Despite the Aeterna Emperor's age there were things he had never experienced before. Such as a son. And to see that son in a short time at once angry enough to kill him, and then afraid enough to flee. So, he searched out thought from sources he considered influential.

Deep in Dyson lay the city-state of Soran. An exaggeration, he thought, as no one but him had walked the length or width of it and so could understand its scale. It was no mere city, but a city-world completely encircling the known core of Dyson. The only portion known to man was the area beneath South Ire.

Deep in Soran was a pool of Night-Blood. A mistake, he thought, as the Night-Blood both rested as a lake and rose up to encompass a sphere on all sides, circling about in a circumference, layer upon layer in defiance of gravity. The sphere within the Night-Bloods grasp rested in the open air in equal defiance to downward motion with the tip of a Solaris tower coming down to it in inverse to its known structure close enough to almost touch. 

Deep in the Solaris sphere was a room. A throne room, or perhaps, a living altar. Inside was a woman of South Ire fused to a chair by her spine. Lights flickered in thousands of places around the room, and before her was a Soran-Blood wearing a dress typically associated with a woman. The woman on the throne had her eyes closed, but the Emperor knew better. Her eyes were everywhere, her reach was endless, and her mouths were many.

"It has been a long time, Mother." Adam said.

The Soran-Blood chuckled. Its voice was warm and proper as any young woman, unlike Soran-Blood's normally flat tone. "No need to pretend. Time is different for us."

"Perhaps, but people like to say that when its been longer than five minutes."

"Oh? Consider me impressed! You're trying to fit in."

"I used to fit in quite well, thank you." Adam rebuffed.

"Yes, you did. But death changes a person."

Adam nodded. She was correct. He had changed. Second's death had broken him, and the memory of it slowed his healing. He remembered everything. The axe, the crowd, the falling, the darkness, and the sudden earth.

"So does marriage. Olvia helped me heal."

"I know. I'm glad! I would have loved to meet her properly."

Adam didn't reply. Mother knew very well why Adam never brought his wife on his visits. A habit of keeping secrets for thousands of years wasn't going to be changed for a relationship, even one lasting in the hundreds.

"The perishable do not belong here." Adam replied.

"Wouldn't that make them the best secret keepers then?" The Soran-Blood quickly replied.

The Emperor stopped and felt a tang in his heart. He had not thought of it that way.

The Soran-Blood changed her tune, "I am sorry, its too soon. I shouldn't have said that. You have enough on your mind, what with an Empire and a son. Please, feel welcome. I do miss you."

"That's actually what I am here for. I am undergoing another change and I think you are the best person to come to."

"Oh?"

"If birth gave life to First, light gave birth to Second, and song gave birth to Third, we find ourselves now with Fourth."

"Why must you refer to yourself in such a way..." She said.

"Fourth was born the day Olvia told us she was pregnant. Now we are in conflict."

"Conflict? Alright. Why are you divided?"

"Because..." Adam found himself momentarily at a loss for words. 

He sat himself down on the floor and sighed. The Soran-Blood stepped forward, but immediately stopped cold. Instead, the woman in the chair rose with difficulty and approached. A portion of the throne went with her as it was attached to the spine. She stooped down before him and put a hand ontop his hand. Her eyes were still closed, but he felt her gaze on him.

The South-Ire woman spoke, "Why are you troubled, my son?"

"I've never... had a son before. Sure, I have adopted, by the hundreds, but this is different. My experience comes up short and my insight is falluable in his simplicity. I cannot exercise discipline without making him flee and I cannot give freedom without making him vengeful. Normally this is of no concern, but now it is my only concern. Third, he can relate and understand him better than anyone, but he does not love him. Fourth, the Emperor, he... he cannot relate or understand him because his own quest demands distance. So I am at a loss for how to present myself to fulfill my objective."

The South-Ire woman nodded. She said, "Okay. Now tell me how you feel."

Adam squashed his face, "I just did."

"You're thinking like a Soran!" She popped him on the forehead with a finger. "Just tell me what you're feeling."

Adam rubbed his forehead and stared at her closed eyes. After a moment he sighed and said, "I'm scared."

She smiled, "Good. Welcome to being a father! What is his name?"

"Slavian. And no, this is different."

She laughed, "Everything you just described seemed pretty spot on!"

Adam explained heavily, "He is the Administrator."

This explanation caused the Soran-Blood to stumble and the Ire-Blood to stop laughing. She froze and the woman opened sightless eyes. She asked, "Are you sure?"

Adam nodded, "Your shock proves it. He can bypass you."

"This changes everything." The Soran-Blood murmured.

"This changes nothing!" The Ire-Blood snapped. She turned to the metal one. "You will forget this conversation." The woman turned back to Adam. "This changes nothing. If he is the Administrator, then it is all the more important that you help him to feel normal. Or at least as normal as a prince to a world-encompassing empire can feel." She smirked.

"I do not understand." Adam admitted. "But then you have experience. I just... I don't know what to do next. there is so much damage."

"Hmmm." Mother thought. She returned to the throne and went still again. The Soran-Blood spoke, "He is feeling. Just let him feel it out. Besides, mourning is for the living."

Adam nodded, "I understand. I mourned her while she lived."

"That... is not the living the teaching refers to."

---

Slowly, I found myself able to breath again. The metal man was quiet and kept a close watch on Slavian, Caius sat at the table patiently busying his hands with rolling a coin across his knuckles, and even Slavian picked up on the situation enough to stay in arm's reach and blend to the background like the child he still was.

"Can you relax?" Caius smacked the tower coin onto the table and cast a sideways glance at me. "You're killing the mood. You should be glad! It is not every day we gather together under amicable circumstances."

The curtain parted and Fereren stepped out.

"Is he resting?" I asked.

Fereren nodded, the sternness of his jaw hinting at a fraction of his anger. "He is... alive. We owe you his life. Thank you."

"To be fair," I conceded. I looked at my brother. We may have been at odds for one reason or another for most of our life, but he was still my brother. I'd like to think some of our rivalry was manufactured by outside influence. He gave me the opportunity to do this. The least I could do was return the favor. "Caius found him and recruited me. It would never have happened without him."

My words surprised Fereren. His eyes widened for a moment before turning to my brother with newfound respect. "Thank you, Caius. I... apologize for my misgivings before. I owe you."

"It's nothing." Caius dismissed. "We all came here for a reason. I merely provided it to my little brother. You don't owe me anything."

"I insist." Fereren replied, firmly. Caius raised an eyebrow.

"You want to pay me back?" He stood up and picked up the documents we stole from the Ne-Blood.  He handed it to Fereren. "Do what you came here to do."

I was stunned. We had lied to him in keeping the documents, and he knew we had lied to him, yet instead of calling us out on it or promising payback, he gave it back to us. Nor was his intention with the quest nefarious, but to empower us, whom he had once wronged, for the sake of our people.

It was like looking at my brother again that I once knew so long ago. I got us in trouble, he got us out. Now here he was again leading the work to free our people.

Some of, if not all of, my thoughts were shared by Fereren as he looked at me with wide eyes, stunned. Caius stepped out briefly and ordered Koj'Ineh in.

"My colleague is named Koj'Ineh. He is skilled at infiltration and espionage. Before this gets weird, he is a Cynn-Blood chief. We have an agreement of peace in return for his aid." Caius motioned from Koj'Ineh to Fereren. "He is all yours."

Caius stepped out and before closing the door, added, "Naturally, seek his advice. He is a lot smarter than he pretends to be."

---

On the eastern side of the main Ref Island, called Egreth, was the Numerenai fortress. Aptly named after the guild Adam founded as its home. The fortress occupied a peninsula jutting out  with a port tucked away in its crevice and a great statue at the end of it out towards the water. On the east was a bridge reaching out into the waters, but the bridge was broken into pieces and restricted. It once connected the landmass of the Ref Empire to the area north-west of Kes, a neutral uncivilized place where the forest was too thick and damp for safe occupation. Not that it kept them from contesting it over the Torris Solaris the Ancestors left behind in it. Ironically the two forces never actually fought, despite both nation's historical claim to save face, because disease and nature proved both of their undoing.

The great statue stood watching out over the channel and the bridge. It was unguarded and separate from the fortress on memorial ground that the pirate lord's respected, if only out of respect for Adam's wrath.

At the base of the statue was a road that lead west into the fortress, westward between two mountains, and up to the peak of the volcano that marked the center of Egreth'Ref isle to complete a forty-mile journey.

Still troubled, the Emperor had Jyesthra take him there. He found a man paying homage to the statue. He ignored the man and turned his face up to the statue. He cast his mind back in history and considered the ancient man and what he learned from him, as well as what questions were left unanswered.

The Aeterna observed the other man stood, took a bucket, filled it with water from the channel, and walked back. The other man stopped when he stopped the emperor.

The stranger flinched and whispered, "p-pardon me." Bowing his head he continued on down the path, carrying the bucket.

---

"I do not think I have witnessed a more nightmarish thing than your brother being nice to us." Fereren commented, shaking away the shock.

"Its downright eldritch." I shivered.

Fereren took the book in his hands and opened it to a random page. Immediately his eye's lit up and he quickly pass from page to page. "I see why he wanted me to have this. The buyers and sellers of slaves across the city and their numbers..."

"There are a lot of them." I said.

"More than that!" He added. "We have our targets! Look, some of these have as many as one-hund- two hundred thousand! If we can organize them-" He dropped the book on the table and immediately looked to Koj'Ineh. "Can you get men over walls?"

Koj'Ineh stayed at the entrance to my home, not coming closer. A brief tilt up of his helmet told me he saw the Soran-Blood in the rafter. 

He had required time and proof before he chose to bring me into his confidence, and when he saw something in Caius that troubled him, he chose to remove some of that confidence from him. This told me all I needed to know. Koj was a man who valued his honor and did not give away his trust easily. Unfortunately, Caius saw through the deceit and machinations, and gave it away for him, effectively cornering him and removing the choice. Caius may have praised him, but he gave Koj's loyalty to someone too easily for the Mirrad-Blood's comfort.

"Fereren," I started. "Perhaps it would be better to go with another. There is someone who-"

"One man." Koj'Ineh interrupted, "And only certain walls."

Koj'Ineh turned the helmet towards me and I felt his hot gaze. Perhaps I had overstepped myself, speaking for him. Fereren looked between us briefly. 

"That is good enough for me." Fereren murmured, uncertain of what just passed between us. Then more quickly, he said, "I brought my officers, so if we can distribute them into the ranks of the slaves we can begin to organize the masses."

I smiled. "Good, the last thing we need is a disorganized mass exodus. The masses will not handle confusion well."

Fereren continued, "There will be problems with communication, coordination, and logistics, but that obstacle will be doable. The people are here. I just need to figure out how to get them working together."

He leaned back and murmured to himself, putting his hands together in thought. I felt weight lift from my shoulders as he talked and planned. I like to think we were both driven towards objectives, but I lacked his confidence and grounded determination to stay the course. I breathed out in relief. We could do this.

"The biggest problem is the Aeterna Emperor. Something will have to be done about him." Fereren stated.

Slavian jolted at the words and I, in turn, about jumped out of my skin. The relief was gone! This was not the kind of conversation he needed to be here for!

"You okay, son?" Fereren asked Slavian, his tone warm and fatherly.

"No! You can't-" Slavian started, but stopped himself. 

"Of course." Fereren nodded in understanding, but completely missing it. "He is mighty, but he has to have some kind of limit. You don't have to worry about us."

Slavian opened his mouth to say something I had no doubt was really stupid, but I got in quick as a snake. Perhaps too quick. "I-I-I-I! I! Just! remembered! I promised him and his father to show him around the capital city! Why don't we go and leave you to your work. All this military intelligence is wasted on me and does not belong around a child. Also it would be suitable that you spend some time with Aelius, it has been so long and so much has happened! So, Koj'Ineh, why don't you come with us?"

"No, thank you. I'd rather stay out of the sun." Koj'Ineh replied. 

Damnit, Koj! I opened my eyes wider and made motions to get his attention.

"What are you doing?" Koj'Ineh asked, bewildered. "Are you drugged?"

Fereren laughed. "No, this is how my friend gets sometimes. He can be squirrely."

Fereren stood, approached me, and took me into a strong hug. "Thank you for everything, brother." Letting me go, he added. "And you are absolutely right! I am used to having such talk around Aelius, but then he was on the path towards being an officer. Slavian here, if his parents are as he says, has a life waiting of peace and security in mercantilism. I do not wish to tarnish that."

Thankfully, Fereren was going along with it. It pained me to deceive him, but the last thing anyone needed was to involve the Emperor's son in the conflict between us.

I took Slavian's shoulder and directed him towards the door. Fereren added, "Don't forget your metal friend." I froze. I had forgotten about him! When had Fereren noticed!? 

Fereren reached up towards Nel'Andra, who recoiled in an oddly cat-ish manner, but as Fereren made no further moves, the Soran-Blood accepted the aid and climbed down his arm towards the floor and us. Nel'Andra immediately took up his rightful place on Slavian's back with practiced ease, the latter only needing to make minor adjustments seemingly subconsciously.

I directed Slavian out the door. Koj'Ineh sighed, but followed out as well.

Fereren put a hand on my shoulder before I left. "I am sorry for what the Empire has done to you."

"Its okay." I refuted.

"No, its not." He countered. He squeezed my shoulder. "I know it isn't easy, having been a hostage-king for so long. To know that any wrong word or action reflects on your people, while living with the enemy. Even when you were the hostage for Ire, you didn't come back nearly this bad. I've never seen you this jumpy." His grip tightened so hard I winced and felt my arm begin to go numb. "Take some solace, my king. I am here. I will take care of everything!"