Riven was saved by the sandy dead Sept again. He thumped down, sending up a gout of faded particles that fell back rather quickly. Maybe their lustre was what let them float in the first place.

“Well and alive, I see.”

Debatable. His clothes were torn in too many places, and he’d been cut and scraped all over, a cloak of stings and burns covering his whole body. At least no bones were broken.

It was the Essentier from under the mountain who’d spoken. Riven floundered in the sandy Sept as he forced himself into a respectable and upright position, facing his saviour who was busy dusting off his clothes. Though calling it just clothes didn’t do any of it justice. He had on a cream shirt under a navy jacket, navy trousers tucked into glossy, black boots. A Coral knife hung on one side of his waist, a gun on the other, probably loaded with Sept bullets.

But it was the glittering bits and baubles, making up for the lack of shine in the Sept all around him, that held Riven’s attention. The Essentier’s fingers were adorned with several rings, his belt buckle gleamed with the day’s last light, and there was even a jewel-studded earring dangling from one ear on a tiny chain. Riven grimaced. No doubt he had hidden piercings under his clothes in all the unsavoury places imaginable.

“Who are you?” Riven asked.

“Escario Dorvhaes. Call me Rio.” Rio walked up to Riven, body seeming to swim through the air strangely, then offered his hand. Riven grasped it, and with a strong tug, Rio effortless pulled him to his feet. Rio held out his carpet bag. “This yours?”

Riven took the bag, checking its weight. A few scratches and some embedded shards, but it was otherwise unharmed. “Thanks. What were you doing here?”

“You ask a lot of questions but don’t offer much, do you?”

Riven blinked. Where were his manners? “I’m Riven Senolan Morell. I was heading towards Providence Demesne when I got distracted by the noise. And then…” He stared at the chaos all around them, the entire land blanketed by a layer of useless Sept.

“Right…” Rio turned back to Riven, the gem on his earring twinkling in the low light. “Morell was it? You must be the Invigilator’s son, I presume?”

“Yes.”

“I found this too, by the way.”

Rio held out a dark block of some glassy substance, and Riven stared for a moment before starting. It was the Sept crystal! The exact same shape, so it could be nothing else. But what in the world had happened to it?

He took it. It was even deader than the Sept surrounding them. Where those were faded to a dull greyish-brown this one was a murky black, as though the dark streaks from before had spread throughout. Useless maybe, but Riven pocketed it anyway. “Thanks? I’m not sure what went on with this, but did you actually give this to that demon?”

Rio licked his lips and a ran a languid hand through his hair. Rather pale lips and hair for skin that was quite dark. He stared out instead of answering, the hand that wasn’t on his head raised up slightly as though he was aiming to catch another Sept crystal someone would throw at him. “No choice really. But I don’t think we should talk about it much. Weird questions, but hey.” He turned back to Riven with a wide grin. Damn, but his teeth were brighter than anything else on him. “We’re alive aren’t we?”

His grin was luminous, and infectious. Riven smiled back. “That we are.” Though a cut on his arm stung hard at that proclamation as though to remind him he wasn’t unscathed.

Riven hefted the carpet bag higher, and pressed a hand on the letter. Still there and safe. He closed his eyes and breathed in deep until his lungs could take in more air. Alive. Free air, unencumbered light. He was alive, and that was something he’d have to be thankful for with some proper chants and hymns for the Scions and whatnot. Nor had he failed Mother. He was back in the world of the living, ready to find a cure for her.

Mother just had to hold out until then. She’d do it. After all, she was quite strong to have survived for so long.

“Who are you two?”

Riven and Rio turned at the same time to stare at the woman striding towards them. Or girl rather. She couldn’t have been much older than Riven. Like Rio, she was dressed in a uniform, though her jacket and trousers were raincloud grey, and her shirt pure black. Unlike Rio, she bore marks of combat—the jacket was ripped in several spots, one sleeve was dyed crimson with blood, and one of her knees were showing through a huge hole in her trousers. Also unlike Rio, she had her gun unholstered and pointed straight at the two of them, though Riven couldn’t blame her. Fighting a demon, or any Deathless really, would put even the most seasoned Essentier on edge.

“Escario Dorvhaes,” Rio said with a smile, extending a hand. A bronze pin glinted between his shoulder and his elbow. “Fourthmarked Essentier of Ascension Demesne. Pleased to meet you.”

The other Essentier stayed well back, like they were contagious. “What are you doing here?”

“I could ask you that, you know.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Rio sighed. He tilted his head, his whole body following suit like he was about to fall on his side, but then he froze, staying bent as though gravity worked at a different for him and him alone. “This is my Demesne. I have authority here, and you’re from Providence Demesne going by your uniform. You and your demon was the unusual activity that drew me here, before you dropped an entire mountain on my head.” He scowled. “Trust me, being buried alive and thinking you can eat your way out isn’t fun.”

“Viriya Rorink,” the other Essentier said with a sigh. She appeared a little abashed but hid it by tonguing the side of her cheek, making it bulge a little. Or maybe the fight had loosed a teeth. “I am from Providence, and yes, I saw a demon and gave chase. I didn’t mean to barge in on your authority.”

Rio smiled at the silver badge pinned near Viriya’s shoulder. “Pleased to meet you, Thirdmarked.” He looked sidelong at Riven. “It escaped, and I’m sorry, but I just didn’t catch which way it went.”

That look was strange. Rio’s eyes had twinkled like the gem on his earring, a secret joke shared with a secret smile, brilliant teeth flashing for a heartbeat. He was hiding something, but why?

“I see.” A few stray curls had escaped the knot of Viriya’s chestnut hair, and they swirled in front of her pale face as she faced Riven. “And you are?”

Riven faced her. Thirdmarked was it? At her age, that was impressive. He found himself staring at her eyes. They were dark, but if he looked intently, he was sure they were actually dark green, not unlike the star she had wielded. When he saw she was facing him, he jerked his head away, warmth creeping up his neck. Oh right, he’d been asked a question. “Riven Senolan Morell. I’m—”

“The Invigilator’s son. I’ve been looking for you.”

Riven couldn’t help gulping. She sounded a little ominous, like she here to take him to the gallows. “Why?”

“Your father sent me. Didn’t he mention in his letter?”

“No.” Riven held back a curse. It was just like Father to ignore mentioning it and let everyone find out as it happened.

She nodded. “We’ll head out, but first.” She turned to Rio with a slight frown. “How did you survive being buried?”

Rio twirled his thin fingers like hair flowing in the wind. “Magic!”

“I demand to know.”

“Well at the moment, every bit of me is demanding to write a report highlighting your rashness and irresponsibility. But maybe if you stopped pestering me and left, I’d be willing to overlook it and answer later. When I’m not feeling so dead.”

“I could report you for letting a known demon escape.”

“And I could let your employer know you nearly killed his youngest son.”

Viriya was pale, but she blanched harder at that. Her eyes flickered to Riven, and he couldn’t read them. Guilt? Fear? Annoyance. A cold mask blanketed her face in moments.

Rio stretched his arms above his head, face relaxing with a purr of pleasure. “Ah, that felt nice.” He nodded to Viriya, then grinned at Riven. “I’ll start an investigation on the demon from my end soon. Say hello to daddy dearest from me.”

He turned and started trudging away, hands stuffed in his trousers’ pockets, rising and sinking over the uneven terrain like a ship on stormy seas.

“Thank you,” Riven said.

Rio raised a hand in acknowledgement.

Viriya stared after him for a while, lips pressed to a hard line, before turning and heading the other way. East towards Providence Demesne. Towards Father. “Come on.”

Riven followed. The Sept puffed and crunched under his feet, filling the silence between them. He could ask something, but Viriya didn’t seem like the conversational type. Where Rio was warm and affable, Viriya was colder, here to get the job done instead of wasting time on meaningless words. Not that Rio was willing to reveal everything, going by his little chat-cum-altercation with her, but she was another case entirely. Riven would have more luck talking to the dead Sept crystal in his pants pocket.

Dusk had conquered most of the sky by the time they reached the steel sign. Gloom was settling in, and Riven stepped closer to Viriya than was probably necessary. If there was a demon on the loose, who knew what other Deathless lurked somewhere in the shadows.

“Are we walking all the way there?” Stupid question maybe, but Riven hadn’t accounted for a harrowing, near-death experience as part of is trek to Providence Demesne.

“Can you grow wings?” Viriya asked, frowning at the sign like it had led her astray.

“I wish I could.”

Viriya didn’t bother replying, and was about to set off when a loud horn blared from behind. Riven turned, a smile pulling on his lips. They were saved!

The chauffeur halted the car beside their incredulous faces. “What are you gawkin’ at? Hop aboard!”

They entered the car, Riven squeezing himself to as far right as possible as Viriya claimed a seat beside him. If the last ride held was any indication of things to come, it wouldn’t do to fall into each other. Scions spare him, and not make the roads too bumpy. Even the slightest surprising motion had the chance to aggravate his abrasions.

“I let you go for barely an hour and you look the half-dead.” The chauffeur’s face blinked back from a mirror set in the ceiling near the windshield. “What happened?”

Viriya didn’t answer, opting to stare out the little window.

Riven, of course, did answer. “Not much. Just a near-death experience. I hear it’s common around here.”

“Well, it’s why I came haring after you. Couldn’t let you get lost in the dark, not after what’s been goin’ on round these parts.”

The chauffeur started the car, and they were off. It rattled as all cars were wont to do, but the road was smoother and at least Riven wasn’t bouncing around as much. A seductively acrid scent pricked his nose, like burning sugar, and from his rudimentary knowledge on car engines, it was the Sept being combusted inside the engine. It gave Riven the strange notion of licking the carburettor. Disgusting.

“Are you all right?” Riven asked. If he’d learned one thing over his long journey, it was that silence made him feel lonely. All the more so when he had a companion.

Viriya flexed the fingers of her left hand, stained crimson with what had to be her own blood. It was fresh, glistening bright and wet. “I’m fine. You?”

“I’m fine too.”

And that was all the conversation to be had. Not exactly what Riven preferred, but fine by him. There were other things to see.

The land grew more civilized as they approached Providence Demesne proper. Less cracks, less stagnant pools and thorngrass, and far fewer haphazard clumps of Coral trees and bushes. The ground was flatter and not so uneven, pipes criss-crossing through the cloak of mist, some even tunnelling through the road that ran on long earth mounds. Nourishing veins for the revival of this cadaver, circulating life-giving water throughout the withered region. In Severance Frontier, water had to be pulled out from reservoirs deep underground since contamination with Sept was a constant danger.

At a certain point, they passed through a fence stretching out to either side from a gate barring the path. They swung back once they had confirmed their identities, which had amounted one withering look from Viriya.

Riven leaned back against the seat. He was finally here. Providence Demesne. His home for the foreseeable future, his base for finding a cure for Mother.

Providence city was still a ways off, but people and their livelihoods were beginning to show up more. Greenhouses dotted the area, large structures made of glasses held by a steel framework that housed the crops that fed the people, and pastures and pens that fed the poultry and farm animals. Some even held rare trees of wood and leaves. Those had their own enclosures, guards patrolling to prevent theft and other misdemeanours. Other structures populated the area as well—locked warehouses, guard posts, tall water towers, all illuminated with Sept lamps. Rail carriages stood waiting for their passengers here and there, their Sept beacons burning bright as stars through the cloudy cloak of ripening mist, people scurrying towards them like ants towards honey.

Riven peered closer, trying to make out details, but it was too gloomy. It wasn’t easy to eke out a living in Severance Frontier. Yet there all those people were, struggling to make of it what they could, for where there was Sept, there was profit. And there was far too much Sept in this land.

Enough for him too, hopefully.

“When was the last time you saw your father?” Viriya asked all of a sudden. She was still staring out the window.

“So you can converse,” Riven said.

That got her attention, and she frowned at him.

“Sorry.” Riven tried for a smile. Her frown went away but her dark eyes were still hard and sharp as broken glass. “I saw him just over a year ago when he visited us back in Norreston. But if you mean living with him, that hasn’t happened since he left us four years ago.”

“How is it back in Norreston?”

The capital wasn’t inundated with Sept, wasn’t dealing with Deathless running free everywhere, wasn’t mired with stretches of shattered grounds and deadly water. “It’s fine.”

“How did you get out from under there?”

“I—” Riven paused, mouth slightly parted, and screwed his eyes at her. The mountain of dead Sept was a big jump from Norreston. “I thought you wanted to know about me, but you just want your demon.”

Viriya shrugged. Then her eyes got harder, though how that was possible was beyond him. “That’s not an answer.”

“I don’t really know. Rio gave a Sept crystal to the demon, which then presumably freed us in gratitude. I wasn’t exactly sure what happened in the darkness.”

Riven bit his tongue. It wasn’t that he wanted to answer Viriya when Rio, who’d been much friendlier, had hinted that he shouldn’t. It came down to the fact that he shouldn’t start off on Viriya’s bad side, not when she might be involved in the research Father was funding.

Viriya’s lips pressed together harder. “I see. And you didn’t see which direction it went?”

“East, I think.”

“Ah. To Rennervation Demesne.”

“Why are you so obsessed with this demon?”

“I’m an Essentier. Obsessing over the Deathless is part of my job description.”

“You’re awfully young for an Essentier, you know that.”

“Says a sixteen-year-old.”

Riven flushed. “And you’re not?”

There was the barest trace of a smirk on Viriya’s face. “No. Seventeen. That’s how things work around here.”

That’s how things were. Riven looked away. Ridiculous. Yes, Viriya looked like the exact kind of person that fit Severance Frontier, hard, uncompromising, and unyielding to anything or anyone. Someone who’d been bent into her current shape by the land’s harshness.

“Are you anxious about meeting your father?” she asked. When Riven turned to face her, she was staring out the window again.

The city was rolling into view. Its houses were crowded affairs, every blocky, two-storey tenement with nearly-flat gables conjoined to the next with no space in between. Streetlamps holding glowing Sept burned away the fog that tried to creep in, pedestrians appearing in the pools of light and vanishing in the shadows. More lights were blinking on inside the houses, more stars joining the constellation spreading over the city. In the distance, giants loomed over the houses—the distant Sept refinery, a tall, circular building that had to be the Invigilator’s Office, and what looked like enormous cranes to the south. It was congested, like everyone was trying to make the most of what little space they were given. Nothing like the airiness that filled Norreston.

Riven had looked up Providence city before arriving, and though Father wasn’t exactly the sharing type, Mother made sure he knew most of what had been going on here.

“I am,” Riven admitted. “Slightly. It’s been a long time and I just… really don’t know. What about you? Do your parents live here?”

Viriya glanced at him through the corner of her eye. Streetlight caught her pupil and he was right. They were green as leafy garnets. “I’m sorry to hear your mother is ill, though I suspect, your arrival here has a lot to do with it.”

“Thank you. But that’s not an answer.”

She turned to face him again, and a nearby streetlamp illuminated a spray of faint freckles he hadn’t noticed before. Once again, she had that tiny beginning of a smirk at the corner of her lips, though her eyes were harder than ever. “It’s none of your business.”

“Really? You can ask about me but I can’t about you?”

Viriya didn’t bother replying. The car wound through the streets, turning left or right as appropriate, the Invigilator’s Office growing larger every moment. They passed other cars too, some trundling along like theirs, others parked with their drivers idling within or without, and once they even stopped to let a rail carriage pass through a street.

Riven kept staring forward. The stinging of his little wounds had dulled over the course of the ride. It was well and truly night now, and Father was liable to get pissed if he was kept waiting for too long.

“We’ve arrived,” the chauffeur announced after a little eternity.

Riven almost tumbled when he burst out of the boxy chassis, pulling his carpet bag behind him. Finally. Damn, but he was going to have to relate everything that had happened to Father, wasn’t he? He could already hear the lecture ringing like discordant bells. Don’t be hasty. Don’t be impulsive. Haven’t you grown up yet? Four years I leave you alone, and this is how you arrive?

This is what your mother brought you up to be?

Riven swallowed, took a deep breath, and then glared at Viriya. No, none of it was his fault. Besides, what was he blaming himself for again? Being late because the car Father sent broke down and one his vaunted Essentiers had thrown an entire mountain of dead Sept at him?

“Come on.” Viriya stepped towards the gate. “Best not to keep your father waiting.”

Riven agreed, and followed.

They passed a strange statue made of interlocking pointed metal balls. Nightfall made it hard to see, but the shape was obvious—a figure that looked like a seven-pointed star, lower limbs longer than the middle ones give the impression of legs and a short one at the top as though it was a head. Four small humans were arrayed around the base, all carved to look like they were staring adoringly up at the figure.

Riven didn’t need to read the inscription on the plaque to know that this was the statue of a Scion. Of the Seventh Scion and the Chosen worshipping.

He did pause to read the poem at the bottom, though.

When the greatest three beyond life are aligned

And a Scion’s soul is wandering

Then comes the day when we shall find

The world will be Sundering

The guards didn’t check their IDs or anything. They only approached, caught sight of Viriya’s face, then rushed to open the gate. Maybe Riven would be accorded the same unquestionable respect one day.

Where the exterior was dark and gloom, the interior was almost shining. The atrium was wide and tiled with reflective white marble, manned by a single bored receptionist sitting close to the door and a few guards strung along the back, standing in front of several sub-office doors with metal plaques indicating their purpose. Viriya took a staircase on the right, one hand sliding along the steel railing, and Riven took the steps after her.

The second-floor landing was dimmer, the glow more golden than white on the walls panelled with wood. Real, live wood! Riven looked, fingers itching to touch but not daring to do so. Damn, he hadn’t realized Father had gotten rich. Could he be the owner of one of the tree farms in the greenhouses?

“Are you ready?” Viriya asked, turning to Riven in front of a large door with a plaque that read Invigilator Rosbel Morell’s Office. Two guards stood on either side, motionless as statues, uniforms little different from an Essentier’s.

Riven frowned. “Won’t I get a chance to freshen up?” He glanced down at his torn clothes, at the cuts and bruises crawling all over him. “I’m a bit of a mess.”

“I don’t think he cares.”

Without waiting for an answer, Viriya knocked on the large door. They were bidden to enter, and Riven’s heart jumped. Father was inside.

The door opened on its own, and Viriya walked in, Riven following close behind. He didn’t get much time to appreciate the spacious office. Just a moment’s look at the domed ceiling with a large Sept candelabra at the centre, at the intricate maps adorning both side walls, and the floor-to-ceiling windows behind that opened up Providence city. He even didn’t linger on the paintings of his family on the back wall.

His eyes were drawn inexorably to the Invigilator of Providence Demesne. Father.

“Your son, Invigilator.” Viriya bowed, one hand behind her back. “Shall I leave?”

“Stay,” he said, sitting on a high-backed chair behind a large mahogany desk, its surface polished to a mirrorlike sheen. He faced Riven. “You’re late.”

Riven gulped. Father looked no different from last year—same short, dark hair going grey at the edges, same lines rippling along his forehead and under his eyes, same hard jaw that looked like it was forever clenched tight. The same eyes, somewhere between amber and brown, just like Riven’s. He looked no different from his painting either. Both wore the same dark tailored suit with the black sack coat over the white shirt and black tie, though Father’s hat was on the table rather than on his head. Time was truly just a construct for him.

“I got dragged into a few things,” Riven mumbled.

“No doubt.” Father inspected him up and down. “I’d ask, but the main point of whatever story you’d tell is written all over you.”

Riven frowned, and his voice grew stronger. He hadn’t come all this way to take flak for things out of his hands. “Is it written that you sent up a beat-up, old car to pick me up?”

“Well I didn’t send a car to beat you up.”

Riven flushed again, catching the same barely-there smirk on Viriya’s face. He was being hemmed in here, and the was the last thing he needed after the whole stupid day.

Father’s table held too many paraphernalia, though all were meticulously organized. A sheaf of papers on one side, a pen stand with several pens and pencils on the other, and a paperweight held down a single sheet. Near the front edge of the desk, a small contraption was in eternal motion, a series of pendulums connected by a string running along the top. When one slowed, the one beside it moved until it slowed too, and the one beside that started up, and on it went, the waving returning the way it had passed.

Clearing his throat, Riven pressed a hand to his shirt, feeling the letter pressed against his chest. “Mother sent a letter. You know she’s not doing well.” That was an understatement if he’d ever said one. Riven was the one not doing well. Mother was on death’s doorstep. “I was hoping I could help with your research to find a cure. I studied while in school, and I think I know a way to help.”

Father observed him over steepled fingers. “I have a task for you.”

“What is it?”

“This won’t be the vacation you may have expected.”

Riven shook his head. “When did I ever say it would?”

Father bent to the paper before him, took a black pen from the stand, and started scribbling. He didn’t look at Riven, but his painting did, glaring down with eyes shining like the Septillion sun. “You will be assigned to Viriya Rorink as an aide. She has many duties alongside her important missions as an Essentier, and I want you to take care of some of her administrative duties while she takes care of other, more pressing matters.”

Riven didn’t respond. An aide? To Viriya of all people, who hardly talked and never answered? Maybe he hadn’t heard right. He pulled out Mother’s letter. “Mother sent an important message. You need to read it, and I need to be helping you with finding a cure and getting it to her. I don’t have time to be slaving after one of your Essentiers.” He nodded at Viriya, whose face had gone stony as a tombstone. “No offence.”

She didn’t bother replying. No surprise there.

“Leave the letter with my secretary,” Father said without looking up from his scribbling. He had a secretary? Maybe having a secretary was part of an Invigilator’s job description. He put away the pen and held out the paper. “Here are your duties for the next week. I want a personal progress report the day after tomorrow and every two days from then on. Understood?”

“Don’t you… care? Mother is dying, and where’s Glaven and Rose?”

He shook the paper a little, amber eyes hardening like he was intending to trap Riven in them. “Go with Viriya. She will explain.”

Riven shook where he stood a little. He ought to yell at Father for dismissing him, for disregarding the seriousness of Mother’s condition, for thinking there was nothing Riven could do to help. He should at least ask until the answers were satisfactory. But the paintings caught his eye. All seven of them, depicting his whole family individually and together, Mother most of all with her soft gaze, gauze-gloved hands, and midnight hair flowing over one shoulder like a scarf across her lilac dress. A soft gaze, with a softer warning in those twilight eyes of hers.

She wasn’t with him right now, so he should watch his step.

Riven caught Viriya’s eye, dark eyes spitting a similar silent message, and Riven held his tongue. He snatched the paper from Father’s hand, stalked out the room, and didn’t stop until he was standing in the chill night air of late Autumn. So much for discussing cures and research.

“It’s getting late,” Viriya said, walking past him without even bothering to look at Riven. “Come on, I’ll take you to your rooms.”

He sighed. The day had been exhausting and if he let his thoughts out now, he’d just be shouting constantly. No, tomorrow. He’d deal with it all after he’d rested, recuperated, and reordered everything.

So, Riven followed.