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aila removed her hand as the ice shed its layers like a thick winter coat and the waters of his rebirth began to break through.

“Oh gods,” breathed Dr Isuka in horror as tiny jets of water burst free from the cracks. She willed herself to move back but her legs rejected the message. She was stiff as wax.

Laila scarcely had a moment to react before Lyra’s arms were wrapped around her svelte waist, pivoting her out of harm’s way.

“What did you do?” Lyra cried, her hands cupping around Laila’s face. Her opaline eyes were tinged silver as a blade under the amaranthum lamps.

“I didn’t—” Laila looked to her friend with wide and guileless eyes, shaking her head frantically as she gripped her shoulders. “I didn’t do this, Lyra. I didn’t—”

There was little time for either to argue the site of blame. For the ice responded with a loud, hollow crunch as soon as the words were uttered.

The two immortals spread themselves away from the ensuing icy slush as the occassi washed ashore. His body smacked the ground with a wet clap, stiff and unresponsive. They stared at him as though he were a beached leviathan tossed from the abyssal depths of the sea. A subject of myth now startlingly factual.

Laila’s heart thundered in her chest at his arrival. There was a tempest brewing in her, one powered by both fear and excitement—the dread of the unknown and the eagerness to know it. In spite of rationality, she stepped forward towards the slumbering titan and saw the faint tremors of his coldness. And in seeing it, was inspired to drape the blanket over his colossal form.

She crouched low before his head and swept away the damp curtain of his hair to reveal his face. He was all sharp angles, not a single softened curve to him, as though his face scorned the mere thought of frailty. Yet with him limp and motionless on the floor, frailness was all she could see in him.

“He’s not conscious,” Laila said, prodding beneath his jaw with her fingers. Then she looked up at Dr Isuka. “I can feel a pulse.”

“How could this be?” the scholar replied.

“A better question might be: how is it that he got out?” Lyra countered. “And what do we do with him now that he’s free?”

“I suppose that is something for my mother to decide,” Laila said. Though try as she may she couldn’t stop herself from frowning as she said it.

What caused her throat to squeeze so hard at the thought of harm to the titan, one could not explain. To her, he seemed so pitiful like a lion with a nail in its paw. He appealed to her unquenchable fount of empathy.

“For now I grant you leave, Dr Isuka.”

Though Dr Isuka longed to linger to see the end of this affair, she understood well enough she was being dismissed. “Of course, Your Radiance.”

Laila turned to Lyra once Dr Isuka had departed. “Help me move him.”

Years of ballet and gymnastics had sculpted her body into one of lithe muscularity, she could easily carry him with her preternatural strength. His height, however, would prove bothersome without aid.

Lyra closed her eyes and pinched the delicate bridge of her nose, praying upon the higher power of the sun goddess and all her celestial might to give her strength. “Are you a maniac?”

“Do you suggest we leave him here?” Laila asked, appalled.

“If you want my genuine counsel, then yes. The Lightshields are more than capable of taking up the burden from here.”

Laila looked back down upon the occassi’s face in reluctance, watching the faint rise and fall of his chest. “I can’t simply allow him to be killed. Not without—”

“Without what?” Lyra challenged, her eyes narrowed. “You need to allow the dog to bite you before you’re determined to put him down? Do you have any idea how foolish you sound right now, Laila?”

“What if he’s not as dangerous as we’re being led to believe?”

“Care to stake your life on that?”

Laila glanced up at her, the heart-shaped curve of her jawline hardened.

Though Lyra knew better, she couldn’t help the urge she felt to protect Laila. She could too easily read delicacy into her whittled willow limbs, her ripe apricot flesh, and forget the steel core beneath.

“Well, you might be willing to but I am certainly not.” Lyra stood up to full height, at once a pillar of marble. Laila knew she may have had better luck at talking one down. While she may hold the crown in this equation, it was ultimately her mother’s word her Lightshield would answer to.

It was clear to both this could only end in one way. They would argue only for Laila to stand her ground and it would conclude with her over Lyra’s shoulder. How amusing to think such a scenario had once thrilled Laila to the point of desire. Now it only reminded her of why any romantic entanglement between them had been so mournfully doomed to fail.

“Fine.” Laila rose to her feet. “But I want him remanded in the house of correction first.”

“Must you drag Lucrèce into this mess?”

“I refuse to consolidate my opinions based on folk tales and conjecture alone, Lyra. I need more than this.” Laila bunched her fists. “I don’t expect you to understand. But I need this for me. For my own peace of mind.”

Lyra stared at her for some moments, searching as though she hoped to find the strings of the grimoire puppeteering Laila behind her back. A hopeless endeavour, but not one for which she should be blamed. How else was she to reconcile such reckless behaviour with someone she held so dear? But if one could say nothing else of Laila’s character it was that she had been a magnet for danger ever since they were girls. It swarmed her like captivated moths to her open flame.

Realising this caused Lyra to relent. “Alright.”

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Laila exhaled softly, adjusting the straps of her gown as she prepared for performance. This was her curtain call and already the adrenaline was coursing through her veins like a river rapid, her pulse erratic, but one might never guess it from the fluid motion of her feline gait.

At this hour of the day, Laila knew her mother would be in the paradise garden watching her white lions roam. She took the quickest pathway there, seeking shelter through the wisteria covered pergola and its stark marble pillars until the faint purl of the pond could be heard in the near distance.

Amira sat beneath the partial shade of the pomegranate trees, shadows casting foliate patterns along her skin. Before her stretched lush, green fields carpeted with wildflowers and fruit trees. The garden had been designed by her especially; each plant a meticulous addition to her symphony of scent, harmonised to olfactory bliss.

Laila remembered the awe when she’d first seen this extensive collection of nature’s bounty, knowing they would always remain eternal under her mother’s care. But after a while seeing them unchanged through the seasons, suspended in immaculacy, only served to make her feel saddened.

Laila approached her mother and cleared her throat. “Maman?”

“Yes, what is it, aurore?” Her mother’s gaze was a radiant sliver of undiluted sun. Laila felt as though she was being liquefied straight to the bones by meeting it.

“There is some news about the specimen I feel you ought to know.” Laila folded her hands together in her lap, her heart thrashing against her birdcage ribs.

“Well?” A lone word, clipped and conservative. Amira had always held her words fast between her teeth as though they were as precious as the pearls that adorned her hair. Laila had always been a beggar for them, rapping her empty cup for a mere sentence, a syllable. Perhaps she never would’ve grown such an appetite for attention if she hadn’t been raised so starved.

Laila pressed her lips together, debating how much she should say. “I am afraid that during Dr Isuka’s recent visit to the Chamber the creature has- he has broken free from the ice.” She swallowed, hastening to explain. “But I promise you, no harm has befallen the Chamber or the palace! I had him apprehended with swiftness by the Lightshields and detained.”

A low growl sounded from one of Amira’s wandering lionesses as she prowled forward to rest her head in Amira’s lap. Her fondness for the beasts was what had given her the moniker of White Lioness.

“I see.” Amira tilted forward to stroke the lioness’s head, the few loose canerows at the front of her halo braid rattling with seawater pearls. A singular canerow ran up through the centre, embroidered with a sun pendant—the holy symbol of Caelestis. “And tell me: how is it you allowed that to happen?”

Laila had been dreading this. Others might display their rage in fits of spontaneous rants or violence, but Amira had always been too dignified for such impassioned histrionics. Her rage was a snow capped volcano—a careful, contained thing that simmered ever beneath the surface. The control she exerted made it that much more unpredictable.

“I-I—” Laila stammered, a litany of apologies tripping on her tongue.

“You are mumbling, Laila.”

Laila jolted straight in response; a dormant reflex from when her mother would administer small shocks to her in order to correct her posture and speech. “I don’t know how it happened! One moment we were all standing there and the next… it was almost as though it was an act of external will.”

“Don’t tell me you’re beginning to become a doomsday believer?” Amira snorted in amusement. “Spare me.”

“Of course not.” Laila nibbled softly on her bottom lip. “It’s simply the only way I can make sense of this.”

Amira parted her lips in displeasure.

“Regardless of whether you believe in the threat or not… it has been confirmed that there are more occassi out there.” Laila set her jaw firm. “The one in our custody could therefore become a useful subject to study.”

Amira’s eyes narrowed in consideration. “The creature? Where is it now?”

“I have him in the custody of Dr Mielette.”

“Hm.” Amira nodded, willing to accept this arrangement for now. “An inconvenient situation but not unsalvageable. You are fortunate that your incompetence hasn’t been too far-reaching in this instance, Laila. For now, I think it’s time I see this creature.”

Amira nudged her lioness away as she stood, indifferent to the glisten in her daughter’s eyes as Laila struggled to suppress the lump in her throat. There was nothing Amira loathed more than to see tears.

She was already walking away when Laila spoke again. “Maman, I beg your pardon. Please forgive me.”

“Don’t.” Amira held up a hand to halt her. “I have no interest in your pleas. They have no use to me. What I most desire- what I have always desired is for you to be better. Yet, I can see now that is simply too large of a request. So please, spare me your words. There is nothing more for you to say.”

Amira resumed her walk, content for that to be the last word.

Laila watched her go, tears aglitter on her cheeks from the clear sunlight before she politely wiped them away.

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An entire Lightshield guard had assembled to escort the occassi to their house of correction. They’d handled his body with the caution of a grenade that had yet to be detonated. Yet not once throughout the entire process did he make a stir of movement. He was a spectre in all but pulse.

Laila wandered up and down the expanse of the clinical hallway outside the occassi’s padded cell. Eventually tiring of pacing, she seated herself on the tufted waiting chair, kicked off her slippers and tucked her feet behind her.

Dr Lucrèce Mielette found her like this when she exited the cell, tidying her bundled bun of pearl blonde corkscrew curls.

“Any news?” Laila asked, brightening considerably at the sight of the solarite physician. She’d been a long admirer of her work and had come to see the elder as a mentor and confidant.

“I was unable to retrieve a read on his aura seeing as our friend has no aether.” Lucrèce grimaced in dissatisfaction. “Traditional medicine tells me there is nothing physically wrong with him. He’s a little cold but, well, that’s to be expected. It’s remarkable. You’d never think he was frozen at all. I haven’t seen a healing factor quite this advanced since well… one of us.”

Laila watched him through the observation window. “So he will not wake at all?”

Lucrèce followed the trajectory of her gaze. “I cannot confirm anything of his condition without a lot of time and observation. Should there be any change you will certainly be the first to know.”

“I appreciate that,” Laila said. She glanced through the lone observation window again. “May I have a moment alone with him? Before my mother arrives?”

“As you wish,” Lucrèce said. “But make it a quick moment.”

Laila entered the room before she could be dissuaded and stepped closer to the occassi, skirting her fingers over one of the meteorite inhibitor rings that had been fastened to his wrists. There was another clasped around his broad, sinewed throat and she could see how he swelled against it with each passing breath.

He seemed larger up close—built like a mountain. Beneath his bed clothes he was pure bulk; his thighs were like boulders. Laila’s breath caught as she observed this, the sight of him activating some place primal. She had seen male bodies before, of course, human and sprite alike. But they had been nothing like his.

Her eyes trailed across the square angle of his jawline buried beneath a dense mass of beard, the sharp tip of his ear and the aquiline curve of his nose. Though there was fear among the pity in the cocktail of her emotions, what fermented in her most prominently was fascination. The desperation to know for certain whether he would be her victim or villain.

She tested his pulse beneath his jaw, as though to ascertain its realness, and came away marvelled at its much more sluggish pace. But what intrigued her most of all was his temperature—only a few degrees below lukewarm, like a bath left to grow cool.

Perhaps he needs a kiss to warm him up, she thought in amusement. She cupped his russet-coloured cheek, debating whether she should try a less orthodox method of breaching the seemingly impenetrable vault that was his mind. In its rawest form, aether was the essence of life energy itself and thus heat, light, electricity—all of life’s base components—naturally branched from it. If she could manipulate the electrical activity in his brain she would be able to access dreams, memories, even basic motor functions.

Unable to resist, she brushed her lips against his temple in a kiss. She pried open his mind to her, coaxing her way in so she might see his last memories and was at once flooded with a deluge of images. She saw him caught in a violent storm at sea, his pursuit of a large white whale crystallised by ice and his daring, if not completely foolish, battle that led to his icy fate.

She could only dip beneath the surface before she had to come back up for relief, too overwhelmed by the depths of him— the black gulf of memories that appeared to have been lengthened by the centuries of his lifespan. Laila drew back in shock, desperate for air, as though she’d been pinned underwater herself.

The occassi stirred violently in his bed, the crackles of her electricity surging through every one of his nerve endings and jolting them to activity. That warmth of affection, it would appear, was all he needed. It ignited a pyre in his rusted furnace core, coercing the machine to life. Within an instant of her touch he had awakened with a strained, throaty gasp.

His eyes blinked rapidly, scanning about the unfamiliar room and its scant surroundings until it fixed upon Laila. The occassi drew his head back as he regarded her ethereal radiance. Never before in his life had he laid eyes on a creature like her. Her face was a most exquisite torment—the piercing relief of sunlight at the end of a long tunnel.

He struggled against his restraints and, upon seeing his hands were functional, seized her wrist.

“Who are you?” he demanded in a gravel-laced baritone, his slitted pupils darting analytically over her features. His tongue was a rough, guttural sound, unrecognisable to her.

“Unhand me!” Laila cried out, snatching her wrist back from his iron grip.

He stared at his empty hand in puzzlement, taken aback by her strength and speed. Both realised at once they must not understand a word each had said.

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Dr Isuka sighed as a Lightshield escorted her from the lift into the house of correction. Tales had long been whispered of the house of correction and the mysteries that took place within its walls, but it would be the first time Dr Isuka would find herself within its waxed wards.

She thumbed the drop bottle of elixir in her pocket given to her by the princess, eager to return to her colleague and rescue her from the corruptive influence that held her hostage. Alas, the saga with the occassi had developed a new conflict upon his awakening—one that could only be resolved with her knowledge of his tongue.

She arrived outside his cell to find the occassi being attended to by two spritemen nurses while a solarite in a white coat observed from the window. One had slathered his jaw and neck with shaving cream while the other was slicking back his hair with pomade. It might have been the most absurd sight Dr Isuka had ever laid eyes upon, but most amusing of all was the narrowed, unsatisfied gaze of the titan as he was forced to do nothing but submit.

“Dr Isuka, I presume?” Dr Mielette turned to greet her with a smile. “Welcome, I am Dr Lucrèce Mielette. I thank you in advance for your service to us.”

“Of course,” Dr Isuka replied, “though I am uncertain of how much help I will be. My knowledge of the occassi’s language is likely to be a more archaic dialect and, depending on how old he is, I can’t be sure he will understand me.”

“Well, there is certainly no harm in trying,” Dr Mielette said.

“Indeed,” Dr Isuka agreed. She cast a glance at the miserable creature. “Is all of that truly necessary?”

Dr Mielette scrunched her broad nose. “I usually wouldn’t but the impératrice is due a visit and she does hate for things to be unsightly.”

“The impératrice?” Dr Isuka replied in alarm, “here?”

“Yes, she will be outside observing.”

While the scholar digested this news, Dr Mielette surveyed the nurses’ handiwork through the window. The spritemen had completed their task of civilising the occassi’s wild, rugged features and finished off by applying a subtle rouge to his lips and cheeks to give him a more healthy countenance.

Dr Mielette gave a rudimentary check for imperfections.

“Will there be anything else, Doctor?” asked one of the nurses.

“No.” Dr Mielette shook her head. “You both may remove the mouth guard, after which you are dismissed.”

The nurse nodded, taking care to hold the occassi’s head as the other unscrewed his guard.

The occassi’s throat rumbled as the sprites drew near, canines itching to descend. But having already suffered the indignity of being primped and preened like a prized mount at a country fair, he was willing to accept whatever leniencies he could.

“What was the mouth guard for?” Dr Isuka asked.

“He took a bite of one of the other nurse’s fingers,” Dr Mielette said in disgust, “and then he ate it.”

Dr Isuka’s face folded in horror. She watched the composure of the nurses with astonishment in light of this news. After they had tidied away their equipment, Dr Mielette called for them again.

“Ah, my manners.” She clicked her tongue. “Some rosewater, please, for myself and Dr Isuka.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

The nurses opened the door, releasing a balsamic musk from the agarwood shaving cream they were using to groom him. After they’d left, Dr Mielette entered the room to pull up two chairs to the occassi’s bedside.

“May I ask what the agenda is for today’s session?” Dr Isuka asked.

“We’re hoping we’ll be able to get this one to talk,” Dr Mielette explained, observing the occassi’s calm, almost self-satisfied, composure. “Perhaps find out more about him and where he’s from.”

Dr Isuka nodded, her mind sifting through the ancient texts she’d combed through with Dr Hariken. All of a sudden she felt keenly her absence, for the latter scholar had always been more adept with linguistics. They’d deciphered it after realising it shared its roots with an ancient Seraji dialect. “And after?”

“Well, that’s for the impératrice to decide.” Dr Mielette paused, hearing the lift rise. “And here she is now.”

The lift dinged before the doors withdrew to reveal an entire Lightshield outfit, followed by the impératrice herself and Princess Laila not long after on her heels. They gathered outside of the observation window, parting to let both royals forth.

Dr Isuka straightened immediately in her presence. “Your Luminosity.” She saluted with a low bow.

“Good afternoon,” Amira greeted, her lilac eyes examining them both. “Dr Isuka, I presume?”

“Indeed,” Dr Isuka confirmed, still a little starstruck but quick to recover. She decided she liked Amira’s voice. It was a sonorous, earth-rumbling voice, good for preaching sermons and authoring proclamations; it brought her back home to her childhood in the sect. “It is a great honour, Your Luminosity.”

Amira nodded in response. “The princess tells me you should be able to close the gap between ourselves and the occassi.”

“Yes,” Dr Isuka answered affirmatively, sensing the impératrice would want conviction in her tone.

“Well then, let’s get started.”

Dr Isuka nodded, opening the door to the padded cell so that she might seat herself beside Dr Mielette. She wavered as she drew near, feeling a mammalian tingle in her hindbrain at the occassi’s immediate presence.

One never lost those primal instincts, though comfort may dull the blade of their focus and civilisation further subject them to rust. But it always struck like this: a niggling itch, a subtle increase in the heart rate which reiterated itself in the twitching of leg muscles to flee or to fight. Dr Isuka faced many monsters before this, but she’d at least had the comfort that they’d often been corpses and not nearly as intelligent.

“You can come closer, Dr Isuka,” Dr Mielette encouraged, “I promise you he can’t bite.”

Dr Isuka sat and smoothed out her lap. Not long after a spriteman arrived with glasses of fragrant rosewater which she took a hefty sip of before she began.

“Greetings, great beast,” she said, in an old, accursed tongue. “I am known as Akira Isuka. I call upon you on behalf of my sovereign to seek knowledge of your origin. If you are able to, I pray you answer my questions.”

His features shifted with recognition. Still, he said nothing.

“I divine you recognise the language I speak,” Dr Isuka pressed, growing irritable.

“Quite,” he said, a wolfish smile quirking on his lips. “Many moons have passed since such a tongue has graced my ears. The land from which I hail had long abandoned it to an antiquated age. Only those of the clergy or the highborn still make use of it.”

“And which are you?” Dr Isuka asked, “clergy or aristocrat?”

His smile sharpened. “Such knowledge would be much favoured by you.”

“Yet you will not tell me?”

“It is wearisome to partake in a dialogue whilst I languish in such abasement.” He gestured to his patient bed.

Dr Isuka turned to Dr Mielette and switched back to Soltongue. “Adjust his bed. Seat him upright.”

Dr Mielette nodded and twisted the gears of his patient bed so he was in sitting position.

“Is this more to your favour?” Dr Isuka asked.

The occassi shrugged. “I would also care to be released from this vexatious collar.”

Dr Isuka repeated the request, to which Dr Mielette shook her head. “The collar remains.”

“A pity.” His smile vanished. “And here I had begun to warm my tongue for discourse.”

“He won’t speak,” Dr Isuka explained.

“Tell the occassi if he will not speak,” Amira asserted from beyond the window, “I will gladly enforce a less agreeable method to extract what I require.”

“Your sovereign makes her displeasure well-known,” the occassi chuckled, “I can perceive it even behind this impenetrable wall our conflicting tongues provide.”

“I heartily suggest you do not vex her.”

“And I, in turn, would eagerly encourage you not to vex me.”

Dr Isuka swallowed, the ferocity of his stare being all the encouragement she needed. “I shall not squander such wise counsel. Still, I pray you grant me the benefaction of one answer to my question.”

“Speak freely, mortal. Demand what you will. But an occassi bestows nothing without price.”

“And what price would you demand?”

His smile returned. “Name your request of me, mortal, and I shall grant it upon reception of a vessel to my lands.”

“You know I cannot grant that.”

“Then I have no desire to proceed with this.”

Dr Isuka clenched down on her jaw, her fingers flexing.

Though just as she was about to give in, she heard the light patter of Princess Laila’s footsteps enter the room.

“Why won’t he speak?” she demanded, glancing over at him accusingly.

“He wants to barter,” Dr Isuka explained, “apparently, that is how they conduct themselves where he is from.”

Laila walked over to the occassi’s bedside to loom over him. The occassi looked back at her. She was no less radiant to him than she had been the first time he saw her and her proximity disoriented; the warm, heady dispersion of her perfume was like an opiate.

“Translate for me,” Laila requested of the scholar. “I am the one who is responsible for your awakening. If not for me, and my actions, you would still be wasting away in your glacial encasement. I would say such a display of benevolence would warrant a payment or two, no?”

“Your Radiance—”

“Tell him,” Laila insisted, “the exact words.”

Dr Isuka nodded, translating to him as best as she could.

The occassi glanced between the scholar and princess, his face splintering into a smirk, and then a chuckle. “Very well, Glowing One. I will reveal to you, and to you alone.”

Dr Isuka imparted the message.

“What does that mean?” Laila asked, eyes narrowed.

The occassi cocked his head to one side, then he held out his hand to her. Laila stared at the large, calloused palm before she accepted and placed her hand in his. The texture of her skin was like velvet and inside of his own, her hand was unnervingly small; birdlike. He raised it carefully to rest on his cheek.

Laila felt her guard relax upon his silent placidity and tried once more to open his mind to her.

The connection, once established, was electrifying. A current of white heat swelled from the crown of his head to the nape of his neck, causing him to shudder. He closed his eyes to the feathery tickle of her presence in his brain as she roamed his memories and brought them hurtling to the surface. He felt the bitter winters and wet summers; the taste of suckling pig fat on his tongue; the velvet texture of black feathers from a large, indistinct beast; and the satisfying crack of bones beneath his knuckles.

He was still tingling with her power when she eventually stepped away, gasping to catch her breath.

The occassi stared at her with eyes of verdant green. “My debt to you is paid.”

She didn’t understand but was perceptive enough to nod her head. Then she tried once more to scale the language barrier between them. “Laila.” She tapped her chest and enunciated the vowels of her name. “Laila.”

His eyes seemed to shift with recognition and, with careful slowness, he responded in turn. “Dominus.”