The meeting with Ajun’ra and Jairinka is short, and ends with a plan to meet up in the SPU capital, Zukal’iss. Since then, I’ve been filling out a mountain of paperwork and preparing the Opascal Base for my absence. I didn’t think that I contributed much to the compound’s daily operations, yet I find myself spending over two hours redistributing my workload.

I’ve also been working on familiarizing myself with the capabilities of the glosSword–and notably, its companion mode. Bluebird can shift from its avian form into the glosSword’s standard blade, its soul gems automatically socketing themselves in the hilt. Moving between the two forms requires only a bit of energy from myself.

The best part about Bluebird is that it’s able to use my power, functioning like an inferior, bird-shaped clone. Since its energy is taken directly from me, rather than filtered through the sword’s internal energy source, Bluebird can carry out commands such as thralling or diagnosty, allowing it to covertly surveil an area without my direct interference. However, Bluebird can also complete tasks like propelling itself through the air or deploying non-Death-aligned energy-missiles.

“How do you do it?” I mutter out loud.

How do I do–

“Shh,” I say, cutting the glosSword off. The question was rhetorical: I know how the sword is using Death energy so flexibly. It mixes Death energy with pure, filtered energy coming from a generator built into the sword itself. It’s obvious just from looking at Bluebird’s abilities: they’re somewhat muted, like something is diluting their decemantic potency. But rather than detract from Bluebird’s power, the diluting energy gives the sword construct much more flexibility.

If a bird can do it, so can I, I think to myself sourly, manifesting a globe of simmering energy on my palm. If only I weren’t so talentless in every other affinity.

I think of the decemancer Sylvestri, a man who has both Death and Dark affinities. I didn’t interact with him for very long, but I don’t remember him using the two energies together.

I tilt my head slightly, my eyes continuing to follow Bluebird as it swoops and darts through the air. That’s the point, though, I think to myself. Bluebird isn’t using Dark energy. It’s using some kind of...null affinity energy. Un-aligned.

“How,” I begin, feeling like I have a better sense of what to ask, “do you generate un-aligned energy?”

A reactor, the sword-bird replies. Stored in a void chamber to deal with excess heat and its large size.

I frown. “A what?” Reactor is too general a word to mean much.

A natural, autonomous energy bank. A fusion reactor.

I frown. “So not like what’s used to power cities, then?” Those, too, are often called reactors.

No; it’s not practitioner energy, but natural energy. Energy from the world.

“Can I get one?” I ask. “How do you obtain a fusion reactor?” It must be built into the sword somewhere.

They are quite easy to construct if you have a high-affinity team of Sun, Earth, and Moon practitioners, as well as Beginning and Regret practitioners. Three Sun, one Moon, three Beginning and one Regret, ideally. And of course you need at least five masters of Dark spatial energy to anchor the reactor to a pocket dimension and a Light-affinity fire elementalist to form a one-way energy transfer channel.

I swear, the sword seemed smug listing off all of those requirements. Gathering a team of practitioners with the aforementioned qualifications was utterly prohibitive. Pardus must be paying a fortune to keep such a team employed and steadily producing these reactor-powered glosSwords.

“What else can the energy be used for?” I ask. “Can I draw out energy directly through you?”

You are advised not to do so. The energy tether is configured to provide only the smallest trickle of power at any time. This trickle is smaller than what is perceptible to humans; if you try to draw on the energy, you may enlarge its channel, destroy the channel bindings, and take in enough energy to instantly incinerate everything within four meters, including yourself. Also, all of my functionalities may be permanently destroyed.

I stare at Bluebird for a second. “Got it.”

I’m tempted to give it a try, just to see...but my self-preservation just barely wins out: It’s not really worth dying and starting the loop over again, wasting a month or so on the school layer, and then redoing all the political finagling and paperwork I’ve done to plan this “diplomatic trip” to the SPU.

—

The SPU’s capitol city, Zukal’iss, is typically translated into Luxish as “New Hope.” The name itself derives from an archaic, obsolete dialect of Swellish.

It’s a fitting name based on my knowledge of the hawkish country. There’s a reason why the Selejo Prince’s Union lies just across the Bay of Ramsay from the Selejo continent-state. About 80 years ago, Selejo’s kingdoms faced off against every form of natural disaster and plague. The rulers blamed the island of Koro for their woes, but also didn’t have the power to stop the endless typhoons or rampant yellowpox.

So royalty from each of the fragmented Selejan kingdoms fled Selejo in an attempt to preserve their own lives, quickly seizing the land of Ho’ostar’s northwestern edge before expanding out to fill half the continent. Success in Ho’ostar didn’t erase the fact that the rulers of Selejo had abandoned their people to die. Only five years after the rulers’ exodus did the storms and disease come to a sudden halt, like the stillness after the so-familiar storms.

But the new Selejo returned with a vengeance, its fallen kingdoms reforming themselves into provinces under one despot: the Sezakuin. The woman had a personal vendetta against the newborn SPU, and the region was perpetually at war until her natural death seventeen years ago.

While Selejo rained hell from the North, however, the other kingdoms of Ho’ostar–Godora, Kyeila, and Brin–were also openly hostile, viewing the SPU’s seizure of land as a declaration of war. Accordingly, for the past 75 years, the SPU has faced hostility on all sides.

Now the Sezakuin’s daughter, the Eldemari, reigns over Selejo. Around the same time that she took control, Huron Selejo became Crowned Prime of the SPU. He’s the one who brokered the current peace accords within the Ho’ostar peninsula and Selejo.

Unfortunately, since Huron’s death twelve years ago, the peace has been fraying from all sides. And based on growing militarization of the Bay of Ramsay, my intelligence officers believe it will soon end.

“Corona,” a voice says from behind me. I take my eyes off the land beyond the hovergloss window.

“Yes?”

Secretary Schaeff gives me a nervous look. “Sir, what is our plan?”

I cock an eyebrow. “You mean...the schedule? Secretary, isn’t that precisely what you’re supposed to keep track of?”

She sighs. “No, not the schedule; what is our strategy? Our objective coming here? I have been reviewing our list of meetings, but I can’t figure it out.”

I smile at her impatient expression. Schaeff is sharp, I’ll give her that. It must be confusing, trying to figure out my list of contacts, because even I don’t know what to expect from half of them. Many names came recommended from Jairinka and Ajun’ra and most of them are lesser officials that I would never know to seek out on my own.

When I asked the duo to justify their recommendations, they indicated that these people all had a personal investment in Hashat’s destruction, and that they were in positions where they would hear–or at least overhear–sensitive information. Given the length of their list, they didn’t bother to provide specific reasons for each individual.

“Secretary Schaeff,” I reply. “These names came to me from Intelligence. I’m unable to disclose the exact motivations.”

“Understood.”

“Calm down, Secretary.” She’s even more uptight than usual. “Nothing will go wrong in the city.”

“Yes, Sir.”

I give her a lazy grin. “You’ve seen me practicing, haven’t you?” At this point, it’s no secret I usually train out on the bay. “You should know I have the power to guarantee our safety.”

She frowns. “Sir, I’ve never seen you practice.”

Now that surprises me. “Really? Never?”

“...Well, you’re almost never on the practice fields...”

My mouth pops open. “Nevermind then.” I wave her off. “I’m confident that everything is under control. You’re doing everything you need to be doing.”

She salutes and turns around, returning to her seat.

“Sir, I’ve seen you practice,” Auror Heggus pipes up. Heggus was one of the ones I took with me on the first day, when I brought along the two teams of water and fire elementalists.

“Good, I suppose,” I respond. “At least someone knows I’m good for something other than filling out paperwork.”

There are five people accompanying me on this trip.

First is Secretary Schaeff. In addition to her, I have two Aurors and two diplomats. Auror is a single rank under Corona, and is reserved for those with excellent affinity in at least one combat-applicable energy alignment.

“Sometimes it almost just looks like you’re having fun,” Heggus chuckles. “When we’re doing casting drills at the casting range, I always feel like my head is splitting and my arms are about to fall off.”

“Well, I’m not an elementalist,” I say, somewhat smug. “My practice is a bit more...freeform.”

“No formulas?” Auror Brach asks.

I scoff. “No.”

“None at all?” he asks, as though not using a formula is beyond the realm of belief.

“None, never. There are typically reagents, but...if anything, my practice is more like cooking. You can experiment, substitute ingredients, combine them in different ways, and in different amounts. No recipe the same way twice.”

“It does sound like fun,” Schaeff pipes up, a small grin on her face. Schaeff isn’t a practitioner, but she’s knowledgeable about the typical skills and limitations of elementalists.

Brach and Heggus look at one another and sigh. “If we want to use freeform energy-manipulation like the esteemed Corona, we still have a long way to go.”

“For instance,” Heggus adds, taking over from Brach, “the Sezakuin was a Mountain practitioner, as well as an earth elementalist. She combined both the flexibility and difficulty of free-form manipulation of mountains with fast and powerful elementalist cantrips. She rose volcanoes from valleys as she spun discs of earth through enemy ranks.”

I nod. “Good example.”

“Or,” Heggus continues, “look at the Crowned Prime, a Regret and End practitioner. He’s able to use Regret to see into the future, as well as End to see threads of fate. But he’s also a skilled wind elementalist.”

I nod. The SPU’s first prince is lucky, having two high affinities and the resources to develop both of them. While End affinity lends itself to wind elementalism, like Cloud affinity, End wind elementalists are generally considered inferior, inherently possessing less control. But being an immensely talented monster, the Crowned Prime is able to shape wind as well as any with Cloud affinity.

Suddenly, a question comes into my head: Would I defeat the Crowned Prime, if we came to blows?

I’m certain he would be unable to defeat me in a direct confrontation, but with his ability to see into the future, mixed with his wind elementalism...it would be difficult to defeat him as well.

If the two of us were playing dirty, however...I could theoretically kill and thrall the inhabitants of his city, creating an army of dead, allowing me to box him in and end him. Likewise, if the prince wanted me dead, all it would take is a well-placed suicide bomber, like those Hashat zealots.

Despite having such high Death affinity, I have to admit...it’s easy to kill me with a surprise attack. I glance over at the glosSword resting against my seat. At least with aegis mode, I have some form of automatic protection. It would take a lot to blast through the glosSword’s shield.

Three hours later, the hovergloss hums to a stop outside of a military convoy checkpoint. The plan is for us to disembark, and then to be led by SPU officials into Zukal’iss. Everything passes uneventfully, and within two hours of leaving the hovergloss, we are delivered to the steps of the Palace of Fortitude, Ichormai. It is in this massive palace that we are first received by diplomats, then directed to our guest living quarters.

Everything continues to be uneventful until the evening, when I am invited to privately dine with an unnamed individual.

The letter is delivered to me as I conclude the last of three meetings with people off of Jairinka and Ajun’ra’s contact list. The meetings contained no shocking information, just suspicions and unproven theories.

I was originally planning to have a small dinner with my entourage at a recommended local restaurant, but the letter’s invitation doesn’t seem like something I should refuse.

Corona Dunai,

I invite you to dine with me this evening, in my quarters.

I am filled with questions, such as why the entire world seems centered on you. Investigating this mystery has been trying my patience and pushing my curiosity to new heights.

Someone will come to your quarters at 7:00.

Best regards.

The letter is unsigned, but I have a suspicion that it is the Crowned Prime. I’m not sure how threads of fate would work in this loop, but it would make sense for all of them to be tied to myself. I wouldn’t be surprised if such a phenomenon incited the prime’s curiosity.