"No," Cal answered, holding out a hand to forestall the father. "He's not."
The little girl screwed up her face in confusion. "Why not? Mama and Papa called this a safeplace. They said the Fiend protected us when the bugs came. He should be in the safeplace."
"We're looking for him, he's..." Cal hesitated and looked at the girl's father. The man looked just as interested in the answer as his daughter. It had been happening more and more: people asking about Felix. Ever since those prisoners had made it back to the Dust. She cleared her throat.
"He's fighting the monsters right now. Big ones. But when he's done, he'll be coming back here. Alright?"
The little girl named Amaya chewed her lip before nodding once, firmly. "Let's go, Papa."
Cal huffed a laugh and watched them go.
Where are you, Felix?
She needed all the help she could get.
"No!"
Stellis, dirty and terrified, huddled over her two children. It was so dark, she hadn't seen the building leaning until it was too late. She--
She was still alive.
Confused and hesitant to believe, she opened her eyes.
Only scant spans above her, the crumbled wall hovered and...and glowed. A vivid, greenish-blue that was all the brighter for the darkness. Agog, she reached a hand out as if to touch it.
"I wouldn't advise that," said a voice. A woman's voice, kindly but tired. The dirty, terrified woman turned and beheld a tall, statuesque figure with black robes and free-flowing hair the color of the sea. Sharp teeth showed through an even sharper smile. "Though I would prefer if you move."
Stellis flinched and looked down at her children, before hustling them away from the suspended masonry. Once clear, the wall dropped to the ground with a mighty boom.
"I cannot thank you enough, my lady," Stellis began, stumbling over her words in her haste. She was exhausted, driven to her wits end during their escape, fear and adrenaline all that fueled her mad flight through the night. Yet she screwed up her courage and belted out her words. "I fear asking for more, but can you help us? We have nothing. We...we're looking for shelter."
"Of course, child," the woman said, for all that she looked no older than herself. A Naiad, Stellis realized, noting her ochre skin in the faint light of nearby fires. "The Wall is taking survivors in; space is limited, but it is the closer option. There is also a group in the Dust Quarter that is housing families."
"The Dust?" Stellis asked, her stomach dropping. It was so far. The Wall was far closer, but if the woman was right, they were probably full at this point. "Do you know if the Wall is full?"
"I do not. It is a risk, either way, child." The woman held both her hands, palms up, and seesawed them up and down. "I cannot make the choice for you."
Stellis watched the women for a long moment before she nodded. Of course, she finally recognized the robes. That was the way of the old religion, her grandmother had said. The sanctity of choice, freely made. Stellis drew in a ragged breath and held her sons closer. They had both gone so quiet since they escaped their tenement; they had been so brave. She could be brave too.
"The Dust it is, then."
The woman, the chorister, nodded and gave her directions. "When you arrive, ask for Cal. She will put you up."
"Thank you, my lady. Thank you so much," Stellis felt her heart ache as she left, hoping she had made the right decision.
Should never live with herself if she had not.
As the woman disappeared into the dark, Zara snapped her fingers. A woman in a dark cloak and long black dress stepped from behind a rubble pile and curtsied. She had dusky red skin and golden eyes that caught the light of distant fires.
"My lady?"
"Take a walk back toward the Dust encampment, Melle," Zara stared disinterestedly after the woman. "I still sense many Revenants abroad this night and have noticed an excess of energy in you. Burn it off."
"Of course, my lady," Melle curtsied once again, before she moved after the woman and her children. If one were paying attention, they would have noted that she made not a single sound. Zara wouldn't have sent someone incapable, after all.
Honoring the right to choose was a mainstay of the old religions, just as accepting the consequences of those choices. Zara would never break such firmly held beliefs. Her handmaiden simply had some aggression to work out.
That was all.
Zara glanced up at the sky, her eyes awash in a shimmer of aquamarine power for an instant. Even sounding the flows of Mana, she could see little above them. The storm raged silently, releasing muted lightning with increasing regularity between the cloudy peaks. But whatever the Ravager had done, it had drained the skies of power more thoroughly than anything she had seen before. And Zara had seen a lot.
Then, it had died.
The boy had done it.
A remarkable child, she thought with a grim twist of her lips. He hadn't even needed the spell she'd held in abeyance. The cool Mana of it still coiled within her, thrumming lightly beneath the streets. More power than she'd worked with in a long time, a complexity only supported because of how deep she'd Chanted her Intent. There were no half-measures against such a foe.
However, the magic she'd laid down hadn't been strictly offensive, as Zara was not willing to eradicate the city center just to strike a wounding blow against the Domain Core. She possessed no true idea how much Endurance and Vitality it retained, so going too weak would have been a waste of Mana, while going too strong would do the Ravager's job for it. She'd have destroyed the city.
Other magic, however, was far more flexible.
The nature of her own gift was far better at support than direct force, which is why she'd had so much trouble against the Master Inquisitor earlier that day. In fact, she still bore a few wounds from that encounter. Zara grimaced as her movements tugged at them, yet she could not stop. Not until she found him.
Whatever Felix had done had torn the Ravager apart. Which should have been impossible. She had Analyzed the beast before its end and had been utterly devastated to learn it was a Primordial. One of the great enemies of the gods themselves. For all her faith and despite her planning, at that moment Zara felt despair sink its claws in her heart.
And then the boy had performed a miracle.
In the chaos, however, she had lost track of him. He had fallen to the earth, but Zara had faith he would survive. If he was who she hoped, who she feared....He couldn't die. Not yet.
A pained groan cut into the night. Zara's sharp Perception pivoted toward it and she moved fast. Beyond the remnants of five crushed buildings, the burned out husk of a Manaship laid half-submerged beneath the street. Bodies were scattered everywhere, white enameled armor bent and broken, flesh charred beyond recognition. The boy, she soon realized, wasn't here.
But someone else was.
"Sorcerer..."
Zara stepped closer, picking her way slowly, carefully. A handful of spells floated through her Mind and Spirit, ready to be released but they faded to the background as she saw him.
Khorun Katan was pinned to the earth by the majority of the candlemaker's guildhall. His left arm and leg were charred ruins, no more than grizzled stumps in the night. What was left of him was sweating and crazed with burns, though his full head of hair sat untouched atop his head. Eyes still bright with a terrifying Intelligence watched her.
"Redcloak."
"Come to gloat, witch?" Katan bared his teeth and Zara saw blood had flecked them. "Come to laugh at my ill fortune?"
"I was not even looking for you," Zara said, keeping her face neutral.
"Lies, now? Were you...not, ugh...looking for vengeance?" The redcloak tried to shift himself, but the tons of stone would not budge beneath his damaged Body.
"For what?"