Cayed Brethson suppressed a wince as he sipped on the motog tea, the cool liquid rapidly heating as it came in contact with his tongue. Motog tea was considered a delicacy but the odd sensation of the ice and light afflicted herbs never sat right with him.

He surveyed the room. The thick carpet was a nice addition that hadn’t been there the last time he’d visited, helped take away some of the impact of the cold stone floor. The plants clustered in one corner gave some much needed life to the space as well. The other furnishings were sparse, but looked unused. Whether that was a mark of their quality or the inhabitant, Cayed wasn’t sure.

“How have things been treating you?” He asked looking to the other man in the room. Breth Greyedson’s slicked-back hair had more gray in it than Cayed remembered, his shoulders were narrower and his stature smaller as well. In Cayed’s mind his father had always been a figure who was larger than life, bigger than the people around him.

Breth ran his bare feet across the carpet and hummed to himself. Cayed watched as the man turned his unshaven face to look at him. He sniffed once, he glossy coal black eyes widening, “You brought motog?”

Cayed smiled wistfully and nodded, “I already poured for you.”

Breth smiled happily as he picked the cup and down the entire thing in a few long gulps. With his head leaned back, the man let his hand fall down by his side as he exhaled steam rising from his mouth, “It’s so nice and warm in my tummy.”

Cayed flexed his back, wings rustling slightly as his father placed a hand over his stomach like it was his first taste of motog. “Father,” he said carefully. “Have you been feeling any different since the last time we spoke?” he didn’t hold any hopes that he had, he couldn’t allow himself even that much freedom.

“The last…” Breth trailed off as he sensed the approach of the messenger a moment after Cayed himself did. Cayed wouldn’t have remarked on it, dismissing it from his mind if not for his father’s sudden tension.

“Father…” Cayed raised a hand in gentle warning as he stood up from his chair, the tail wrapped diagonally around his chest flexing once, the stinger tip scratching at his armor.

Veins of glowing ice started crawling through Breth’s broken eyes as he gathered his power, the temperature of the room diving off a cliff. The motog separated in the cup, one part froze and sank to the bottom, the other remaining floating on the surface. Ice crystals gathered on the tabletop and chairs.

Cayed embraced his power. He made the move smoothly and silently as to avoid his father’s notice. He kept it from his eyes, stopping them from glowing and alerting the other lashed.

The messenger clearly sensed his father’s disturbance as he staggered to a halt only a few meters from the door. “Dad,” Cayed said. “Let go. I will send them away.”

“They- They are here to get me, aren’t they?”

“They’re not here for you.”

His father turned wide eyes to Cayed and the obsidian cracked open revealing ravines of tundra ice underneath. The water in the air froze and gathered into a spike that could drive straight through steel.

Cayed sighed and drew on his own lash. He came down on his father like a rockslide, locking his power down as he seized the space around him and commanded it to stop. The space didn’t just become immovable, it went beyond that it became Static. Reaching into his dimensional space, Cayed retrieve the anesthesia. He had to lower the stasis for a small area around his father’s shoulder to administer it.

“I—,” Cayed stared at his father’s unblinking unseeing eyes. Platforms of midnight obsidian sitting on the surface of a glacier. Cayed grit his teeth and moved the old man into his bedroom, before bypassing the handle-less door entirely, Cayed entered the hallway through another small twist of space.

“Yes,” Cayed said to the messenger. He wore the livery of the Stars, unsurprising as they would be the only ones to dare interrupt Cayed during such a meeting as this.

The messenger, a lowly second, seemed at a loss for words before dropping to his knees, his under-developed wings faintly glowing with light as he offered the scroll. Cayed belatedly realized he must be a frightful visage as he was still fully within the grasp of his power.

“Thank you,” Cayed waved the messenger away as he slowly let go. Inside the room, he could sense his father’s confusion in the flare of his lash as it whipped through the rooms, then into the hallway. Cayed wrapped himself and the messenger in his lash hiding them from his father.

With Cayed’s powers leaving the light in the hallway previously lit in bright purple returned to the warmer colors emitting from the columns along the walls. He briefly scanned the letter before crushing it into a ball in his hand. Just another summons.

Sighing, Cayed wrapped himself in space and extended his Disciplines to transport to the Hall of the Stars. The other Prophets sensed him coming of course, so no one was surprised when he appeared on his platform.

“Ah,” Misad, Prophet of Obsidian, said, “We’re all finally gathered. Nuyid, if you please?”

Nuyid, the other Prophet of Space, nodded. She glanced briefly at Cayed and he withdrew his instinctive grasp on his surrounding environment, allowing her to create and envelop them all in her material, sealing them off from the outside world.

“We’re gathered here under the Star of Her Guidance,” Misad said gesturing with his tail at the sarcophagus above them, though his tail looked like black glass it moved just as organically as any of the People’s. “The Lady’s books says that the stars once guided her people, helping them travel across the world. They are now lost to us and so we must now be the guiding stars for the People, just like she provided…”

Cayed tuned out Misad’s speech of introduction. He didn’t mind the religion of the Lady, he was even a believer in it. As a Prophet it was impossible not to be, but Misad had faith something Cayed simply couldn’t match.

Cayed glanced at Nuyid meaningfully from the corner of his eye, it took only a moment before she subtly changed the space around them.

“Why are we here?” Cayed asked quietly, doing his best to look like he was being silent and respectful.

“One of my Bishops detected a ripple in the fabric,” Nuyid replied. Cayed would’ve been annoyed that none of his people had noticed, since it was technically their duty as manipulators to keep an eye on the stuff, but he had no Bishops under him to get annoyed at.

He didn’t let that show on his face, however. If Misad caught wind of them ‘disrespecting’ the ceremony he would be reaming either or both of them for an hour afterwards.

“Do they know what it was?” Cayed asked though he was already reaching across Revand. From the Hall of Stars at the center of the plane, there wasn’t a place he couldn’t reach. His wings shifted slightly as he found the echo of the disturbance. Misad’s eyes flickered to him, though he didn’t falter in his litany.

Nuyid couldn’t hide her small grin at his misfortune.

“A human left the world?” Cayed asked though he already knew that was the only reasonable explanation. He was still careful not the reveal his speaking, Misad being annoyed that he wasn’t completely still wasn’t the same as him being genuinely devastated that a Prophet would show such lack of faith in a ritual as old as the Litany of Stars.

“Two of them, we believe. Silence has already sent one of its Bishops to question their emperor.”

Cayed looked across the room at the only other lashed who was as rare as he was. Silence was a name chosen, not given, after its ascension to Bishop. Standing without Wings, Tail, or even a Body in the way of the other Prophets, Silence was in some ways the most powerful lashed in the room.

It couldn’t single handedly turn a battle like the others, or even single handedly win a war like a Prophet of Warp. But that made them no less dangerous to the men and women in the hall.

Silence’s gaze suddenly turned to Cayed as it spoke through its Discipline. Undetectable to any but another Ghost, words echoed within Cayed’s mind, “Cries has made contact. They didn’t think the lashed intended to leave the world,” Silence’s head cocked. “You might be interested in knowing that they were a manipulator. Like you.”

Cayed didn’t react, though he couldn’t stop a pang of disappointment that they’d had to die that way. He mulled over what he’d learned and he even considered checking the space surrounding Revand to see if the space still lingered in the area, but it would’ve been days ago by now if a generator discovered the disturbance.

Misad wrapped his litany up within another five minutes and the actual meeting began. There was a lot of logistical issues with the harvests that had just come in. A bunch needed to be sent towards the Breach to support the war, which usually meant a lot of work for Nuyid’s people. Cayed would help out as well, but he was already doing the job of an entire branch of Bishops on top of his own work.

After the meeting ended, Cayed stopped by Silence on its way to leave. He could sense it discorporating, but a slight tap of his own power made it hesitate. His wings stirred twice as he approached the gray cloth substitute for a physical body.

“Cayed,” Silence greeted in his spirit.

“Silence,” Cayed returned. “You said Cries had gone across the Line?” Silence didn’t nod, but there was an… agreeable air around it. “Will you keep me informed about any potential developments regarding the space manipulator they are investigating.”

“Why?”

Cayed smiled innocently, “It’s not often you find a space lashed with the ability to leave the Revand, let alone with an additional passenger.”

Silence was… quiet for a long time before cocking its head, “Certainly, Prophet of Space.”

Cayed nodded to Silence as it finished discorporating leaving behind the gray cloth, “Ghost.”