“Ah, Sechen. It’s good to see you again.” Hoalt smiled, gesturing from behind his desk for her to come in. “Paui told me you’d be stopping by, but she wouldn’t say why. What can I help you with?”

Sechen nodded and took a seat opposite Hoalt’s imposing desk. “I’m just here to make sure you held up your end of the deal. We haven’t heard anything from Elach, and Prisoner’s been having some problems with climbing the pillar.”

“Well that is troubling.” Hoalt sighed. “Elach was revived more than a week ago, and sent out to the pillar on the same day. I gave him the device Prisoner left, but he must have forgotten to use it to contact you.”

“Not that I don’t believe you, but hypothetically, what if you couldn’t save him and just let him die? What would stop you from lying to me?” Sechen asked.

“Prisoner’s fury when he finds out.” Hoalt said seriously. “I might not die, but he would ensure the Gilded Night falls before he’s forced to leave. It’s not a lot to go by, but it is the plain and simple truth. That and the fact that I never go back on my word.”

“Alright, fair enough.” Sechen shrugged. “That’s pretty much the entire reason I came here, to be honest. So…” She pushed her chair back and started to stand. “Thanks for your time.”

Hoalt raised an eyebrow in surprise. “That’s all you came for? And you’re believing me without any proof?”

“Hey, if you’re lying to me, what am I going to do about it? Throw my corpse at you after you kill me with a flick of your pinky finger?” Sechen laughed. “Yeah, I’m just gonna believe you. Paui and Thana do, and that’s gonna have to be good enough for me. Unless you’re willing to part with some presents?” Sechen rubbed her hands together and smiled. “Vault said that you might be a little more generous if I told you that she likes me.”

Hoalt chuckled guiltily. “I do tend to be slightly more generous to my daughter’s friends. If I may ask; how did you attract her attention? I know her, and she doesn’t take to people on the first meeting.”

“I helped her with a project.” Sechen said, holding up her arm to show Hoalt her new golden accents. “Somehow pushed her past a roadblock she’d had on her crystallized greed.”

“Did you now? Well, then, I would consider that worth a parting gift. But since you’ve already taken something of value,” Hoalt gestured at Sechen’s manifested arm, “would you accept a gift for Paui instead?”

Hoalt returned a wave that Sechen offered as she stepped out of his office, smiling a golden smile until he heard the door click shut. He leaned back into his chair and folded his hands over his stomach, closing his eyes for a moment of reprieve before the coming storm. She’d grown terrifyingly quickly, and her Issi was only tangentially similar to the first time they’d met. Whoever the man who called himself Prisoner was, he’d found a precious gem masquerading as a lump of coal. Or the far more terrifying option; he’d taken a lump of coal and pressed it into a gemstone in mere days. He rubbed at the bridge of his nose and sighed, pushing his chair back and standing without opening his eyes. The mystery of Prisoner was nowhere near as imminently dangerous as the wolf at his doorstep and the glass knight holding its chain.

“Vault.” He spoke, a single word that held the weight of his Issi. He felt a powerful shudder in the Gilded Night’s Issi, and knew his daughter was on her way. He hated to pull her away from her breakthrough, but he couldn’t push this meeting back. The constants needed to be prepared for war.

A single step took him to the back wall of his office, and a thought after that activated his in-home teleportation system. Teleportation was an extremely expensive endeavor for anyone without spatial-related Issi, and the drawbacks far outweighed the positives in most situations, but moving through solid rock was something he couldn’t do with something as simple as a set of stairs.

“Hoalt.” Spoke a voice from his right, a voice he hadn’t heard in a long many years. “Runfree would send his regards if he knew where I was.”

“Thank you for coming, Wix. Though it is a shame you cannot stay for long.”

Wix sighed and leaned against the wall of the war room. “I wish I could, but I have to escort Sechen back before night. She’ll already be frustrated with waiting for hours, but if she missed my daughter’s trial because of me?” he shook his head and chuckled. “They’d both have equal claims to my head.”

“As if you’d give up your head, young’un.” Novia grunted from across the room, already lounging in the exact same chair he always did. “So what’s the reason you’re calling us here, Emperor? It’s been years since you forced all the constants to come together.”

“The wolf.” Hoalt rumbled, hatred pooling in his gut at the mere thought of the pretender. “I have received reports that the glacier, and possibly the tunnels, are working with it to some unknown end. After Llora became shrouded we had a possible sighting of enemy practitioners in the pillar, and now we’ve lost the entire floor block she oversaw to the wolf’s obscurity. I’m no longer willing to risk that they’re disconnected.”

“Please don’t tell me you sent my daughter after the wolf’s shroud.” Wix said accusingly.

“She is her own woman, who can make her own choices.” Hoalt responded. “But yes, I did send her in with a man who called himself Prisoner.”

Novia whistled and shook his head. “Wix, yer kid’s safer with that monster than with anyone other than our dragon emperor here. He’s gotta be a tyrant in disguise, or something close to it. And that girl with horns he’s got with him is one of the brightest flames I’ve seen in decades. She figured out six’ve my alloys in a few hours, and lit the flame under another that I’d thought was forever frozen.”

“Do my ears deceive me, or do you actually want to take an apprentice?” Wix teased, flowing over to Novia and pressing a finger to his shoulder. “You didn’t compliment Hyriam once while they were working here with you, but this new girl’s worth praising?”

“Get yer finger off me.” Novia snorted as he batted away Wix’s hand. “And no, I don’t want to take her as an apprentice. I want to see her as an equal in ten years, one who’ll help me with all the crazy ideas I’ve had knockin’ around in my head for decades now. But if I’m the one that teaches her, well then, I’ve got another little me running around, don’t I? Two heads aren’t better than one if they’re both burning the exact same fuel. It’s why our emperor here didn’t fill this room with his descendants, yeah?”

Novia nodded at Hoalt, and Wix turned his head expectantly. Hoalt sighed and strode towards his seat at the table, crossing his forearms over the back and leaning forward. “You are partially correct, in that none of the constants are my biological relatives. But that isn’t to say none of them could earn a spot at the table; they simply do not possess what everyone here does.”

“The ability to think for ourselves, no matter what.” Wix parroted, pulling out a seat next to Novia. “You still haven’t told us what that means.”

“And if the eternals are willing, I'll never have to.” Hoalt said with a sly smile. “Vault will be here in a matter of minutes, and I’m assuming the others have received the call?”

“Shar’s busy, but she’ll be listening in from the pillar. She’s with another one of yer gambles; the dead boy, whatever his name was.” Novia paused for a moment. “Don’t remember his name, but he had some strange Issi you seemed to like, so I won’t ask questions yet.”

“Elach.” Hoalt said. “His name was Elach, and he’s a comrade of the woman you think will become your equal.”

Novia scratched his chin and shrugged. “Was he? Well, it doesn’t make a difference. Occa’s on her way now, but since she got back late last night, she’s not gonna have a whole lot to add to the meeting. A little too much booze and a little too little sleep, and she doesn’t have a high tolerance for either. Obviously Wix’s sister ain’t here, since he is, which…”

“Which leaves Iman and Pelluk.” Wix cut in, to which Novia stared blankly and relaxed. “Iman’s still in the glacier, and Pelluk’s in the tunnels. We don’t know if either of them got the call, and there’s no possible way for them to join in without risking their cover. Unless you think this is worth pulling them out, they’ll have to settle for a written summary.”

“There is a chance it might be important enough.” Hoalt said gravely.

Wix raised an eyebrow, but before he could say anything, a burst of Issi denoted someone else entering the war room. It was almost immediately followed by yet another burst of Issi, a glowing sphere hovering above Shar’s seat at the table indicating that the currently available constants were gathered.

“Sorry that I’m late, dad, but Jame and I just had a breakthrough with something I’ve been working on for a long time.” Vault said happily, taking a chair to Hoalt’s right that looked like it had been constructed from four golden slabs. “That girl you sent into the pillar helped us a whole lot, but hopefully she already told you that. And you rewarded her handsomely.”

Hoalt didn’t say a thing, knowing exactly what he’d given Sechen. Vault narrowed what passed for her eyes and leaned closer to him.

“You did reward her handsomely, right?” She prodded, sighing and shaking her head when Hoalt shrugged helplessly. “Don’t let her leave until I can give her something good, Wix.”

“Of course.” Wix said with a nod.

“Eternals, you’re all so damn loud.” Occa groaned, falling into the chair next to Vault and pulling her hood over her head. “I have a date with a clean, soft bed that I need to get to, so let’s get this over with.”

Novia loudly cleared his throat. “Good to see you, too, Occa.” He said, raising his voice just enough to get another groan out of her and cause her to slide further down her chair.

“Can you see me?” Shar asked, a golden replica of her appearing in the seat next to Novia. “I haven’t used this for a while, so I’m not sure I’ve got it right.”

“You’re fine, Shar. Can you see us?” Wix leaned over Novia and waved his hand in front of Shar’s stand-in, and she nodded confirmation.

“I can see all of you just fine. Fair warning, though; I set up a damping field here, too, so the connection’s sort of cutting in and out for me. I might need some things repeated if it gets too disjointed.” Shar said, reaching towards the ball of light on the table and adjusting it. Her golden projection shivered, then came back into view. “I think it’s as stable as I’m going to get it.”

“Has Elach done anything that would prevent him from becoming an asset to us in the future?” Hoalt asked, finally taking his seat. “And, in your opinion, does he have any suspicions about your posting?”

Shar shook her head. “No to both. He’s an anomaly, but he doesn’t seem to be dangerous or unstable. Have you found anything on Y’talla?”