Tay finally appeared on a dreary day, when even the dragons were unsettled and restless. He strode in without seeming the least concerned for his long absence and the lateness of his overdue visit, and made his way to Alisa's door barely in time to intercept her before afternoon classes began.

For a moment, she stared at him in shock, having half expected Reen to be stopping by to escort her to class. He didn't do so often, but it was sweet when he did, so she opened the door with a smile ready. A smile that froze when she saw who it was.

"Miss Veyara. The arrangements have been made. Are you ready to leave, or should I return another day?"

Alisa kept staring. She hadn't seen Tay in so long, she'd forgotten how dark his hair was, how brilliantly green his eyes. They seemed almost unreal, full of the clear vibrancy of summer leaves, intent and focused.

"I thought you were coming sooner," she managed, though her voice sounded more accusing than she'd intended.

"There is a great deal going on at the moment. Arranging your future amid everything else was complicated, but I believe you are worth the effort."

Alisa's forehead furrowed as she remembered their first interaction. "You said something like that before, about my future being important."

Tay nodded and unslung his travel bag from his back. "I have something for you." He pulled out a worn book, bound in dark grey leather with a pale green dragon scale embedded in its cover and silver embossing down its edges. "I haven't the talent for this sort of thing, but something tells me you'll be able to make use of it."

Alisa accepted the volume hesitantly. It was the sort of book that belonged in a palace, not with an apprentice brickmaker who could never even become an enchanter.

But she opened it at his coaxing, and immediately lost her trepidation.

It wasn’t a book, but a journal. A journal full of spells. Powerscript diagrams, many partial and incomplete, with notes and speculation scribbled in the margins. She flipped through page after page of everything from basic exercises to complex interactions. Later pages included detailed spreads, cramped scripts linked with triggers and conditionals that ran on and on.

Errors jumped out at her at once, inaccuracies, lines drawn untidily at incorrect angles. But the concepts, the layouts… they were so intriguing, so promising and tantalizing.

She couldn't treat it as a textbook, but more as a workbook. Something to check and double check, something to verify herself, slowly testing to be sure they worked as intended. But even so, some of the concepts here were so advanced that she struggled even to fathom them.

Since arriving at precad, she'd never seen so much powerscript that was so far beyond her understanding.

This had been someone’s research journal, their unfinished life’s work.

When she finally glanced up and met his eyes, Tay was watching her with a fond smile. "I thought you'd like it."

Alisa held the book to her chest, excitement pulsing through her as she smiled, feeling like she’d never stop. "I love it!" She may not be able to become an enchanter, she might never personally scribe spells into existence, but with a resource like this she could still contribute new knowledge to the world. “Where did you find it?”

“It was gathering dust in an old friend’s attic until I laid claim to it.”

Alisa’s smile slipped a little. “It’s… you stole it?”

Tay laughed. “No, no. I had permission.”

Zen dropped out of the sky, then, wings beating furiously as he dove toward Tay at full speed. Tay somehow evaded his dive, twisting to the side and grabbing Zen around the middle just between his wings, wrestling the surprised dragon to the ground. Alisa had no idea how he managed to avoid being impaled by the spikes running down Zen's back.

Zen screeched in shock, bunched his muscles, and launched himself skyward. Tay clung on, laughing, his weight preventing Zen from gaining more than a few inches of height regardless of how madly his wings thrummed.

Then Tay twisted to get a better grip, and Zen had had enough. He stopped flapping just long enough to fall heavily on top of the man, then immediately wrenched free of Tay’s grip.

That left the man lying on the ground and laughing breathlessly, for a moment looking more like a school boy than a dignified retired teacher.

“Nice to see you again too, Zen,” Tay said between bouts of laughter.

Zen hovered anxiously as his friend didn’t get up, and his confused hesitance only made Tay laugh even harder.

“Oh, I’ve missed you.”

Alisa glanced between the hovering dragon and the laughing man, bemused. Just how intimate had they gotten on Zen’s one day jaunt? Was dragon-wrestling a normal activity wherever Tay was from?

Zen shrugged. ’If it is normal, I have not heard of it before.’

After several moments passed without Tay giving any indication of wanting to stand up, Zen dropped to the ground and snaked his head under Tay’s body. With a flick of his coiled neck, Zen gave him a solid upwards nudge that pushed Tay into a sitting position, then inched forward to lay down with his nose in Tay’s lap and his body twisted haphazardly across the lawn.

Tay stroked Zen’s head, rubbing between his crown of horns and the ridges above his big purple eyes, and Alisa felt Zen’s mind go fuzzy and happy. She shook her head, smiling at the pair of them, still holding the journal like something precious that may disappear if she didn’t keep it close.

She didn’t want to admit that Zen had been right to put his faith in this strange teacher, but he certainly did seem to have come through for them in the end. Even if it took him far too long. The tip of Zen’s tail was twitching in happiness, digging small furrows in the ground.

“You’ve arranged for my departure?” she asked at last, when it seemed obvious neither of them was going to move any time soon. She was late for class, but that hardly seemed important at the moment. She couldn’t quite tell if she hoped he’d say yes, or no.

“Yes, you are free to travel anywhere you please. Here, Zen, move a bit.” Tay shifted himself until he could retrieve his bag, then rummaged in it and pulled out a rather crumpled document. “Here.”

Alisa reached down to take it, then unfolded and read it.

The page, heavy and official, turned out to be a writ of passage. Signed by Tarien Lyrr as vouching for her capability to act in her own interests as an adult, and countersigned Lord Willard Ranosiael, Chief Military Councilor, it granted Alisa Veyara freedom from every constraint of her youth and permission to pass freely into and throughout Renand, however and whenever she pleased.

Alisa gaped. Lord Ranosiael… but that was…

Tay had arranged for her to receive a writ of freedom personally signed by The Traitor himself? With this signature, she could go anywhere within Renand, do anything.

Forget escaping the academy or the army, she could leave the country entirely and come back wherever and whenever she wanted without even worrying about tolls. “How?”

Tay grinned mischievously. “I told you I have connections. Will and I go way back.”

Will? He called The Traitor… ’Will’?

Alisa had clearly underestimated Tay. He was no mere retired teacher, if he had personal sway with Renand’s new overlord.

She immediately felt guilty for doubting him, and resolved never to mention how frustrating his delay had been or how much stress it had caused her. Anyone could lose track of time, and he had come through in the end. Just like Zen promised.

But she couldn’t help worrying a bit. If Tay was that close to The Traitor, was he… involved in the coup? Had he… had he killed anyone? Had he been part of the week of blood and violence? Or had he been away from the city at the time and only returned after it was over?

“Did you…” she tried to ask, but her voice died in her throat. “When he…” she waved vaguely, indicating the council halls and palace to the west, visible even from here.

Tay looked away, his expression haunted. “Oh. That.”

Alisa swallowed, unwilling to press further. The guilt on his face was answer enough.

“You’re probably wondering what happened, aren’t you?” Tay asked. “How such a dramatic change in power could come about, and how it wasn’t immediately put down? How an unknown like Lord Ranosiael could take over and no one revolts, there’s no uprising, no opposition to his claims?”

Alisa nodded. Those were the questions everyone had been asking, quietly, among themselves, where they couldn’t be overheard.

Tay sighed deeply, then turned to face her, gaze not quite meeting hers. “It was a plan decades in the making. The Council… do you know about Renand’s leadership structure?”

“Mostly. The Prince is the one who's in charge of... uh..." Alisa tried to remember. "I know the Councils are responsible for things like taxes and internal affairs. So the Prince is the foreign affairs head, and..." she squinted in concentration, but foreign politics had never been her area of interest.

"The Prince is responsible for diplomatic and judiciary matters, as well as having the unique position of holding a full three votes of weight in all Council decisions," Tay clarified. "The Councils are, hypothetically, drawn from all stratas of the country, leading to a balanced group that can debate and vote on things fairly, with the Prince to help guide it should they be unable to reach a decision on their own.

“But more and more in recent years Renand's councils - the High Council in particular, but several of the lower Councils as well - have begun to rely upon bribery, threats, and flat out deception in maintaining their control. The Prince went along with it because they ensured he received the biggest piece of their ill-gotten gains as they voted themselves more and more power and money that they never earned and didn't deserve."

By now his voice had grown bitter and scathing, as though he'd personally observed the degradation happening and been helpless to do anything about it. "So many people knew, so many were complicit either through threat or bribe, that the system could never have been overturned peacefully. The only option would be a single, surgical strike to eliminate all of them before they could spread their lies and rally their supporters. If we— if Will could arrange things perfectly, maybe we— maybe there wouldn't have to be a pointless and bloody civil war."

"You helped plan it," Alisa said. He kept slipping, saying 'we' instead of 'he'.

Tay nodded, not trying to deny it. "I did. I spent years investigating every single person on the council, years tracking down their allies and enemies, years building a complete picture of who would stand with the corrupt and who would be willing to accept a new order built on justice and not greed. And then, when all the arrangements were made, we struck."

He fell silent, staring out at the distant palace, and Alisa remembered the week spent beneath the academy, the week of uncertainty and fear as titans battled above.

"It wasn't as clean as we'd hoped,” Tay admitted. “Complications arose, and we had to use every contingency we had." He laughed bitterly. "Some more desperate than I'd have preferred. But we were victorious in the end."

"And The Traitor took the throne."

"No. The Traitor is no Prince, and will not pretend to be. He has made no claim to crown or power beyond heading the Military Council."

Alisa blinked. "No? I thought he was some kind of tyrant king. The Councils still exist?"

"One man cannot run a country, and The Traitor has other things to worry about besides the petty details of Renand's day to day existence. Of course we left the Councils intact. They have been replenished with those who will not follow in the corrupt footsteps of their predecessors."

"But he has so much power."

"Yes. That's one thing we insisted upon. To do our jobs, we needed to be autonomous. Even Will's position on the Military Council is run by proxy."

"And what's your job?" Alisa asked, curiosity stronger than fear. She wasn't afraid any more anyway, not really. Just quietly concerned, and that concern was lessening the longer they spoke.

"My job is to take care of people like you."

Alisa blinked, taken aback. "People like me?"

"Yes, those dragon mages with the highest potential. We're building a special unit to act directly with myself as necessary throughout the coming years."

"So, when you give me this paper and tell me I'm free to go...?"

"You are. But you're also free to return. The Academy will always be open to you, and if you decide your schooling is at an end, you'll always be welcome in my team."

"Why does The Traitor need so many dragon mages?"

Tay sighed and looked off over the city. "Because he's seen things building that no one else wants to acknowledge. That's why he demanded to lead the Military Council, so he'd have the authority to do all this before it's too late." He gestured at the massively expanded academy, taking up exponentially more space now than ever, with open arenas and vast covered pavilions in place of the tiny lecture halls, an entire village of student houses each with attached dragon yard, sprawling untidily through the heart of the city and out into the lands beyond.

"Is Leviir in danger?" Alisa asked quietly.

"Yes. But not in the way you expect." Tay frowned tightly, staring off into the distance as though trying to recall something. "You live in the south?"

Alisa nodded.

"Your home should be safe."

"But we're only two days from Indencai--"

"We're dealing with Indencai. It's Breih we haven't got a handle on yet."

"Breih? But they've never gotten involved in anything outside their borders, not for centuries."

"Exactly. All that time, all that potential, locked away and bottled up for so long. It's bound to burst free sooner or later. And when it does, I fear for Leviir."

"What should I do?" Alisa asked.

"Well, my suggestion would be to stay here, continue your training, and in another year or two I'll invite you to my personal squad. I do have my own plans, though we'll have to obey the Military Council if they issue directives, naturally. But for the most part, we'll act as our members decide. I plan for us to all work together to protect whatever we can."

Alisa exhaled slowly, then nodded. "I think you're right," she admitted. "I think I need to stay." She gripped the page decreeing her freedom tightly. "But I won't fight if The Traitor decides he wants to use us for conquest. I'm willing to work with you and your team as long as we can dictate our own goals and, as you said, fight only to protect. But I won't be a weapon of war against the innocent."

Tay gently shoved Zen's head off his lap onto the ground and stood, extending his hand. "I would never ask it of you."

Alisa gripped his arm, and he returned the gesture, staring deep into her eyes.

"I look forward to working with you,” he said. “If you need anything, send Zen to find me. I can't promise to come at once, but I will come." He nodded at the book she still held tightly. “Good luck deciphering that.”

And then he turned and strode away, departing as abruptly as he’d arrived.