When Anya arrived in the main office of the Academy, Fanou was there, seated, elbows against the desk. Finally, back from his one-day expedition to Os, north of Ceres. He was ready but visibly distraught. He scratched his chin. Completely thoughtful, his eyes scanning worn-out pages of the Onus of the Great Living Vessels. Esoteric to the Ceri, a blessing to New Galeda.

The Gulgra child to use for the experiment was already unconscious. Face unreadable, he stood there, skeleton constricted, such a soldier. Anya did not recognize him. He was a fresh find. By his feet lay a senile human. Because using an old one would be an easier blow to Fanou's pretended sense of justice.

He'd known Anya was there even before she walked in. She knew he was dying to get the experiment done and get the next task assigned by the Father. That recent complicity was a serious threat to her vision for New Galeda. Since the Father had visited the Academy, two days ago, Anya hadn't had the opportunity to question Fanou on the adult Gulgra in the royal domain.

"I see you have prepared everything for the experiment. Reassuring to know I can still count on you. Despite this new fashion of keeping me in the dark on important issues."

Fanou examined Anya for a moment. Perhaps considering invading her mind. That was off-limits. He was loyal as a dog. She had reservations about the Father, not him.

"Your spies found out about Davir?"

"I should never have been kept in the dark about him."

Fanou sighed. "You are playing a dangerous game, Anya dear. The Father knows what he does. And I am under orders for the greater cause. New Galeda. As you are."

"Cause greater than transparency towards your wife?" Anya said. "Both causes shouldn't be exclusive, Fanou dear. . . And you insist we should have a child—" Fanou winced, as expected. He was about to respond but Anya preferred to let doubt simmer than engage in an argument she was certain to lose. She turned to the objects of the experiment, quickly taking off her gloves to tuck them on the vast armchair against the office's wall. "Should we get all this over with?"

Fanou abandoned his chair, face pained. "Yes." He inspected the old human and the child, his jaw pushing teeth to lock together.

"The zones of conflict I had mapped in Os turned out to be all desolate now. Not my most productive expedition, but a soul grasper came out of it." He bobbed his head towards the unconscious child standing there, ten years old as per his thighbone, red-headed, and with the skin quite clear. "He was born from the repression of some hundreds of Osi farmers against the administration, in Tapella. They were massacred at the spot."

Anya frowned. If the death of a hundred people was at the origin of the Gulgra child, the hole carved into the Order of the Shadows must have been large enough to originate a Gulgra with real potential. They had the maternity house, devoted students to kill hundreds at once, but without enough Soulgraspers, they would fail to create enough Gulgra from the newborns in the maternity house. They were already short on Soulgraspers, they could not waste this one like this.

"You are sure you want to sacrifice this one?" Anya asked.

"Do not worry," Fanou said. "I would have imagined the boy is stronger than he is, too. I measured his potential: his strength doesn't surpass six living human souls. All farmers must not have died at the same time during their repression in Tapella," he hypothesized.

Six souls. "Extremely weak, indeed," Anya said. The weakest of their students carried at least a dozen souls in their vessels. "Some Gulgra won't be of much help for the battle to come." Anya knew Fanou hated this conversation. The truth, in reality. Not all children of Galeda were born equal. Nature's whim entirely.

Fanou peered towards the boy and his look of pity flickered across his face.

"You take care of the boy?" Anya advanced toward the old man lying there. The boy wasn't trained but it mattered little. A great, enviable mindhandler, Fanou would take control of the boy's mind and use the boy's talents as if they were his. "Be ready," Anya said, already grasping into her vessel, fume-like swirls leaking from her. "I am going to kill the human." The man's entire bone structure was revealed clearly to Anya. She could feel Fanou extending energy behind her, too.

Anya aimed for the man's ribcage, felt the grid of eroded bones within her hands, and her threads of energy curled around it to reach the marrow. She clenched her fist and the rib bones collapsed inwards, stabbing and ripping heart flesh at once. The man on the floor convulsed, pain leading him to fight against Fanou's mind control. The blood flooding bones soon spilled from his mouth.

To quicken the process, she propelled the bone bits dipped into the flesh upward, chaotically, making blade-like sticks butchering heart muscle. And there she could see the man's vital energy pouring outside his body. "Your cue, Fanou, dear."

And Fanou didn't disappoint. Into the boy's mind, Fanou extracted energy from him and extended it into the emptiness of the office. Shadows leaked from the boy in complete chaos. From the boy's mouth, eyes, his pores, even from beneath his nails. And the veil of energy was used to attempt to keep the human's soul in place before it was sucked into the Order of the Shadows

"You'll need to extract more before it all leaks away," Anya warned. And Fanou executed, the boy's face turning pale. His eyes turned completely black and numerous black veins marred his face. It wasn't enough. "Fanou, more."

Fanou sighed. But he executed again. And the boy began to cry, sobbing with a ghostly face under rusty hair, agitating himself in all directions.

"What is this?" Anya asked. "You are letting him go?"

"Of course, not," Fanou retorted dryly. "He knows he is soon going to be emptied and he is fighting for survival."

It was all the boy had inside him? Energy enough to barely contain one soul only. Anya couldn't feel bad about putting such weakness to use for the greater cause. "Continue, please, Fanou. For New Galeda."

The circular cage keeping the dead soul imprisoned was reinforced. At this point, the boy was stirring like a rabid dog. He only didn't wreak havoc inside the office because Fanou kept his feet rooted in place.

The flow of energy coming from the boy thinned progressively. When the final thread left his body, a loud gasp echoed. Anya could almost feel the pain just by the sight of it. The boy stood for a few moments. Out of balance, like a rocking chair. Then he collapsed, paper white-skinned. Eyes a dark abyss. Completely empty of life. The smell of drained flesh was horrendous, like thousands of cemeteries with open tombs of week-old corpses.

The canal through which Fanou was able to use the boy's energy faded. So did the cage that held the dead human's soul. It dissipated into thin air. To the Order of the Shadows. Where it belonged.

Fanou stormed outside the room. As Anya would have predicted. She couldn't make him understand his softness could be the reason for his downfall.

To a point, Anya could reason her way into his mind. Fanou saw himself in all these children. He dreaded the possibility that the Father would have done to them as children as they did with the weaker students of the Academy. He had been asking for a child for years now. But Anya was incapable of ever giving him that. She would kill it in her womb as many times as I would be necessary. So Fanou would forever latch onto a parental role towards these children.

She withstood the putrid smell in the office, scanning the bodies sprawled there. Energy equivalent to six souls could just barely contain one human soul. Making the maternity house admissions free of charge, she hoped to attract at least four times more of its current capacity. Four hundred potential births during enlistment festivals to come. A good number to start out a society with. They needed to kill at least a few hundred too at once. Every piece was set in place now. But before the operation, Anya needed to get to Davir and the heir of the Monarchy before the Father did. She was certain they were the key to the lost Relic of Zykarn.

Anya was supposed to go behind Fanou now. She sighed. He was fortunate he was worth it.