After a night of sleep, Reylor recovered enough to think normally. Aileen also woke up after a night, but acted a little… drunk? After ensuring that she was alright, Eric had fun teasing her. Isn’t that what brothers are for?

Anyways, Lucy was out for three whole days. Using a tier 7 prime spell takes an enormous amount of mana, and in order to stay alive in the midst of her own prime spell, she had to use the 6th tier of her phoenix skin spell. Mana exhaustion laid her out for quite some time.

After convincing the Praefectii that he knew Queen and was indeed a friend of hers, Reylor was able to get a better understanding of them—that is, why they were there when they shouldn’t be alive anymore. As for the comatose Praefectii, that was normal. Praefectii could each live for up to 3000 years, but after living for a hundred years, or so, they would need to sleep for about 200. Strange, but that’s how it worked.

But the real question was, “Why are there Praefectii here at all in the first place?” The answer to which was that everyone had miscalculate the population of the Praefectii. Votran was able to simultaneously launch many surprise attacks killing most of the Praefectii who were up and about. At their safe house, they were alerted of the attacks, so they opened the spatial gate installed in their safe house and entered in random coordinates. The people awake in the safe house then began transporting the sleeping Praefectii out to the place they were now. Votran knew about this safe house, but it took them awhile to break through the defenses. The imperial forces were eventually able to reduce the place to rubble, wiping out the majority there, but many sleeping ones had already been transported to this area, and a few of the transporters were still on the end-side of the gate when the destruction closed it. There were so many losses that everyone had assumed that no one survived.

Queen was in the Otium territories when this all happened, and somehow escaped detection. Now you may be asking, “If the Praefectii were so powerful, why didn’t they just wipe Votran's armies out?” The reason is that not all the Praefectii were that powerful. Queen was an exception, in that she was one of the older ones at over 2000 years old, not to mention she was one of the ones most driven to train her war arts. There were other older and even more powerful than her, but they were all either assassinated by shrewd trickery, or they were asleep at the time of the attack.

“Ugh.” Lucy made a grunt as she sat up.

“Easy there” Reylor placed a hand on her back as she shivered from her fatigue. “Hmm? Oooh. Reeeylorrr,” She said with a weak smile and let herself lean back into his hand.

“Umm, miss, please take some of this! It is good for you.” A beautiful young girl with glowing white veins held a warm bowl of broth up to Lucy.

“Queen?” Lucy tilted her head “Why are you here?”

“Queen?” The girl asked back, also tilting her head, as if to mimic Lucy’s actions.

“She thinks you’re Queensilvia,” Reylor commented.

“Ooh, Queensilvia,” The little girl beamed adorably. “I’m not Queensilvia, but I know her! My name is Chayliel. Oh, but I got sidetra-sidetu, side—sidetracked! Here eat this! Ariuk says it will help you get better.”

“Thank you.” And with that Lucy accepted the bowl of broth that was practically shoved into her face by the cute little girl.

“Queen?” Lucy tilted her head the other way.

“Hahaha, give it a rest Lucy. You’ll understand after a day or two.”

“Mmm.” Lucy finished the bowl and Reylor laid her back down on the bed. She quickly fell back into a peaceful sleep.

*** *** ***

“Darn you Seldin scum! I have no clue who you are, but when I find you I will KILL YOU!” The man in the old castle got up from his throne and began pacing around the room. “It took me YEARS to build those constructs, and you just had to pass by and meddle in my affairs. Both of them. BOTH of them are gone. I knew I should have put the other one on a different continent. Grr. And I had just sent that new one to its station. Couldn’t you have waited even a day before slaughtering it?

“Actually… how did you even kill those things? It should have taken at least two of you, and the gods know there shouldn’t be two Seldins appearing within half a millennium! Tch. Fine, then. Come and get me. I’ll even let you know where I am. The gods know it would only be a matter of time until you found me. Better to get it over with sooner than later.”

“Sigh. I guess you probably wiped out my shade legion over there too, didn’t you? Ahh, My life.” And with that he flopped back onto the throne and casually cast a spatial skill.

*** *** ***

“You are so cute!” “Giggle” “See the coin? Oops! It disappeared! Where did it go? Is it on the floor? Or is it… in you hair? Or is it…”

They stayed with their Praefectii friends for a few more days, allowing Lucy to recover and giving Elany and Aileen time to play with the “little Queens.” Eric and Khes kept quiet most of the time, mulling over the experience they had just gone through while leaving Reylor to keep Lucy company. This must have been a coincidence, right? Right?

Anyhow, during their stay the Praefectii fed them well, in addition to the showers of thanks given by both sides to each other. Truthfully, without both Reylor’s crew and the group of Praefectii, people would have died, so both sides had reason to be thankful to each other.

“Hey Reylor. Uh, Reylor? Are you… Ok, so that’s… not normal.” Eric voiced. Khes and Lucy both turned to face Reylor, and there was one thing that stood out. His eyes were glowing purple.

“What do we do?”

“Just wait, I guess.” Just as Eric finished saying that, the purple faded from Reylor’s eyes. Reylor turned and slowly sat down with an impassive look on his face.

“Oi, Reylor, are you ok?” Eric asked. “Your eyes turned purple, and… you don’t look too good.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m alright. That was a message.”

“A message? Oh, you mean from the other Seldin person?”

“Yeah.”

“That bad?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. Well, if you want to talk about it, let us know.”

“Alright. I’ll tell you guys. Just give me a little bit to process.”

“Alright. Take your time.”

Reylor sat in silence. “Do I really have to do this? He’s a Seldin! But… He no longer follows what is right and brings harm to others. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do this! But… If not me, then who? The other’s though… If I don’t survive, then what of Elany? But it’s my duty… Impossible. There is now way…”

“Hey.” A warm arm stretched across his back. “What’s going on?” Lucy softly asked.

Reylor took a deep breath, and lifted his head up a bit. “There’s something I’m going to have to do. And no one is going to like it.”

“Does it have to do with the other Seldin?”

“Yeah. It’s no good. He has become corrupt.”

Silence

“And does that mean you have to kill him?”

Reylor nodded, still with a blank look in his eyes.

“So what do you mean by not everyone is going to like it?”

“This… Ahh.” Reylor let out another breath. “It’s not going to be good.”

“You’re not sure you’ll be able to do it?” She prodded, gently rubbing his back.

“No, that’s not it. I’m sure I can do it… but…”

“Lucy’s eyes widened a little you… you don’t think you’ll… survive?”

Reylor silently nodded.

More silence

Yeah. We wouldn’t like it. Lucy whispered, with a slightly quivering voice.

Another sigh. “Well. I guess I should…”

“Woosh” Lucy buried her face in his coat, holding on to him tightly. “And there isn’t another way?” “No. with the amount of energy he has been collecting, it would be child’s play for him to wipe out all life on this planet, and if we keep getting in his way that will be inevitable. I know how to judge a character, and that is the kind he has. That is the way it will be.”

Silence.

Reylor pulled her in closer, gently stroking her hair as she trembled in his arms.

“Lucy? Reylor?” Elany walked over, noticing something looked off.

Eric put a hand on her shoulder, stopping her for a moment. He hadn’t been trying to listen in, but with his sharp senses, he had unwittingly heard enough to know what was about to go down.

Elany looked up at him. “Why do you all look so sad?”

Aileen soon followed behind Elany and Khes joined in too.

“Reylor looked up with eyes half lifeless, half determined. I guess there isn’t going to be a good time to say this, so I’ll get it over with now. The man who orchestrated the creation of the shade and of the constructs is beyond change. He must die. Only a Seldin can kill a Seldin, aside from a god, and the gods don’t usually meddle in affairs with individual Seldins. I have to be the one.” He paused for a moment. “And when two Seldins fight, usually none survive.”

Silence.

“Reylor. Do you really have to do this?” Elany’s eyes began to water.

“The shade is nothing.” Reylor replied. “This man is beyond change. He has already filled his hands with innocent blood, and if no one stands up to him things are only going to get worse. With such an intelligent mind, he is capable of unthinkable atrocities, and he has already started down that path. I cannot close my eyes to the suffering and the impending calamity of this world.”

Her eyes turned blank for a moment, but then focused again as a tear trickled down her cheek and she threw her arms around Reylor and Lucy. “Ok. I understand,” she said.

But unbeknownst to the others:

“Maybe, just maybe it was for this reason…” She thought. And with her face hidden from the rest, her eyes sharpened with resolve, and her mouth turned into a depressed but somewhat terrifying smile. “I won’t be the one left alone this time.”