With a muffled groan, Tsia stood up and shook her legs out. She'd spent the last two hours trying and failing to meditate, and after that long sitting cross-legged on the tavern's hard, wooden floors, it was a miracle she could stand. "Ugh, why can't I focus?" she grumbled as she limped over to the small window and peered through the yellowed panes, hoping for a distraction.

Grey skies and steady rain were all she could see, and she turned away with a scowl.

In truth, she already knew why she was struggling to focus. Tsia had been avoiding interacting with Imhullu ever since she found out that he was…involved with her mother. She knew she was being a bit immature, but the mere idea of them together gave her the ick. Of all the women in the world, why did it have to be my mother?

Her feelings about their child, her half-sibling, were equally complicated. She'd spent most of her childhood dreaming of escaping her father's courts and moving in with her mother as soon as she came of age, only to have that dream snatched away from her at the last possible second, thanks to the undead queen's rampage through the province.

It had been a cruel blow when Aphora had disappeared into the west. She knew her mother had left her behind because she was concerned that their caravan would be destroyed by Sidhe before they reached the safe haven the Fey had promised. Intellectually, Tsia understood that she just wanted to protect her, but that didn't make the pain any less.

Still, she'd latched on to the lifeline Aphora had left her, the promise that one day Jasper's path would cross again with her mother's, and when that day came, she could join her in Arallû.

With that hope buoying her up, she'd found herself relatively content in Jasper's group. Thanks to his penchant for attracting trouble, she'd gained power rapidly, and she no longer feared her mother would turn her away when she came - she was strong enough to take care of herself now.

If only her place hadn't been stolen before she could even get there. It was hard not to be jealous, hard not to be angry-

Realizing her thoughts were beginning to spiral, she stopped and took a deep breath. I need to move around, work a little of this energy off.

Cold rain streaked her face as she stepped off the tavern's covered porch. The rain was hard enough that she knew she'd been drenched in a matter of minutes, but she couldn't bring herself to care. She sloshed through the muddy street, cutting down a narrow alley that threaded between the temple and the village's one and only general store, and headed toward the small patch of woods behind the pastures. I don't know how we're going to protect this place.

While Dur-Suqerbettu was an impressive fortress, its size outstripped its garrison by a large measure. With its two keeps and twin curtain walls that encircled the small village at the center of the valley, in its prime, the castle could have easily housed five thousand troops and still had plenty of room to accommodate a village five times the current size. Instead, the garrison was reduced to barely six hundred. That force was sufficient to man the walls against the usual minor threats the region faced, but she was uncertain how it would hold against the stoneflesh. They may have outnumbered the bandits, but the bandits in turn outleveled them by a decent margin - and that was without counting the mage.

The steady downpour eased slightly as she slipped beneath the trees. The ground was treacherous here, thick with soft green moss and exposed roots that were slick as ice when wet, but she pressed on until she found a spot under a particularly large tree that was merely damp.

Sitting down, she crossed her legs and closed her eyes. This time, she didn't try to clear her mind or repeat any mantras. Instead, she let her mind drift, let her thoughts swirl with every wind that rustled through the trees, let it dissipate and fade with every drop of rain beating against the earth. And as the chaos of the storm mirrored her inner turmoil, Tsia found herself beginning to relax.

Adrift in her own thoughts, she almost didn't notice when her hair began to stand on end, her long, wet curls frizzing as they floated upward, and by the time she did, it was too late. The crack of thunder filled her ears a half second after the bolt of lightning struck the tree she was sitting beneath and, ignoring all laws of nature, continued straight into her.

Tsia blinked and somehow found herself lying facedown on the floor, with her nose squished against its smooth, frigid surface. Remembering the lightning strike, she moved gingerly at first but finding no pain, she rose to her knees and looked around. Is this…the void?

She was utterly at a loss as she stared at her surroundings, the place wholly unlike anything she was familiar with. Nearly the whole room seemed to be made of metal, aside from a soft black substance she couldn't identify and an entire wall of glass that offered views from an impossible height. She rose slowly, glancing curiously at the yellowed light inset in the walls, and limped over to the window.

A night so dark that even the stars seemed to have fled watched over the strange city below, the only source of light the shattered moon in the heavens above and the twinkling lights in the thousands of black towers that stretched into the horizon. Where am I?

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"Well, well, look who finally decided to stop ignoring me. Did you come to give ol' pops a hug?"

Tsia started as Imḫullu spoke, the empty room only magnifying his already boisterous grin, and spun around to find him leaning against the wall with a smug smile.

"If you think I'm ever calling you 'pops,' you've lost your mind," she rolled her eyes.

"Maybe I have," he grinned cheerfully. "It does get rather lonely around here, but I've found talking to oneself to be a wonderful solution." He pushed off the wall and strolled over to the window, hands behind his back as he stared into the dark city below.

"I assume you haven't come to congratulate me?"

She wrinkled her brow. "And what would I be congratulating you for, exactly?"

"The birth of your brother."

It took a moment for the words to sink in. "Congrats," she said flatly, trying to choke down the bitterness that sat heavy in her stomach. "What's his name?"

The piercing look Imḫullu sent her left her in no doubt he'd picked up on her feelings, but he answered her question nonetheless. "I'm afraid that topic has sparked the first great fight of our relationship. Your mother has abysmal taste in names, you know," he shook his head in mock despair. "Can you believe she wanted to name him Sînus̆kar?"

"You're kidding?" Despite her sour mood, Tsia's eyes crinkled with amusement.

"I'm not. I know for most of the Empire, he's a much beloved hero but, damn it all, the man fought on the opposite side of the war from us. His claim to fame is killing a half-dozen Sidhe."

You know you weren't the good guys in that war, right? She kept that thought to herself, though; regardless of the Sidhe's culpability in that war, she could understand why Imḫullu would not want his son named after one of their adversaries. "Perhaps my mother simply wants to honor the goddess," she replied neutrally. "Sînus̆kar is also the Lord of the Crescent Moon."

"I'm not stupid," Imḫullu scoffed. "I know she's naming him for that damned general; she told me so herself. Aphora fears that our son will be treated poorly once your people learn he is half-Sidhe, so she wants to give him a name that emphasizes his elven origins. I understand her reasons, but…"

"But it still grates on your pride?" she guessed.

"It's not a matter of pride - well," he bobbed his head to the side in acknowledgment of her point, "not only pride. Do you know what this place is?"

"Your realm, I guess?"

"A realm of the dead is more like it." His usual good humor was replaced with bitterness. "This was once the greatest city known to man, home to more than a billion, and yet now all but abandoned."

He sighed heavily before continuing. "I am well aware of the bad blood between my people and the elves. Hell, I more than played my part in starting that rift, but I'm tired of that war, tired of holding onto the past. Regardless of her reasons, I don't like the name - I don't want my child to be ashamed of who he is."

"Besides," he forced a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "It's a terrible name anyway. I was really hoping for something normal. You know, like Aleksei, Pieter, Viktor."

Having never heard any of those names before, Tsia almost made a sarcastic retort, but she bit her tongue as she caught a glimpse of the dead city's reflection in the mirror. Were those names his people used?

"But enough about me," Imḫullu said briskly. "I suppose she'll name him what she names him, and I'll just have to get used to it. I assume you had another reason for seeking me out, though?"

"Well," she blinked away the sobering thought as she refocused on her mission. "Do you know anything about a mage named Ēpis̆dāma?"

"No. Should I?" Imḫullu raised an eyebrow.

"I guess not, but he's kind of famous in the Empire." His face hardened as she explained everything she knew of the man, of the portals he could summon and the cost they required.

"Forget the damned castle," he interrupted her suddenly. "It's not worth dying over."

"We can't just cut and run," she protested. "Can you imagine the chaos if we can't stop this ritual?"

"Thousands will die," he said bluntly. "Perhaps tens of thousands, even. If the Empire can't close the portal quickly enough, the nearest city will likely fall. But in the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter - the Empire is too large to collapse beneath such a small attack, and if its campaign against the capital is delayed by a few months, who cares?"

She stared at him incredulously. "Did you forget about the tens of thousands of lives?"

"Do you think any less will die in reclaiming the capital?" He countered. "War is hell, little one, and casualties are an inescapable part of it."

"That's heartless-"

"No," he cut her off. "That's realistic. I do not wish ill on these Corsyths, but I would rather see them die than you. You are coming into your own as a mage, Tsia, but this 'Bloodspiller' has significantly more power and more experience. It would be folly to oppose him on your own."

"That's why I'm here. Can't you help us?"

"And how do you think the Empire would react to a Sidhe manifesting in its midst? As much as my kind bear no ill will to the Corsyths, the Empire has ever spurned us for the elves. I've been able to give you little bits of help here and there, but if a Sidhe is openly seen aiding you, even your own allies will likely look at you with suspicion. No," he shook his head gravely. "It is better to flee while you can, and let the Empire deal with the aftermath."

"And if I choose not to flee?"

Imḫullu groaned softly, beating his head against the window. "You truly are your mother's child," he muttered, before relenting. "Fine. I will see if there is something I can do."

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