By the time I returned to the Summersky Manor, it was three hours past midnight.

The moon drifted over me like a silver eye, glaring its judgment down into my back. I glared right back. I smelled of alcohol and vomit—so what? My clothes were muddied, Ashran’s clothes were drenched in my weave’s blood, and I’d lost all the gold I plundered from the glekk village. Bastard thieves. I’d punched the living daylights out of two and failed to catch the third.

I should’ve figured they’d come after me after I earned so much silver from performing at the Tippy Tap. Should’ve gotten ready for a fight. But no, I was drunk, I was miserable, and I had coin. I was a perfect target.

Getting stabbed and robbed by a group of thugs that didn’t even reach up to my shoulders…

I shook my head. Pathetic. I would be lying dead in a ditch outside of the city if I weren’t immortal. As it was, the wounds on Ashran were just a painful inconvenience. I clicked my tongue, checking under my cloak. Three dagger wounds in my stomach, tearing right through my clothes. Dulled pain throbbed over the wounds. Still running with blood.

Looking up at the massive gates to the manor, I groaned as my weave flickered. Ashran was about to die—blood loss. Repairing him later would be a pain in the ass.

Waving my hand, the weave disappeared and my mortal senses dulled once again. With it, the drunkenness vanished with the pain and the blood. The rest of the night came immediately flooding back. The music, the obscene amount of alcohol, and my drunken patrol through several of the bars in Felzan’s ashwood district. I climbed up the hill and sighed, sitting down on the side of the road.

If I was getting one thing about bards right, it was all the stories about how stupid they were when given something to drink. So much for Ashran’s respectable reputation. I scoffed and looked down.

My legs dangled over the edge of the cliff, the rest of Felzan glinting below.

It looked so foreign to me. Such a large city, with all its lights and its people, loud and active even through the night. In my childhood, the towns always turned quiet past midnight. Here was the opposite. If I hadn’t been turned into an immortal, maybe the sight of something like this wouldn’t have been strange to me. I would have lived here for twenty-one years. With father and my younger brother. I would have worked as a bard or a court musician, playing songs in balls and dingy tavern halls. Maybe I would’ve worked as a smith on the side. Or an alchemist.

But that kind of future was already gone.

Now I was an unknown. Just some strange immortal nobody knew, dropping by in a city where no one recognized him, all to soak in self-pity after confirming what he already knew to be true. I thought I was ready to face what happened today; to know that I was a ghost.

I wasn’t. Not really.

And now that I was home, I didn’t know what to do. I already saw father. I knew he was alive and well, and that he was happy with another son. I didn’t need to take care of him. And as I was, what could I do? Make friends with a family that didn’t remember me? Watch over father until he passed away, spending his days not knowing the truth about me?

I was his son. I’d saved his life. But he couldn’t know that.

I planned to tell him, at first. I rushed after Kerban to go in there and tell father that I was here. That I was finally home. I wanted to introduce myself, tell him all about the past, and convince him that I was his son. Then we’d live happily ever after, no?

But that wasn’t right.

My hand reached for a rock beside me and I threw it over the edge of the cliff, watching it grow tinier as it fell. It smacked against a distant rooftop, clattering off to the side and onto the street.

I couldn’t tell father who I was. Not because I was afraid he wouldn’t believe me, or because I felt angry about their new son.

I just couldn’t bear to break his heart.

Father was an old man. A happy one. As soon as I entered the garden and saw him under that rowan tree, smiling at canopy and sipping at his tea, all my plans died in my chest. He was at peace now. Without me. If I told him and he believed me, what would happen? I shook my head.

The smile I saw would be wiped from his face. And then he would have to deal with the knowledge that he’d forgotten me for two decades. That I was the only one who remembered.

I couldn’t do that to him.

My heartbreak over immortality was mine. There was no need to let him suffer from the knowledge too. Not like mother, whose feelings I couldn't care less about. So I would stay here and wallow by myself. Waiting until the hurt went away. I wanted to talk to him more, but I wasn’t ready to see father’s aged face a second time, confirming all that I feared.

I glanced back at the Summersky Manor behind me and shook my head.

I didn’t want to come in there either. Not when I looked as miserable as I did. Tonight, I would be fine outside. Here, on the grass, facing out from the cliff with nothing but the wind, the bluebirds, and the suncatchers by my side. I took the lute out of my case and started tuning, mindlessly twisting the knobs.

The sound of it traveled far into the open air. And it called to something in the distance.

I didn’t look up as I heard the sound of tiny wings flapping from above, drawing closer. I kept my eyes on the city below. Something small landed beside me on the grass, emanating a faint, blue light that splashed against the side of my arm.

“The sound of your playing isn’t as terrible anymore,” a voice said. “Good job.”

I nodded, “I’ve been practicing. It was like you said—tortured artists make the best musicians. I like to think I’m sufficiently tortured to pass for a good one right now.”

There was a moment of surprised silence.

“…You can hear me?”

I turned my head to her and saw a bird of blue light, standing on the grass, gazing up at me with a curious gaze and a tilted head. I gave the bird a weak smile, before turning my attention back to the lute. I gave it an experimental strum as I replied.

“I guess I can, now that I’ve learned how to use my new senses.”

“Impressive. For you. Not even that dumb hag knows how to do it.”

“Vivian isn’t the fastest learner. And I had help.”

“True. She’s a stupid one. Can you believe she got even more annoying after we left you? Always asking about alchemy this and Blight Witch that. If she wasn’t so useful as protection, I would’ve ditched her as soon as you disappeared.”

“You say a lot of harsh things about her, but I can tell you two bonded while I was gone.”

“Hmph. I just learned how to tolerate her for the benefits.”

“You sound exactly like I thought you would.”

Venti flapped her wings and sat on the grass, letting out an indignant chirp. “And you sound like someone just stuck their foot into a bowl of your favorite food. Your expression is dreadful to look at. What are you doing sulking out here?”

“I dropped by father’s house. Now I’m here.”

“So you know.”

“That I got several years of my life stolen by your Fae friend?” I asked, frowning. “Yeah. I know.”

“You told him you’d pay any price. He took what you offered.”

I nodded. There was no arguing against that. And even now, even knowing where it would lead me, I would still willingly pay the same price. Still, that didn’t make actually paying it sting any less. Sighing, I started playing the lute, reaching out to the essences in the night air. Once again, I gathered them. I infused them back into Ashran, filling the wounds with magic and repairing the damage to my weave.

“…How was Aami in the manor? She didn’t break anything I can’t pay for, did she?”

“That abomination? She ate everything. Left almost nothing for the hosts by the time they arrived.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. Of course.

“Is she in trouble?”

Venti shook her head, the bird’s face twisting into a frown, “No, no she isn’t. In fact, Amerys has taken a liking to her.”

I raised an eyebrow, “Amerys?”

“Thirteenth daughter of the Summersky House. She was the one to sneak Vivian and I into the manor when we first arrived,” Venti replied, sighing. “That girl is obsessed with beings beyond the mortal plane. Says she wants to be contracted to the Fae—just like her other siblings. Ridiculous.”

“Why so?”

“There isn’t an ounce of magic in her, or her sister Cesara. I suggest you hide from her for as long as you can. She’s harder to get rid of than a scratch on the beak.”

I nodded and stood, finishing my repairs on Ashran’s weave. I stepped towards the edge of the cliff, out into the open air. My lute sang. Galesong answered. I walked on the wind and turned to face Venti.

“I don’t feel like going into the manor just yet. How does a walk sound?”

The bluebird flew up from the ground and perched on my shoulder. She flapped her wings and settled down, closing her eyes.

“As long as you’re the one doing the walking.”

“Activate the cores.”

Elanah gave the order, standing atop the walls with saer Halcyn. Below them, a horde of blighted animals rushed at the walls, smashing into it with their bodies. Each deafening cannon shot was accompanied by the splatter of gore against tainted earth. Elanah watched it all as her assistants activated copper cores covered in runic language.

The metal spheres lit up and began to turn, several parts coming to life.

“Animate the constructs.”

They dropped the cores into vats of poisonous quicksilver, the metallic liquid hiding thousands of different toxins under its simple appearance. The runic cores splashed down into liquid as the assistants stepped away.

The poison inside the vats began to writhe.

“Release the Silverplague.”

At her order, the poison containers tipped over, spilling silver onto the hordes below. As the poison splashed down, the cores in the center hummed with power. Suddenly, the liquid gathered around them, coalescing, dropping into the horde not as a simple poison, but as animated, tentacled constructs of death.

Ten Silverplague slimes devoured the Crimson Tide without mercy.

Elanah watched them tear into the corruption, destroying flesh in seconds. Behind her, ten artificers sat with their eyes closed, wearing helmets connected to the runic cores. They sent commands down to the slimes. Commands that allowed her new weapons to not only ravage the horde, but to do it with a cruel efficiency.

Beneath them, the slimes cut into the blight. They cornered groups. They split their meals, sharing blighted beasts to assimilate into their mass. The conversion rate was low. But it hardly mattered with so much prey available.

By the time the first wave of monsters were wiped out, the constructs had already expanded to the size of wagons each, slithering over blighted land and leaving melted, black flesh in their wake.

“Advance,” Halcyn commanded, and the walls made of thorns, branches, and giant roots split open. Shissavi flooded out.

The soldiers formed ranks outside, spreading out in a half-circle to surround the druids in the center. The spellcasters raised their staffs, and for the first time in several months, flowers bloomed on corrupted soil. Grass crept out from the druids’ feet. They dropped seeds on the ground and trees sprouted like geysers, popping out from the earth in droves.

With the Silverplague slimes leading the charge, the restoration teams followed closely behind.

“Your new poisons are as effective as always,” Halcyn commented, watching the corrupted trees in the distance melt into black goop. “The Summersky House owes you much once again, miss Elanah.”

The old woman in question only shook her head, “Spare me your flattery, Halcyn. We haven’t won yet. How much ground must we cover, still?”

“Much. The airships report that a quarter of the entire west has been corrupted.”

“Many more months of work.”

“You’ll oversee it?”

“Of course. This is the most dangerous thing I’ve created, Halcyn. It constantly mutates and adjusts. If it somehow takes over the construct cores…”

Halcyn nodded, “We’ll be here to destroy it. Before it gets out of control.”

“I’ll work on reducing the risk in the meantime.”

“Thank you, miss Elanah. Once this rift situation is dealt with…”

Elanah sighed. She knew where he was going already. She held up a hand and stopped him midway—a disrespectful gesture, one callous enough to make the artificers behind her pale. But Elanah didn’t care. Halcyn, for all his fearsome reputation, was still the same stupid boy who’d failed her alchemy lessons years ago.

And now, long after those times, he still sought her out for help.

Elanah was done helping.

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I won’t return to your house’s employ. I’m retired, boy. I’ve had enough of the front lines. Of poison. Once this threat is over with, I return to Felzan. To my family.”

“Of course. I simply thought to ask, in hopes that you would consider it. I won’t ask again. Ashran’s… your son’s ship landed on Felzan just today. I received word from back home.”

“…Did he visit Rugsh? Does my husband know?”

“He visited your home, yes. But Freyarch’s nature spirits didn’t hear him say anything about his situation. Your husband knows nothing.”

Elanah felt pain stab at her heart. Rugsh and her son.She could imagine the hurt her husband would feel if he knew the truth. And Ashran, visiting him, knowing what he would find…

She closed her eyes and released a breath.

It was for the best. Better, that Ashran hadn’t said anything yet. She wanted to be the one who said it. The one who told Rugsh of her failures, of what their son sacrificed for his life. And then they would have time. Years. Together, as a family, trying to repair what Elanah’s negligence had left to fester in her years of endless work.

Ashran hated her. Thought her an uncaring monster, leaving her family to rot while she busied herself with alchemy.

And he was right.

But now she knew who he was. She could come back and fix things, reach out. Show him that she wasn’t what he thought she was. Not anymore, now that she’d cured the cancer she knew Rugsh would have, all those years ago. She hadn’t been thinking clearly, then.

She was now.

One of the artificers behind them raised his head.

“General,” he said, shuddering. “The gazerstalks have started to bloom. One of the Silverplagues are down. Core disintegrated by magic.”

“Thank you, Sasshin. Prepare a second core.”

The artificer stood and saluted, before running off to prepare a second controller for the Blight Witch’s poison. Halcyn nodded and turned to her, meeting Elanah’s eyes. In the distance, titanic spires of flesh rose from the ground, splitting open at the top to reveal petals covered in eyes.

They rained beams of concentrated magic down onto the Silverplagues, smashing them with tendrils of flesh that could shatter city walls.

“Shall we, miss Elanah?”

Elanah sighed and stepped off the wall, casting flight on herself and the saer. They floated up and forward, straight towards the titans in the distance. The gazerstalk turned its head to them. Its eyes glowed as a lake of poison formed around Elanah and Halcyn, the saer’s redmetal thorns rising from the ground below.

The gazerstalk fired a blast of magic towards them and Elanah closed her tired eyes.

It was another weekday, yet again.