Eury turned around for what felt like the hundredth time, sensing Urstes’ gaze. “Sorry to disappoint, Guardian, but I’m going to be awake a while longer.”

The guardian scratched at his stubble and fingered the sword hilt at his belt. “You’ve been sending around messages for the past hour after the emergency high war council meeting. Not that I’m feeling left in the dark, but...what’s the plan, exactly?”

Euryphel leaned back, pulling himself away from his glosspad and closing out the holographic projection of Zukal’iss’ troop and armament placements.

“Urstes...the battle still persists in Godora, while our enemies are preparing to invade us on all fronts. You think I can sleep in these circumstances?”

Urstes coughed. “Everyone else on the war council has gone back to sleep...except for you.”

“I promise...just a bit longer.”

“Are you waiting for him to return?” Urstes asked, his voice barely audible.

Euryphel froze. “I’ll sleep when I’m ready, guardian, and not a moment sooner.”

Urstes’ mouth twitched, but he didn’t reply, stepping back to lean against the wall. He pulled out his secured glossY, swiping through a series of communications between the normal guards stationed throughout the palace.

“My prime, the decemancer’s party has arrived.”

Euryphel’s eyes snapped up, the glosspad completely forgotten. “Excellent. Bring them inside and run them through the standard affair of debrief questions, especially Koff and Lanhui.”

—

Ian assembled the return party–Lanhui, Druni, and Koff–just after midnight. Their departure was simple: Ian loaded them up into the bone wyrm and took off. After dodging and deflecting enemy fire for a minute or two, the wyrm flew beyond the reach of the Kyeilans, its bones slicing through the cloud line.

The trip passed in relative silence, the exhausted blitz team members nodding off within the wyrm. As the pilot, Ian remained alert, navigating them back towards the capital; Koff and Lanhui offered periodic corrections whenever they noticed Ian veering off course.

When the wyrm entered the SPU’s airspace, a sense of palpable relief washed over the party. They were too high up to see any soldiers manning the border, but the passage of a massive bone wyrm didn’t go unnoticed: flares of golden celebratory light exploded in the wyrm’s wake, welcoming them home.

“They’re not supposed to do that,” Lanhui muttered.

Koff shrugged. “Doesn’t really matter at this point. The morale trade-off is probably worth it.”

Lanhui narrowed his eyes as though readying for a verbal fight, then shook his head and snorted. “I’m too damn exhausted to argue underlying assumptions...I’m going back to sleep.”

Eventually they reached Zukal’iss, the capital marked by colorful bobbing souls and mundane floating lanterns. Ian slowed the wyrm as they approached the palace, parking it on the outside training grounds. As they disembarked, Urstes emerged out of the ground in a swell of earth. He dusted himself off, then gestured for everyone to retire inside for a short debrief and sleep.

Ian only had to answer a few short questions before Urstes sent him to a nearby door that Euryphel had prepared for him to take. He thought the Mountain practitioner would ask questions about his cloaked appearance, but his inquiries all pertained to the Deathseed and his solo flight over the Illyrian ocean.

Ian stood behind the designated door and turned the knob, stepping into the familiar sun room. Euryphel reclined on his worn divan, his hair trailing a blond cord over the divan’s back, his chin resting on the wood that crested along its upholstered back. Despite the hour, sunlight filled the window at the back of the room, illuminating Euryphel from behind and casting his face in shadow.

“Welcome back,” Euryphel said. “Come forward and sit. Take one of the parakeets.”

The prince looked exhausted, his eyes ringed with dark circles.

“Eury...I don’t need a parakeet. You need some rest.”

The prince groaned and sunk down onto the divan, his head rolling onto the armrest. “I know.”

“Nightmares again?”

He shook his head. “No...I’m just...”

Ian saw that the prince was struggling to find the right word, but didn’t interrupt.

“We’re in a critical moment,” Euryphel explained. “I need to give this war everything that I have.”

Ian noticed the prince’s hand brush over his hair ornament, the man’s expression turning melancholic. Ian walked over and loomed over the divan, his Death-vestments showing in sharp contrast to the perpetual sunlight.

“Ian...tell me about yesterday.”

“What do you still need to know?” Ian figured that the prince had already looped through an explanatory conversation.

“Everything,” the prince replied. “It’s easier to just hear it all at once than piecemeal.”

“I presume you’ve already heard reports from Var’dun’a.”

Euryphel looked up at Ian through long, blond lashes. “Of course, but I value your perspective.”

“Our arrival in Godora was uneventful. The aeropoints worked well at getting us in undetected, while Nixia was able to deal with any Godorans who spotted us. We took over the factory, then found the few glosSwords that hadn’t yet been locked.”

Euryphel stirred a bit. “Where’s yours?”

Ian smiled. Bluebird, come out.

I’m so comfortable, the companion protested. But I shall obey!

Ian resisted the urge to roll his eyes as the glosSword flew out from the loosened cloth around his chest, settling on the crown of the Divan.

“Where did that come from?” Euryphel asked, his eyes wide.

“It was hiding beneath my energy,” Ian explained.

“It looks just like the one from the Infinity Loop.”

Ian grinned. “It’s a refurbished version of the same model.”

Euryphel adjusted his position and held out his hand for the bird. “Does it play well with others?”

“...People, or birds?”

Eury smirked. “Both.”

I play well! Bluebird cheered.

Ian laughed. “Yes.” Go to Eury.

The companion fluttered off the couch and landed on Euryphel’s hand, its long, flat wings jutting out to either side. Euryphel held up his other, parakeet-holding hand and drew the two birds close together. Bluebird appeared unmoved, while the parakeet’s head ducked back and forth as it inspected the unfamiliar glosSword.

Bluebird clacked its beak and waved its tail as the parakeet tried to bite its wing, causing the bird to recoil backward in shock, creening miserably.

Euryphel chuckled and cooed soothing noises at the startled creature. “That’s what you get for biting Bluebird.”

A silence fell over them before Ian remembered what he’d been doing. “After we got the glosSwords, we headed to Corvid and took the city.”

Eury nodded his head. “I heard from Var’dun’a that you defeated three coronuses at once, including Coronus Kiehl, who wasn’t supposed to be in the city at the time.”

“Kiehl...certainly wasn’t fun to deal with. Despite my efforts, I wasn’t able to break out of his illusion before nearly killing him.”

Euryphel’s expression grew tight, his eyes roving over Ian’s Death mantle. “Were you injured then...?”

“No.” Ian paused, then reconsidered his words. “I was injured soon after by Coronus Byrrh, but it was fine.”

“What happened?”

“He shot me in the heart,” Ian snorted. “That injury’s already recovered.”

Euryphel’s eyes narrowed. “Nobody mentioned that to me. Ian, you could’ve died if he’d gone for your head.”

“He did go for my head a moment later.”

“That’s not exactly helping!”

“There was nothing to be done,” Ian retorted. “Anyway...I landed in the center of the city and froze everyone in place. Right before I was going to do the irreversible, the Godorans surrendered. For the next few hours after that, things were slow: I activated the Deathseed and did a bit of scouting. When I returned again, the Kyeilans had commenced their attack.”

“I know that they sent you to man an entire front by yourself,” Euryphel murmured.

“Yes.”

“What happened?”

Ian groaned softly. “Well, as anyone would expect, they were ready for me, and they had a powerful Remorse practitioner with them–I’d almost say it was Kiehl again if not for the fact that the man took a war oath and was in our custody.”

Euryphel shook his head. “It might’ve been Kiehl. The Kyeilans brought along the Fatebreaker. It wasn’t a total loss for us, though: Var’dun’a left the man and his party with grievous injuries.”

“After I wrapped things up there, I grabbed the others and delivered them back to the SPU in the bone wyrm.”

Eury lifting his hands in a sudden movement, causing both birds to fly off, Bluebird circling back to Ian and perching on his shoulder while the parakeet flew over to a wall tapestry near the water fountain. He sat up on his knees such that his head was now almost level with Ian’s, then reached out and tried to pinch Ian’s Death mantle. The material was paradoxically both mistlike and rubbery, coursing like a cold torrent.

He leveled his eyes at the decemancer. “If everything went so well, what do you need to hide?”

Ian snorted. “Nothing.”

He lessened the density of the Death energy around himself such that it would no longer be visible to those without vital vision.

Euryphel inhaled sharply as he took in the mottled coils of pink and black that crossed over Ian’s exposed neck, face, and hands. “Is this frostbite?”

“Some of it. Others are acid burns.”

Euryphel’s mouth popped open. “You didn’t think this was worth mentioning to anyone?”

“It’s harder to heal the dermis when most of it is affected,” Ian continued. “If the injuries were more localized, I could’ve healed much faster, spurring nominal flesh to grow and overtake the dead and disfigured. I’ve dealt with burns before, but never from extreme cold or acid. I needed to do a bit of trial and error, but the treatment for the injury was much the same.”

He doesn’t look much convinced, Ian thought, wincing internally. This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell him: I didn’t want him to worry when there’s nothing to worry about.

The prince’s voice was soft, strangled. “Are you going to recover?”

“In another day or two,” Ian replied. “Like I said, it looks worse than it is.”

Euryphel shook his head. “I’m going to send you a Life practitioner to help.”

Ian considered for a second. Actually, that’d be good. Not necessary, but helpful. “Sure.”

The prince exhaled in relief, sinking slightly into the divan cushion. “Excellent.”

“...But only if you promise to sleep. Now.”

The prince blinked. “You’re going to hold your own recovery ransom to force me to sleep? Is that what’s happening?”

Ian chuckled. “That is literally what’s happening, Eury.”

“...”

Ian’s lips pressed together into a thin line as he grabbed hold of the prince’s arm and started to drag him off the divan. Euryphel protested weakly, ultimately trailing after Ian to the doorway leading out of the sunroom.

“Now go to your own room.”

Euryphel stepped forward and opened the door; as requested, the door opened on to the prince’s bedroom. Ian followed the prince inside, determined to make sure the man actually got into bed.

“It’s pathetic how I have to babysit you,” Ian teased as Euryphel collapsed onto his bed.

“I’m not going to be able to sleep with you watching me,” the prince muttered. “I already set the door to take you back to your room. You sound like you need rest just as much as me.”

Ian considered Bluebird perched atop his shoulder. “I’m going to leave Bluebird here to watch you as you sleep. He’s technically almost as powerful as I am, so it’ll be like I’m guarding you all night. I’ll see you in the morning?”

The prince was facing the other way, his face obscured by a pillow. “Yeah. I’ll wake you at dawn.”

Ian went back through the door, then collapsed on his own bed. Considering the late hour, neither of them would be getting much sleep, but it was better than nothing. He closed his eyes and sank into the abyss of dreamless slumber.