” He pinched the bridge of his nose to hold back the headache that was threatening. “This great incursion all over the universe, the doors are thrown open for all the eidolons to come back. If we don’t stop them soon, there won’t be anything left to save.”

“Hey, maybe we’re lucky, and you aren’t the Starbreaker.” Rania drew his hand away from his face and met his gaze. “Maybe they are out there right now fixing everything.”

“Isn’t that a beautiful dream.” Sylvas chuckled. “Someone else fixing things for us.”

A choral chime sounded throughout the room, and Simeon popped up from in the depths of the conversation he was having with the various courtiers who’d followed him into space and Malachai. “That was the signal of our arrival in the cluster. Welcome home, properly, dear nephew. May I suggest we head to the bridge to see the majesty of our home fully on display?”

The suggestion was enough to get all of the various drunks and courtiers in motion, but Sylvas frowned as they went. The bridge crew would be crowded out of the room by all of these people, unable to do their jobs. Sylvas gestured to Kaya, and she plucked Malachai out of the crowd and dragged him over. “Let’s find somewhere else to watch our arrival that isn’t in the way.”

Malachai replied through gritted teeth, “A little privacy and peace would be greatly appreciated.”

While all the other guests of the royal house poured out into the corridor, Sylvas and the others held back. Finally, it was just them and the servants, who sprang into motion almost immediately to begin tidying up the chaos that had been left in the nobility’s wake. Apparently, getting to see your home world was a treat reserved for those of high birth. Sylvas approached one of them, and they froze in confusion as if they were used to being entirely invisible. Once they got past the initial confusion, he was able to get directions, and they departed to leave the serving staff in peace. 

The bridge definitely would have provided a more expansive view, but the gallery slung underneath it, where the ship’s art collection was maintained in crisp, climate-controlled air, offered up almost as good a look. The pearlescence that the Dusont Cluster seemed to love decorating with was an aspect of their home that they’d chosen to carry with them. As the planet came into view, the oceans that covered the majority of its surface showed that very same shimmering mixture of colors. Kaya’s mouth dropped open at the sight of the planet, shining like a massive pearl, while Rania caught hold of Sylvas’ hand and whispered mostly to herself, “Beautiful.”

Once again, Malachai stood stiff as a board, with an expression most would have found entirely unreadable. Sylvas could see the dread, though. The loathing. He pulled away from Rania to lay a hand on Malachai’s shoulder. “It’s okay. We’ll get out of here as fast as we can.”

There was no waver or crack in Malachai’s voice, but the misery seemed to bubble up out of him all the same. “It will matter little. The family are aware of me now. There is nowhere I can go that they will not be able to find me again and drag me back here as they please.”

“That’s assuming you’re willing to go without a fight.” Kaya stepped up beside him and crossed her arms.

“One does not fight the Queen of Dusont,” Malachai replied softly. “She is an inevitability.”

Sylvas let his hand slip from the other man’s shoulder, seeing that it wasn’t helping. “That’s how people used to talk about the eidolons. We’re fighting them. We’re beating them.”

“The eidolons are mindless beasts.” Malachai’s scarred face twisted a little as he smiled. “Mother is something considerably more dangerous.”