A helicopter flew into his chest and crashed to the ground with a gurgling noise. Ruban groaned, stepping into the flat with a sigh of resignation. They had graduated from origami models to electronic ones.

“Oww shucks! And we’d just finished that one too!” Hiya cried, rushing over to the front door to cradle the martyred toy in her arms.

“It’s okay. We’ll make more after dinner,” Ashwin said, setting the wiring for what looked like a partially constructed plane with a dinosaur head. He sat on the couch, his body curled into the little patch of meagre sunlight provided by the setting sun, as plastic and metal toy parts lay strewn around him. “It’s amazing, the things you come up with to amuse yourselves. Back when I was a kid, we could never have imagined anything like it.”

“It’s annoying when grandparents say it. When centuries-old Aeriels say stuff like that, it’s downright creepy,” Ruban drawled, taking off his coat and setting his briefcase on the centre-table. It had been a week since Zikyang, and to Ruban’s immense relief, the media seemed to be getting over the hype of the four dead Aeriels and focusing on things that did not require sound-bites or statements from him. In that context, he would be forever grateful to Casia Washi for breaking the scandal of the Home Secretary’s alleged affair with the Textile Minister’s ex-husband. Sex and politics – or sex in politics – always managed to get the public’s mind off more mundane issues like Aeriel attacks.

Ashwin hadn’t come to the office with him since he had woken up. Someone needed to keep an eye on Hiya, after all, and he said he was still recovering from getting stabbed in the wing. It wasn’t like Ruban was going to complain. He had never been particularly comfortable with letting a foreigner – even a delegate from an allied nation – into the Quarters. Knowing who – or rather what – Ashwin really was, was just going to make it harder for Ruban to ignore his presence. He didn’t care how friendly Dawad said the Aeriels had once been; Ruban had years of training hammered into pure instinct making his hackles rise every time the guy so much as breathed in his vicinity. He could feel a headache coming on, and decided to redirect his thoughts in a less destructive direction.

“What d’you two want for dinner, then?”

“Zainian noodles!” came the shrill – and unanimous – reply.

Ruban spared Ashwin a sidelong glance that he hoped conveyed his annoyance without the need for words. He decided to add the words anyway. “You do remember that you were just pretending to be Zainian, right? You can drop the act now, really. Nobody’s paying you to be the brand ambassador for Zainian cuisine.”

Ashwin tilted his head to the side in that way that indicated he wasn’t exactly sure what Ruban was saying, but was going to run with it anyway. “I like it. Zaini has…a way with the flavours, I have to say. A subtle delicacy not always present in the spicy concoctions of the Vandran kitchen.”

“Are you trying to provoke me into stabbing you again? We haven’t had anything but noodles in days.” Ruban didn’t like how plaintive his voice sounded in that last sentence.

“We can have chop-suey,” Hiya piped up from the kitchen, browsing through the menu of the local Zainian deli.

Ruban rolled his eyes. “Fine. Noodles it is.”

***

“So what does Tauheen plan to do with the reinforced sifblade formula now that she has it?” Ruban asked, standing with his back against the kitchen counter as Ashwin put the dishes away. He would have helped, but he had been forced to eat noodles for the fifth day in a row by some goddamn creature that didn’t even need to eat in the first place, and he wasn’t feeling particularly charitable at the moment.

Ashwin shrugged. “Develop hyper-effective sifblades? Use them to attack Vaan and retake the throne from Safaa, perhaps. Who knows? My mother moves in mysterious ways her wonders to perform. What?”

“Nothing. It’s just…it gives me backlash to think of her as your mother. Evil psychosis aside, she looked young enough to be my younger sister.”

Ashwin smirked. “Careful now, Ruban. Don’t go getting ensnared by my mother’s wily ways. Better men than you have fallen for that over the centuries, and it’s never ended well.”

“You Aeriels really do have a jacked up opinion of yourselves, don’t you? How does she plan to use the sifblades? Not like she or any of her kind can actually wield sif.”

“She wouldn’t have to. Not if she attacked Vaan with a human army.”

“A human army?” Ruban couldn’t help the disbelieving snort that escaped him. “Really? That’s her big master plan? Get an army of humans to be her cannon fodder in some stupid war against her own daughter? In what universe does she think that’s gonna work out? What human is she going to enlist?”

Ashwin’s mouth quirked into a wry little smile. “You don’t know her, do you? How do you think the Exiles held power for as long as they did even after the sealing of Vaan? She had humans fighting for her during the Rebellion; much more so than Aeriels, in fact. Spying on and killing their own kind at her command. My mother can be…very persuasive. If she wants a human army, she will have a human army. That is, unless we stop her before she can actually use the formula to get her arsenal in place. No army’s going to do her any good without the weaponry.”

“You know, I was thinking–”

“Were you, now?”

“You’re hilarious.”

“I know, right?”

Ruban rolled his eyes. “I was thinking…about what Reivaa said that night at Zikyang. About Hiya’s mother.” He shot a quick glance at the bedroom. The door was shut. Hopefully, the girl was already asleep.

Ashwin’s expression sobered. “Oh.”

“Yeah. Well, I was doing some digging. Nothing official, you understand. If Tauheen really has an insider in the government or the IAW, I don’t want to raise any alarms until we have something solid to go on. It would only put Uncle Subhas and Hiya in more danger if the mole thought we know something we shouldn’t.”

“And? Did you find anything?”

Ruban sighed, his shoulders sagging slightly. It had been a long day, and not a particularly productive one. “It’s not easy to find anything on a case this old. Most of the evidence that could’ve given us a clue about what really happened is gone. The case has been closed for nine years, and there wasn’t much of an investigation to begin with. Apparently, everyone always assumed it was a simple car accident.”

“Depending on where it happened and what she crashed into,” said Ashwin, chewing thoughtfully on his lower lip, a look of concentration on his face. “An accident like that would be easy to fake with an energy-blast. Especially if the car blew up afterwards. Unless someone specifically suspected Aeriel involvement in the case, it would just be blamed on a gas leak or something of the kind.”

Ruban nodded. “Exactly what I was thinking. Which is why I started looking into the paperwork. Vehicles leave paper trails just as much as people, you know. The physical evidence might be destroyed, but words on a piece of paper…” Ruban walked over to the centre-table and flicked open his briefcase.

“What did you find?”

“Nothing very concrete, but I did manage to recover some of the files from the original investigation. Apparently, the car had been serviced the day before the accident.” He held out the servicing bill dated February 5th, 2008. “Now, I find it hard to believe that a mechanic would have completely missed a technical issue serious enough to cause a fatal accident. Because there is no mention of any kind of a glitch in the receipt or anywhere else in the records of the garage – it’s within SifCo premises and caters almost exclusively to their employees and interns. They maintain detailed electronic records of all transactions. And well, there’s nothing to indicate that there was anything whatsoever wrong with Aunt Misri’s car when she collected it from the garage the day before the accident. I know it’s not conclusive, but…”

“But it doesn’t seem right. I agree. Reivaa may have been half delirious with pain and loss of energy by the time she started spouting all that, but she described your aunt in far too much detail for it to merely be a product of her twisted imagination. If nothing else, Reivaa had definitely seen her before.”

“And it’s not just that either. The accident happened behind Kanla Park. The place is a hub of activity now, what with the Select City Walk and all the shopping malls coming up around it. But that area was still under construction less than five years ago. In ‘08, they had barely laid the foundations for the buildings. It would have been nothing more than a long stretch of deserted road on the fringes of the city. If there was any place an energy-blast would have gone unnoticed, that was it.

“And why would Aunt Misri drive all the way around Kanla Park on her way to SifCo from the Kinoh Residence? I mean, I guess you could say she did it to avoid the traffic but really, it makes no sense when you think about it. She would have had to drive an extra hour just to get back into central Ragah, and then drive to SifCo from there. Why would she burn more gas if she wasn’t even making better time?”

Ashwin sighed. “Well, I suppose I might as well say it.”

“Say what?”

For a moment, the Aeriel looked away. He looked almost guilty. “Remember the first time you took me to your uncle’s home? Right after Tauheen had stolen the formula?”

“Yes.”

“Well, remember when Hiya dragged me up to her room? I noticed a picture of your aunt on the bookshelf. I didn’t know it was her at the time, of course. But well, Hiya said that she had died in an accident nine years ago. And it just struck me as odd,” he sighed, rubbing a pale hand over his face. “Look, you have to understand. It was just a vague hunch, what I was feeling. I had no real basis for it and no reason to think it was true, at least back then. If I’d thought there was any actual chance of my hunch being right, I would’ve found a way to let you know–”

“Just spit it out, will you?” Ruban snapped. His heart thundered in his ears and his fists clenched of their own volition, the nails leaving reddened marks on the skin of his palms.

Ashwin closed his eyes, releasing a breath. “Try not to kill me, okay? Some time ago – I suppose it would’ve been around nine or ten earth-years – Safaa’s spies brought news about some abductions and assassinations being carried out by Tauheen’s followers on earth. Not unlike what happened with Hiya, I suppose; only on a much larger scale, more organised. They mostly targeted high-ranking officials and politicians, and their close families. For political leverage, that kind of thing, you understand? Or that’s what Safaa thought anyway. She sent some of our soldiers to intervene, but she refuses to get more involved than absolutely necessary in the affairs of earth.”

He opened his eyes, his gaze almost apologetic when it met Ruban’s. “So when I heard that your aunt had been a scientist at SifCo. And your uncle being who he is, I couldn’t help but wonder. The timeline certainly adds up. Had I known the circumstances of her death back then, I would have known my suspicions were valid, at least in part. But I didn’t. And well, we had more immediate concerns to deal with, what with the IAW trying to take you off the case. So I didn’t think much of it then. And after we left, I guess I kept getting distracted with one thing or another until it just slipped my mind.” He sighed again. “I’m sorry. It’s no excuse, but I hadn’t known.”

Ruban was angry. But then, at this point, that was one of the constants of his life. Eight years after the deaths of his father and girlfriend, the destruction of his home, he could barely remember a time when he hadn’t been angry.

What he wasn’t so sure of, though, was what, or who, he was angry with. Was he angry with Ashwin for withholding information about his family? Information that would have blown Ashwin’s cover sky high, that Ruban would probably not have believed anyway, given the source. But information that could have brought him just a little bit closer to avenging the destruction of his family, the cold-blooded murder of his loved ones.

Or was he angry at Safaa and the rest of her subjects, for seeing it all and letting it happen anyway? For sitting in their pretty little goddamn bubbles in Vaan and thinking they deserved the peace of which they had robbed humanity. For dumping their castoffs on earth and locking the door, leaving him and his kind to deal with their mess. Ruban didn’t care what Dawad said. The Aeriels had screwed humanity beyond all justification – and if it wasn’t malice that drove them, it was indifference. And really, what difference did it make, when the end result had been all the same?

Most of all, though, he was angry with himself. For failing, time and time again, for almost a decade, to do what he should have done years ago. Find the creatures responsible for all the deaths, all the pain and bloodshed, and make them pay – for what they did to him, what they did to his family, and what they were doing to the world. And if it was the last thing he did in his life, he would make Tauheen pay for what she had done. He would find her, and he would kill her. Set her on fire and watch her burn. It was the only way he could forgive himself, and the universe by extension.

“What could Tauheen possibly have hoped to gain, though?” he heard himself say, his voice oddly calm. It was as if his brain had forgotten to communicate to his mouth the storms raging through his mind. “By killing her, I mean. Blackmail only works if the subject is still alive. Killing Aunt Misri would only have pushed Subhas to go even further against her.”

“Only if he knew that she was the one who had killed her. Besides, maybe it had nothing to do with him at all. She was a scientist at SifCo. Do you know what she was working on at the time of her death? If it had anything to do with the reinforced sifblade formula, that may have been the reason why she was targeted.”

“Perhaps. But then, why did she bother trying to kidnap Hiya now? She already has the formula she wanted so badly. What more can she hope to gain, through blackmail or otherwise?”

Wiping his hands on a dishrag, Ashwin threw himself onto the couch, draping his legs over the armrest. It was hard to think of him as an immortal demigod with superhuman abilities, at times like these. With a resigned shake of his head, Ruban nudged the Aeriel’s feet off the couch and seated himself in the newly empty space.

“For the raw materials, of course,” Ashwin said, scowling. “A formula alone doesn’t make a weapon. And reinforced or not, these are, after all, sifblades we’re talking about. What’s the one thing you need to manufacture a sifblade? Sif, obviously. Raw sif-ores, to be more accurate. Tauheen can’t really enter a sif-mine herself. Quite apart from the physical discomfort of it, it would attract a lot of unwanted attention. Remember Ghorib? Caused quite a stir, didn’t it? And those were just run-of-the-mill Aeriels nobody gave a shit about. Not even X-class.

“If she had leverage on one of the main power-players of the IAW, then that would make obtaining the raw materials for her little project that much easier. Nobody would question the Defence Secretary accessing sif-mines, or even ordering the transportation of ores for processing and stuff.”

“And he would do all of that and more, if Hiya’s life was on the line,” Ruban finished softly.

A few minutes passed without either of them saying a word. The clock chimed eleven. Finally, Ruban said: “You know, all of this is still only a hypothesis. We still have no concrete proof that Tauheen did what we think she did. If we could get it, though; if we could prove that she attacked, murdered and abducted the family members of key government functionaries in order to get them to do her bidding under duress. Well, if we could prove that, we could have central forces deployed against her – every military and paramilitary organisation in the country would be deployed to help apprehend Tauheen, not just the Hunter Corps. It would become a national priority, the first priority. We’d even get international help. After all, Vandran officials couldn’t have been the only ones that Tauheen and her followers targeted.”

“No, indeed they were not. There were reports of casualties spanning the globe. Not the general terrorist activities that the Exiles indulge in, either. Targeted assassinations, abductions, things like that.”

Ruban nodded, satisfied. “After that, it wouldn’t matter how many spies Tauheen had within the IAW. The matter would be out of their jurisdiction once we prove that civilian lives are on the line, that civilians have been killed for over a decade with no government intervention. The Supreme Court will take charge of the investigation and it’ll be all hands on deck. Even Tauheen isn’t powerful enough to stand alone against the entire world.”

“You know,” Ashwin began, flicking his tongue over his lips in a nervous gesture that better became the Zainian nobleman than the Prince of Vaan. “If you really want to find proof of everything that Tauheen has done over the decades, I know someone who can help with that.”

“Yes?” Ruban said, raising an eyebrow.

“You’re not going to like this, but hear me out, okay? Safaa has had spies all over the planet tracking every single one of our mother’s movements for centuries. There is no power in the universe that knows the ins and outs of all of Tauheen’s secrets, all her activities and goals, better than my sister. You don’t know what obsession is until you’ve met Safaa,” he sighed. “In some ways, she’s more like Tauheen than Tauheen herself.

“What I’m trying to get at is this. If anybody would know where to find evidence of my mother’s activities, it would be Safaa. If Tauheen really has been planning all of this for as long as we think she has, Safaa and her elaborate spy network are bound to know something about it. She’s the best resource you could possibly hope to have.”

“You’re saying you want me to meet your sister?”

“Exactly.”

Ruban ran a hand through his hair. Of course, nothing in his life could ever be simple. He didn’t trust Safaa, didn’t trust any of the Aeriels, really.

He did not think Ashwin would deliberately mislead him. Tempting as it was to hold on to those old prejudices, the guy had had ample opportunity – and provocation, if Ruban was being honest with himself – to kill him, if that was what he wanted to do. But just because Ashwin didn’t mean him direct harm did not mean his sister would not have her own agenda to further through Ruban. In fact, Ruban was pretty sure that was exactly what she would have.

And in the interest of continued honesty, Ruban wasn’t entirely sure he could trust himself not to try and wring Safaa’s neck when he finally met her. He was not one to delude himself about his abilities, and he knew that that would probably end with him bleeding out slowly at the feet of the Aeriels. But he wasn’t sure even the threat of imminent dismemberment would be enough to keep his anger in check when he finally came face to face with the creature responsible – if only indirectly – for so much chaos.

And while all of that was compelling argument against accepting Ashwin’s offer, the fact remained that the Aeriel was right. Without Safaa’s help, there was no way Ruban would ever find out the truth behind what happened to his father, to Miki, to his aunt. Even if he managed to kill Tauheen without that knowledge, he would never know why. Why he had to lose everything he valued for the sake of some mad Aeriel Queen’s rivalry with her daughter. Why Hiya had to lose her mother before she had even had a chance to know her. Why all their families were torn apart like they were nothing more than toys for some malicious God to play with.

“Fine, I’ll do it,” he said at length, turning to look out of the window. It was drizzling again, the raindrops like flecks of silver against the dark night sky. “I’ll meet your sister, if you really think she can help us find proof against your mother. You have one fucked up family, you know that?”

Ashwin laughed. “Believe me, no one knows it better.”

“Where do I meet her, then?”

“Why in Vaan, of course.”

***

When the dizzying array of lights and colours that constituted the journey to Vaan dissipated from his vision, Ruban blinked his eyes open to behold the Vaan Court, the original seat of the Aeriels’ power in the universe.

If Ruban had ever tried to imagine what Vaan would look like – and he had not – this is not what he would have pictured. They stood in an enormous auditorium decorated in themes of white and silver – okay so maybe that part was expected. The hall wasn’t built on any architectural model Ruban was familiar with, however. It stood supported by a series of pillars adorned with ephemeral motifs woven from what looked to be threads of argent light, which kept moving and rearranging themselves into ever-changing new patterns. The structure had no roof, the pillars attached to the edges of the walls by horizontal beams. Unhindered sunlight – brighter than the brightest summer day on earth – flooded the room with the dazzling radiance of a solar flare. Contrarily, the temperature reminded Ruban of a cool winter morning in Surai. A light jacket would not have gone amiss.

Clouds floated freely all around them, seeming to dance and twirl in orchestrated chaos. The floor he stood on was obscured by a translucent mist that hovered serenely over his boots, sprinkling them with condensed moisture like dewdrops. The walls on either side were decorated with the same evanescent murals that adorned the pillars, arranged in even more intricate patterns. A large, arching doorway occupied a significant portion of the wall in front of him.

“You can let go of my hand now, you know. We’re not flying anymore,” Ashwin prompted, his voice tinged with amusement. Ruban jerked, letting go of the Aeriel’s hand as though it were on fire. He had apparently been too engrossed in the sights to pay much attention to the company.

He tried to tell himself he was only casing the place for possible dangers. The assertion rang hollow even in his own mind.

As he turned to face his companion, he realised that Ashwin had let go – even if temporarily – of his simulated humanity. His wings spread out vast and resplendent behind him, the feathers glistening in the sunlight, and his eyes were once again the colour of freshwater pearls.

“By Zeifaa, it’s good to have some sun again,” the Aeriel said, his wings arching upwards and back, reminding Ruban of a cat stretching herself after a long and satisfying nap. “No offence to your country, Ruban, but damn Vandran monsoons to the darkest pits of hell. I thought I was going to die of depression.”

“By all means, stay home and spare us the dubious pleasure of your company,” the Hunter shot back, though it came out rather half-hearted. “Where do we go from here?”

A melodious screech – the sound was indeed as contradictory as that description would indicate – pierced Ruban’s ears even as a fireball with wings shot towards them over the walls of the auditorium. It landed with an awkward flop on Ashwin’s shoulder, and Ruban had to blink a few times to accustom his eyes to the brightness of the creature before him.

It was a bird. A bird on fire. Or a bird made of fire. Ruban blinked again. The thing was what would happen if you set a particularly large falcon aflame without actually burning it. Red-and-yellow flames danced around the bird’s folded wings and over its head. Its beak looked like something forged from molten metal. It screeched again, the strange sound giving Ruban the simultaneous urge to flinch back and lean forward, both at the same time.

“This is Miranki,” said Ashwin, petting the fiery creature like it was a new-born kitten. “Say hi to Ruban, Mir.”

The bird squawked, glaring at the human.

“Your pet?” Ruban asked drily. He had heard the usual children’s stories about the firebirds of Vaan, of course. Fairy-tales about the ferocious creatures that had rained fire and fury upon the revolutionary forces centuries ago. And like every other kid over the age of five, he had dismissed them as baseless old-wives’ tales.

Ashwin shook his head, still petting the bird. “My sister’s.”

***

The throne room, if possible, was an even more artsy version of the auditorium where they had arrived. Ruban was beginning to see what Dawad had meant when he said that Aeriels were more interested in making pretty designs than ruling. Standing in the Vaan Court, he could almost believe it. It looked more like the dream studio of a quirky artist than the administrative centre of a warlike race.

A gesture from Safaa ensured that the three of them were left alone in the room. The bird had winged it to wherever firebirds went when they weren’t throwing death-glares at unsuspecting humans. And the other courtiers just seemed to shimmer away in groups of twos and threes, but not before throwing him curious, searching glances that lingered for longer than Ruban was entirely comfortable with. He supposed they thought they were being surreptitious.

Finally, he looked up at Safaa, sitting cross-legged at the head of the throne-room. Oddly, the first word that popped into his head when he laid eyes on her was ‘proper’. He couldn’t say what it was about her, really, but she seemed…familiar in a way. He could imagine her sitting at the head of the table, leading one of the numerous conferences they kept getting sent to every year for retraining and sensitivity workshops. She seemed like a leader, or a leader as a human would understand the concept. He didn’t think most Aeriels shared humanity’s notion of leadership, though. Not if this court was anything to go by. Safaa’s courtiers had looked – and acted – more like a gang of giggling teenagers than the heads of administration of a realm.

To his surprise, Ruban almost sympathised with the Aeriel Queen. He could only imagine trying to run a government with a roomful of Ashwins for subordinates. He did not envy her.

Her magnificent wings flaring behind her, Safaa lifted herself off the throne and flew across the room to land a few feet in front of Ruban and her brother.

If Ruban had thought Ashwin’s wings impressive, they had nothing on his sister’s. Her wingspan alone was nearly twice that of her brother’s, the brilliance of her feathers unlike anything he had ever seen on earth or Vaan, and that included Tauheen in all her twisted magnificence. Like the latter, three tiny red marks stained the tips of Safaa’s wings.

‘Two Aeriel Queens for the first time in history’, Dawad’s voice rang in his ears.

Now that she was closer to him, Ruban realised that Safaa’s eyes resembled her mother’s more than they did Ashwin’s. They were black with flecks of silver, like stars sprinkled across the night-sky, unlike the pearly white of her brother’s irises. Her silver hair also had streaks of black in them. It felt as though if only he looked closely enough, he could almost spot the humanity in her.

“Shwaan,” she said, snapping Ruban out of his trance, and promptly wrapped her arms around her brother, her large wings moving to partially encircle him. Ashwin made a sound that was half-way between a strangled bird and an enthusiastic puppy, before bringing his own arms awkwardly around his sister. It didn’t seem to come as naturally to him, but he gave it his best shot.

After a moment, Safaa stepped back to run a critical eye over the pair of them. “Ruban Kinoh,” she said, after a few seconds of strained silence. “A human has not set foot in Vaan in the last six-hundred years. So, what brings you here?”

“Your brother, essentially,” Ruban said. It was the truth, after all, presented as succinctly as he could manage. Hunter training had taught him that those were the two essentials of any good report – honesty and precision.

“My brother, indeed,” the queen said, turning back to Ashwin. “He has told me a lot about you, Mr. Kinoh.”

“Good things, I hope,” he returned, only half sardonically.

“Very. He seems to think highly of your abilities. Of you. Not that he always has the best judgement in these sorts of things. Still, I think I should thank you for all the help you’ve given us – knowingly or otherwise – in the quest to thwart our mother’s plans.”

“The goal is a mutual one, from what I understand.”

“I should hope so, yes.”

Safaa circled the two of them, talking conversationally all the while. Suddenly, as she passed her brother, her eyes narrowed. “What happened to your wing, Shwaan?” she asked softly, coming to an abrupt halt.

In the years since he had become a Hunter, Ruban had faced, without so much as a flinch, dangers far greater than what he was in now. Mortal peril was no stranger to him, hadn’t been since the day his house burned to the ground in front of his eyes. At this point, courage was not so much a virtue for him as a habit, a professional requirement like any other.

Yet, something in Safaa’s voice made Ruban’s blood run cold. Not so much because of what she could do to him, but because he understood why she would do it. Because if Safaa killed him now, it wouldn’t be for some personal agenda, or even the simple bloodlust of her exiled brethren. If she killed Ruban, it would be for the same reason he would have given anything to drive his blade through Reivaa’s guts in Zikyang. To protect the thing he loved.

Ruban wasn’t sure he could bring himself to fight back, if that happened. And the thought terrified him.

“Battle wound, sister dear,” Ashwin said with a dismissive flick of his hand, interrupting Ruban’s thoughts. “You know how it is.”

“Mother,” Safaa breathed, trembling with barely suppressed fury. “When I find her, Shwaan, I shall burn the heart out of her. She will pay for everything she has done to us.”

***

Ruban tuned out as Ashwin explained to his sister the purpose of their visit. His eyes drifted over the fine, painstaking artwork that littered the walls and columns of the throne room. They were almost alive – throbbing with vitality – the murals and the thread-work moving in their eternal dance on every available surface. It was hard to believe that the inhuman, bloodthirsty creatures he Hunted for a living could create something so beautiful, so breathtaking.

“I see,” Safaa’s cool voice drew Ruban’s attention from his existential musings back to the situation at hand. “So you want to know what Tauheen has been up to over the past few years.”

“Exactly,” said Ashwin, folding his wings and throwing himself into one of the seats vacated by Safaa’s courtiers. He seemed to dislike standing with quite a passion. “That way, we can give the humans a reason to go after her with everything they’ve got, if we can prove that she’s been trying to compromise their political and administrative systems through blackmail and coercion. It wouldn’t be easy to overpower her forces on our own; she still commands most of the Exiles, if not all. But if we can get the various mortal governments to put up a concerted front against her, our chances improve exponentially. Or at least that’s what Ruban says anyway,” he smirked.

Turning her penetrating eyes on him, Safaa murmured, “Is that so, Mr. Kinoh?”

Ruban shrugged. “It’s the best plan I could come up with at such short notice.”

“And it’s a good one. However, I haven’t been to earth in centuries. My knowledge of earthly affairs – even those pertaining to our beloved mother – leaves something to be desired.”

“Ashwin – ah, I mean Shwaan – says you maintain some sort of a spy network planet-side.”

Unexpectedly, Safaa laughed. Ruban thought a recording of the sound would sell for good money to music companies back on earth. “Ashwin seems to have told you quite a lot indeed, Mr. Kinoh. Discretion was never my brother’s strong suit. But this is a bit much, even for him.”

“I’m right here, you know,” the prince drawled, the eye-roll evident in his tone.

Safaa sighed, ignoring her brother. “Alright then, Mr. Kinoh. Since you seem to know so much already, I might as well tell you the rest, if you think it’ll help you stop my mother. You must understand, we cannot allow her to develop that formula. If she does, it shall be the end of us all – of Vaan and of earth.”

Ruban nodded. There wasn’t much he could say to that. He couldn’t honestly say he gave a damn about what happened to Vaan. But it was true that earth stood to lose as much, if not more, if Tauheen got what she wanted. And if accepting the help of the Queen of Vaan was the only way to stop her, well, Ruban had made worse bargains in his life.

Safaa took a deep breath. “On the banks of the river Shona to the south of your country, there is a city called Ibanborah.”

“Yes, of course. The capital of Ibanta. That’s the southernmost state of Vandram.”

Safaa nodded, a nostalgic little smile on her lips. “It was nothing more than a marsh when last I was on earth.” She shook her head once, as if forcing the memory from her mind. “Anyway, this city. Ibanborah. Tauheen has been spending a lot of time in its vicinity…for the last eight years or so. My spies followed her to the city but couldn’t determine her exact location beyond that point. She’s careful, and her followers are ever vigilant. Still, there has to be something there, for her to keep returning to the city time and again. Mother was never really one for sentimentality. She’s harbouring something there, something that’s important to her.”

“And if we can find it…” muttered Ruban.

“You can have your evidence,” said Safaa. “And I can have my satisfaction.”

***

Back in his living room, Ruban collapsed onto the couch, exhaling loudly. “Well, that was something.”

Ashwin smirked. “Did you like it?”

Raising one shoulder in a shrug, the Hunter said, “I’ve seen worse.”

“No shit.”

Ruban lay in silence for a few minutes, trying to digest all that had just happened. He wasn’t even sure he believed all of it himself, that it hadn’t all been an elaborate hallucination induced by something he had accidentally ingested on a Hunt. He couldn’t imagine how he would begin explaining any of it to anyone else.

Ashwin had folded himself at the foot of the couch, lost in his own thoughts. Well, at least the wings were gone. He couldn’t imagine seeing those things in the confines of the flat. Not after he had seen them in Vaan, spread out and luminescent in all their glory. He could almost understand, now that he had seen it for himself, why the Exiles were so desperate to get back in.

He stretched, sitting up slowly on the sofa. “Well, better get to bed, then. Have a train to catch early tomorrow.”

“Where to?” Ashwin asked, turning his head.

“Ibanta, of course. Didn’t you hear what your sister was saying? That’s what we were there for, isn’t it?” he sighed. “I have what I need now. All that’s left is to do the legwork. Tauheen isn’t going to track herself.”

“Okay,” Ashwin nodded. “I’m coming with you.”

“Absolutely not.”

The Aeriel frowned, clearly displeased. “What’s that supposed to mean? I’m the only reason you know where to look in the first place. I’ll be damned if I let you wander off without me. Besides, she’s my mother. I have a moral responsibility to see her nice and dead.”

“You’re morbid.”

“And right.”

Ruban shook his head, exasperated. “Don’t be ridiculous. For starters, you’re still injured. You haven’t recovered fully yet, not if your sister’s reaction was anything to go by. Which leads nicely into my next point. I would rather not be decapitated by Safaa for getting you killed, if Tauheen or any of her lackeys manage to get the better of us.”

“Aw. I didn’t know you cared,” Ashwin laughed. “You’re not responsible for my safety, Ruban. Nobody expects you to be. Not even my overprotective big sister who really should learn to mind her own business. Besides, you know as well as I do, you don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell going up alone against mommy dearest. Taking me with you increases both our chances of survival.”

“But–”

“No more buts. Besides, if I have to spend one more day cooped up in this goddamn flat, I might just be tempted to indulge in some terrorism myself. And then you’d have to Hunt me, which will be awkward for everyone concerned.”

Ruban rolled his eyes. “Fine, do what you want. We’ll have to return Hiya to the house, though, if we’re both leaving town.”

Ashwin looked thoughtful. “Are you sure she’ll be safe?”

“Safer than she will be in Ibanborah with us. I’ll tell Sim and Hema to keep an eye on her, maybe even put surveillance on the house until we get back. We won’t be gone for long. Unless we end up dead, that is.”

“Wouldn’t it be easier to just tell your uncle what happened? He’s the Secretary of Defence. No offence, but he’ll be able to arrange for better security than any Hunter.”

Ruban shook his head. “That’s exactly the problem. Who he is. How do you think he’d react, if he knew what had happened to his daughter? How close he had come to losing her? And if it’s true that Tauheen has an informant within the IAW, they’d know that he knows. There’d be a witch hunt in the Department of Defence for the traitor. Because there has to have been one, for the Aeriels to know where to find Hiya, at what time to get her from school and all that. We would be destroying any cover we might have had in Ibanta if we did that, and with it any chance of finding out what Tauheen’s been up to.”

After a moment’s silence, Ruban continued. “Besides, this is his family we’re talking about. His child. His wife. I’m not going to burden him with the truth, Ashwin. Not until I know the whole of it myself. Nobody deserves that, to know that somebody took the thing you loved most away from you, destroyed it forever. And to not know why. To spend your life wondering. I know what that feels like. And I wouldn’t do that to anyone. Certainly not to Uncle Subhas.”

Somewhere beside him, Ashwin sighed. Ruban had almost forgotten about the Aeriel.

“Alright, we’ll do it your way. Off you go to bed, then,” he said, giving Ruban a pat on the shoulder as he made his way to the balcony. “I’ll just go make sure none of mommy’s lovely henchmen are lurking anywhere in the vicinity.”

***