When the outer doors opened, Felix was greeted by the sight of six men and women garbed in chain and leather armor. A hooded cloak hung from their back and looped across their shoulders and chests like a mantle, made of dark material that was one part purple to two parts gray. Emblazoned on it was that badge he'd seen before: a simple, embroidered circle of five black slashes against a red and blue background.

 

"Lord Autarch!" the nearest of them said in a strangled tone. It was the same one that had stepped in before, and he gestured frantically at the others. All of them fell to a knee. "Was your rest further disturbed?"

 

"No, nothing like that," Felix said, activating his Eye. "Lieutenant Errol. The Lady Dayne and I were just looking to uh, stretch our legs."

 

"Me too," Pit said behind him. He was smaller, but even the size of a small horse was hard to hide.

 

"Him too," Felix added, smiling at the guards. "Just keep on guarding the uh, empty room and we'll be on our way."

 

"My Lord, we cannot do that. We are your guard. We go where you go." Lieutenant Errol's expression was steady, but his face was already awash in sweat. Felix uncurled his Affinity and felt the rapid tattoo of the man's nervous fear and a steady, frankly upsetting amount of awe. "We are the Fiend's Shadows."

 

Oh right. Them. Felix had gained himself an honor guard during their journey to Ahkestria. He'd forgotten about it, but they clearly hadn't. He spotted members of the Henaari Dawnguard, as well as a member from the Fist, Blade, Bone, and Arclight Legions kneeling before him. A few missing...I wonder where they are?

 

A nudge at his back made Felix realize he'd been just staring at these people. He smiled ruefully at Vess and her elbow. "Well, Lieutenant. Follow us, I guess."

 

Felix walked down the corridor. It was a dead-end passage leading to an arched threshold, through which another, far larger chamber was visible. The floor was tiled with beautiful, polished stone, all of it cut into small rectangles of varying sizes, and the walls were filled with tiny ridges and moldings that divided up the space with a pleasing complexity. It was clear that Felix had been in a suite of rooms, and knowing his friends and followers it was likely the master suite. But who's? He asked Vess that, as they stepped into a large, almost circular room filled with low couches and a number of lounging guards.

 

"Oh, this is the former Grandmaster's mansion," she said with a small smile. "It was available and well appointed, so we took it for our purposes."

 

A smile curled his lip as well, especially when he saw the Frost Giants leap to their feet...leaving muddy stains on thick, ornately woven rugs and splatters of blood across pale, broken furniture. "Good."

 

"Lord Autarch!" the two giants said, slamming a fist to the ground as they dropped to a knee. Beside them, and much smaller than their fifteen-foot frames, were four others: the remaining members of his Shadows.

 

"Stand please. We're just taking a walk," Felix said, but he didn't stop. If he did, he worried that he'd get bogged down in another uncomfortable conversation. Except, to his growing annoyance, the giants and others all stood and joined the rest of his impromptu procession.

 

"My Lord, if you please," said one of the Henaari, Maryk by Felix's Eye. The other Dawnguard—Waryn—was beside him, and they looked similar enough to be brothers. "Let us act as vanguard. If trouble should come for you, let us handle it first."

 

Felix opened his mouth to protest—he could very well walk through a house by himself—Vess' slight shake of her head forestalled him. Biting back his words, he forced a smile. "Sure. Go ahead." The Spirits of the two Henaari literally vibrated with satisfaction as they turned and walked a touch faster than the rest, and Felix tilted his head down toward Vess. "Do they think I'm going to be attacked?"

 

"One can never be too sure," Vess said, patting his arm with her right hand. Her left was still entwined with Felix's, and he was happy to see she hadn't removed it. "Plus, they wish to aid you. A loyal retainer is one that feels needed, Felix."

 

He mulled that over as they moved through a series of interconnected hallways. The giants had some trouble with a few doors, but for the most part the Grandmaster's former home was so ostentatious that it easily accommodated their fifteen-foot height and bulky weaponry. Those two were, in fact, quite enthusiastic about guarding his back, and far more expressive than the stoicism he'd experienced with most of the Risi. Felix made it a point of inspecting each of his Shadows, committing their faces and names to his prodigious memory. He'd yet to regret choosing perfect recall as his Born Trait, and doubted he ever would, especially as their way grew more and more labyrinthine. Thresholds and corridors passed in quick succession as Vess navigated them out, and it was only after walking for a solid five minutes that she revealed that it was all just part of the Grandmaster's apartments.

 

Jeez, this guy. Who needs this much space for one person? Felix could barely understand that; he'd have felt swallowed up by all the pointless space within hours. They'd passed three different dining rooms and no less than six parlors of some variety. What's the point?

 

Eventually, Vess led them to a large door made of thick, dark wood and inlaid with panels of glittering, silvery metal. Sigils were carved in looping patterns around the threshold, but the door itself bore only a single, convoluted glyph. Vess lifted a small silver rod, notched in several places and carved with faintly glowing lines—and she place it directly on the glyph. Immediately the array winked out, and the door split into two as it opened outward.

 

"Fancy," Felix said with a whistle. "That was a locking array?"

 

"Quite a complicated one too. If we hadn't found this key I doubt we'd have been able to enter these apartments," she said, tucking the metal rod back into a pouch at her waist. "It's inscribed with the counter array, allowing it to unlock the door without issue."

 

"That's...really cool, honestly. The sigaldry is beautiful," Felix said, running a hand across the darkened glyph. "Never thought I'd say that about a locked door."

 

"Well, there is a first time for everything," she said, a touch too quietly. Before Felix say anything else, she bustled through after the two Henaari. "If you wish to see the others, then the healing wing is where we should head next."

 

Felix followed silently, thinking entirely too hard on what exactly Vess had meant. For some reason, at their rear, Pit snorted musically.

 

 

The halls were different outside the Grandmaster's apartments—his apartments, Felix supposed—but far from decreasing the overly involved designs along the walls and floors, the rest of the mansion only increased the extravagance. Mana crystals dripped from every surface in the form of lighting sconces and decorative chandeliers, fluted scrollwork was carved into stone walls and golden frames held up richly painted landscapes of lush desert oases and torrid, burning altars. Each hall and chamber had alcoves filled with statuary in ivory, gold, and obsidian, each depicting Human men and women in fluid, utterly nude movement.

 

Contrasting the garish environment, at each room they passed Felix spied a great number of ragged-looking families huddled around overstuffed couches and merrily burning hearths. Survivors of the mass sacrificial ritual, Vess had told him. They filled these rooms, too many to counter but easily numbering in the thousands, and all of them haggard from their experiences. Servants dressed in black and gold hustled to and fro, bringing food to these groups, but Felix could feel their Spirits recoil in disgust at the dirty, blood-stained garments they wore and the scent of unwashed flesh. Yet when they caught sight of his procession, the servants all dropped into deep bows and curtsies, followed quickly by the more able bodied among the commoners around them.

 

Emotions vibrated the air, rippling the many Untempered Spirits with awe and fear. A more complicated emotion thrummed within those they passed, something that mingled the two emotions and rose up, like a soldier at attention. It wasn't a negative emotion, but Felix couldn't quite parse its meaning. At any rate, he hadn't a clue what to say to them, and only managed a tight nod as he passed through.

 

More and more survivors greeted his eyes as they made their way across the huge mansion. Families of tall, powerfully built Yttin were clustered together, looking far less comfortable in their temporary accommodations than the smaller Goblins, Gnomes, or even the strapping Orcs and Dwarves. Most of them were miners with the heavy muscles to go along with it, but more than half were children, the old, or the infirm. None were spared when the Grandmaster and Paladins sought to sacrifice them all for power. The poorest neighborhoods had been almost completely cleared out—and good thing, since Vess informed him that the sudden sea had flooded all of the lowest layers.

 

"The city was damaged by the Paladin's assault, terribly so," Vess explained as they stepped swiftly across a huge ballroom. Tents were set up there, each one holding three or four citizens, and Felix noticed that these didn't look as ragged as the survivors earlier. They were mostly dressed in finer cloth and brighter colors, and while many sported bandaged wounds and tired eyes, few had the wan cheeks and sallow skin of the miners. Close by, a number of communal pots manned by black-and-gold liveried servants were ladling out fresh food. "The mid levels suffered fire and axe before the rains came. In that way, you could say the rising sea saved them at least. The Paladins were driven out by their sudden vulnerability and the waters put out the fires...still, many people died before we could save them."

 

"But people helped," Pit added. "I saw it when we arrived. The gold armors and the white robes were helping."

 

"They...they did," Vess said, almost begrudgingly. "A small contingent of the Urge worshippers here turned against their leaders and aided our efforts to save those below. More still to hunt down the Paladins that couldn't escape anymore."

 

"The Paladins are still here?" Felix asked, feeling his temper flare up. All these people... It's just like Haarwatch. Hurt because of zealots and monsters...and me. "Where?"

 

"Would that we knew," Vess said, voice tight with her own frustration. "We've chased many down, but more always seem to turn up. Their ships were blasted out of the sky by the storms...not a single one survived the advent of the sea."

 

Almost to prove her point, lightning flashed through the large twenty-foot windows on their right and Felix's focused his gaze out the window. Manasight activated, a wavering bell in his ears, as the world around him burst into life. Vaporous threads of Mana swelled and bloomed, weaving into the solid shapes of the casement and glass before him. Beyond, white-green and dark gray gusts spun around and around, tearing through the sky like tiny, self-contained hurricanes as the clouds flashed and emptied themselves. Dark-blue water Mana rained down, following the wind, influenced by it, connected to it by tethers that Felix could dimly sense. The storm brightened, sparked again, as light blue and orange skipped across the clouds. Lightning that raced toward flame, but was swallowed up by the wet and the dark.

 

It was a majestic tapestry of vibrancy. Of life itself, writ large and oh so small. A storm wasn't a beating heart, wasn't a brain turning thoughts to action and supposition, but it was alive. The Grand Harmony played through it like an instrument of wonder, and Felix felt a distant warmth trace down his cheeks. Then, among the wondrous, he saw the tiniest piece of it: an array of cloud and shadow and fire and force.

 

"There is a protection in the clouds, we are certain. Zara says it is benevolent, or at least of no concern to us, only to ships that dare ply the skies," Vess said.

 

Felix blinked, banking the burn of his Manasight until objects barely wisped with their hidden potency. "I see."

 

"Felix, are you crying?" Pit asked. He poked his head into Felix's large, scaled hands. In his new, more compact Body he barely reached Felix's sternum, though that was still taller than most Humans they'd met.

 

"A little," he admitted, scratching the tenku's head just behind his triangular ear tufts. "We've seen lots of bad things out there. Nice to remember that magic can be so beautiful too." He looked to Vess, who was staring up at him with a gentle smile and warm eyes. He cleared his throat. "Ah, let's keep walking, yeah?"

 

She squeezed his bicep and pulled him onward.

 

 

The healer's wing was aptly named, as it occupied a full third of the gargantuan estate. More ballrooms, two amphitheaters, and a greenhouse had been dedicated to the care and treatment of the injured. If walking through the multitude of displaced masses hadn't been enough to cement his hatred for the former rulers of Ahkestria, seeing the thousands of wounded people would have done it. Many were suffering from severe burns and dehydration, a result of being exposed to entirely too much fire and heat Mana for too long, according to Vess. The heiress had been helping what patients she could, when she wasn't out fighting Paladins and watching over him.

 

Isla was running the show in this area, that much was clear to Felix. The faint chime of the vocalized Chant hung like tinsel in the air, glittering and heavy as it sank into the afflicted all around them. He hadn't the familiarity with it, but Felix assumed it was accelerating the healing process in some way when he saw a Goblin's nasty chest wound close up in a matter of seconds.

 

"Gross, huh?"

 

Felix looked up from the Goblin—now breathing far easier—to see a hulking mass of fur and muscle standing to his left. Beefhammer the Minotaur, formerly thirteen-year-old Michael of Earth, stood a touch shy of seven feet tall and bore two upswept horns on either side of his bullish head.  He was wearing a belted green tunic that bulged strangely and brown shorts that stopped just shy of his bovine-shaped knees, both of which continued on into hooves.

 

"Beef," Felix said in relief. His smile frozen when he saw the heavy bandages across the guy's right shoulder and arm. From the lumps under his tunic, it was clear the wrapping extended even further than that too. "Are you alright? Were you hurt like this in our fight?"

 

"Huh? Oh this? Nah, did this to myself," he laughed and smacked his right arm with his ham-sized left hand. His smile turned into a grimace. "Never better," he wheezed.

 

"That was foolish, Michael," said another voice. Female, it appeared to come from Beef himself.

 

"I told you not to call me that anymore, Hallow," he muttered.

 

"Hallow? Where is she?" Felix asked, looking around the room. His strange spirit summons had proven very useful in their battles together, not to mention being just really, really interesting. But he didn't see a single undead Risen around. "I thought all her Bodies got destroyed."

 

"They almost did, but—oh!" Beef swiftly forgot all about his pain and clapped his hands together, hard. He winced, but kept going. "I didn't get to show you this yet! Hold on!" The big Minotaur reached into his own tunic and with some effort pulled free the bulging portion Felix had noticed. He carefully set it onto the ground, muscles straining and a thick vein in his forehead popping out. "There!"

 

It looked like nothing more than a bundle of clear, quartz-like crystals and lumpy earth. "Uh, what is it?" Felix asked.

 

"Right right, lemme do this," Beef said, and sent out a streamer of blackened-green Mana from his palm. The instant it touched the crystal lump, that same color completely infused the whole of it, until the bundle blazed with blackened-green light. "It's a Homunculus!"

 

"A what?" Felix asked.

 

And then the crystals stood up.