Unbound

Their fleet followed in Scylla's wake.

Pit flew with her, easily keeping up with the smaller tenku as the storm intensified. With every beat of his wings, it seemed they drew nearer the heart of it, until the world thundered around them like the growling of a ferocious beast. Wind, rain, and ceaseless lightning dropped from the skies. Clouds swirled above and below, until there was little telling between either direction.

The ships cut through them, their prows splitting clouds like sea foam. Pit tilted himself, dragging two of his wings through the thickened mist, scattering it in a broad spray behind him. He laughed through the rain.

"This is fun!"

"It can be," Scylla allowed. She flew quickly and efficiently, her wings flapping at regular intervals and the water slipping off her feathers and fur.

"Four wings. You are on your…fifth Evolution?”

“Nope! My second."

The pale Tenku chirruped curiously. "You... only your second Evolution?"

"Uh-huh." Pit puffed out his chest and flapped his wings to overcome a stiff gust. He was strong, but he was also really big, and the winds did not like to slip around him. "This storm is getting pretty wild."

"What?”

“Monster core," she repeated over the rolling gong of nearby thunder. "What beast did you consume in order to cultivate that form?"

"Is that how we're supposed to Evolve?" Pit looked up, blinking at the rain. "Gosh, it would have been so much easier to know that."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, I don't know any Chimera. Except my mom, but..." Pit looked away. "Anyway, until I met A’zek, I didn't know anything about Evolving, either. As far as he knew, it was just a matter of compressing power until something happened. So I just winged it. Ate lots of stuff, poured a ton of mana and essence, and then…stuff happened."

"You ate nothing in particular. There was no focus for your growth." Scylla sounded scandalized, but Pit couldn't see why.

"I did the best I could. My Companion and I have been fighting monsters. A lot of monsters. My first Evolution wasn't until we killed an army of paladins and ate a Primordial."

"What?"

"Don't worry, it was already dead." Pit flapped his wings. "I think."

"I... You ate a... How?"

Pit felt it before it struck, like a tingling in his feathers and down his spine. "Watch it!"

He flared Ouranic Dominion, surging forward as lightning struck and Willing his Mantle of the Stormlord to catch it—only to bear witness as Scylla spun from the searing bolt's path, evading it by the smallest of margins.

Pit drew back, sparks of the passing bolt skittering across his Mantle harmlessly.

"Holy crap," he gasped. "You're good!"

Her crest perked up for a moment before she shook herself. "My current Evolution is designed to maximize my speed and grace in the air."

"Oh, that's smart, considering where you live."

"It was one of many options offered by the elders. That is how we do things in the Enclave. The oldest cares for the youngest, so that we can rise together as one."

Pit smiled, letting a rippling trill roll through his chest. He liked that. He liked that a lot.

Scylla dropped back, aligning herself with Pit once more. "Tell me, Shaper of Chaos, was it the Primordial that gave you these wings?"

"Nope. My first Evolution made me smaller, faster."

She tilted her head, "Like me.”

“Sorta!”

“Then why are you—”

“As big as a bus?"

"...what is a bus?"

"It's like a..." Pit frowned, conjuring the mental image he'd stolen from Felix. "It's like a big wagon. Really big. Fits a lot of people inside, and it growls around the city, forcing everybody out of its way."

"And you wanted to be a bus?"

Pit laughed. "No, but I realized I wasn't following my own path, so I changed things around in my second Evolution. Plus, being this size makes my job easier."

"Job?"

"Protecting Felix."

Scylla's spirit made that sour, downward spiral again. "Your Companion."

"Yeah, listen.” He fixed her with his most serious stare. “I like my Companion. I don't know what your deal is with them in general, but mine is awesome."

"They..." She shook her head, and water sprayed from her feathers. "It will be easier to explain at the Enclave. We are almost there."

She shot ahead, and Pit followed, right into the heart of a towering, purple-black cloud. Ambient light still filtered through his sight, otherwise Pit wouldn't have been able to tell cloud from sky, save for the limning of scattered lightning. He followed the Chimera, but while previously matching her speed had been trivial, now he found it challenging to press through the headwinds that poured through that cloud.

The rain vanished, becoming a pervasive wet that clung to every inch of him, and Pit blinked it away from his eyes. Scylla's tail whipped just ahead but was getting farther, while the trails her pinions left behind were like ephemeral wagon ruts, there then not, as the way thickened against him.

All at once, Scylla vanished entirely.

Pit squinted through the soupy fog, trying his best to maintain his bearings. He beat his wings, hurling the fog from his path, only to have it fall back in, like water filling a jar.

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"Here, Shaper of Chaos."

Just as abruptly as she had disappeared, Scylla returned, now perched atop a strange device made up of looping gold circles and glowing sigils.

Oh wait. Not gold. That's bronze.

Crescian Bronze.

"What is this?" he asked as he landed on one of the rings. It rang like a struck bell. It was very big, at least the size of one of the manaships, with inscribed orbs surrounded by concentric rings, equally marked up and glowing. It hung motionless in the clouds. It didn't even sag as he landed on it, but Pit saw that it was not secured to anything.

Like the adamant anchors.

"This secret is one that I would ask that you take to your grave." She gestured with a red paw. "These are the Etheric Stormwardens, ancient devices designed to protect and disguise our Enclave."

The wind howled, pouring from one of the rings, while a sharp crack split off the topmost arc, turning into incandescent lightning.

Pit gasped. "It makes the storm?"

"A piece of it. They were devised to mimic the power of true Stormwardens, to provide shelter for our Enclaves, back when there were more of us."

"True Stormwardens? Wait, more of you?"

Scylla ignored him. She seemed too busy pressing on several large, glowing gemstones before she let loose a series of pitch-perfect notes in a strange, warbling tune.

Authority Recognized, Scylla Skysunder.

What Do You Request, Wayfinder?

"Passage into Euphonia for nine ships."

Processing Request.

Request Accepted.

Requirement: Bring All New Arrivals To The Chimeric Enclave.

Refusal To Comply Will Result In Destruction.

Pit looked in alarm at the contraption he stood on and shifted his feet. "Um, I'm not a big fan of that."

"Standard protocol," Scylla said, hopping to another rung. "I was going to bring you to the Chimera, anyway. It is my duty."

"Oh, well, that's good, I guess. I want to meet the Chimera." Pit looked askance at the bronze before him before tapping it with his paw. "Don't hurt my friends.”

“Come, Pit. We must catch your fleet before it flies into trouble."

The two tenku flew away, leaving the Etheric Stormwarden behind. Wind curled off its wide rings, and rain was sent spiraling off along with it. But at its center, a series of bright purple gemstones flared.

Authority Recognized, Pit Nevarre.

Shaper of Chaos.

They found the fleet quickly. Vess had slowed them down once the storms had overtaken them entirely, and Pit announced his arrival with a chirping cry. Several jumpy soldiers lifted their weapons.

"Hello. Follow us," he said, flapping his wings before the prow. "And put those away. We’re guests."

The soldiers did so, their spirits sheepish. Vess stepped forward.

"Lead on, Pit."

"Stick close, then. It's weird out here." He turned, flapping his wings as air rushed in his wake.

The Manaships followed.

They split through the clouds and were enveloped in cottony darkness. Now that they had backtracked, Pit tried to find the giant bronze devices, but there wasn’t any sign of them. He was so turned around, he couldn't even tell where the other one had once been.

Scylla flew not far ahead of him, letting loose a soft cry every hundred feet or so, as if to let him know that she was still there. Pit appreciated it, because the thickness of the clouds only increased until it was like he was flying through pure gray. Yet, the pea soup sky was turning brighter by slow increments, so subtly that it was not until the last moment that he realized the gray had turned a pale orange.

They broke through.

Gasps rolled through the deck of the leading ships as the crew were bathed in sunset light. Pit could only goggle in amazement.

Scylla pulled up, flapping her wings to hold herself aloft. "Welcome to Euphonia, Enclave of the Chimera." Her pale fur and feathers were encased in sunset light, orange and pink reflecting off of her pinions.

"Gorgeous," Pit said.

Scylla glanced at him, the soft edges of her beak curving upward, and a soft, curious melody coiling from her Spirit. It was enchanting, but it cut off abruptly, the notes souring as she faced forward, and her wings blurred. She dove down to the floating city before them. Pit and his fleet followed.

The sun had returned for the first time he'd been in Sunara. It was radiant and fiery, arcing from above where the stormwalls created a gap in the sky and cast the world around them in hues of orange and pink. The rest of the sky was a blackened purple as night encroached from the west. All around them was the stormwall—a ring of towering and bulbous clouds that swirled at incredible speeds around the circumference of the Enclave.

Below them was Euphonia itself.

Situated across a series of huge, floating islands was a sprawling city, though it was smaller than Haarwatch. Scylla swooped closer to him, trumpeting her presence, and Pit smiled. Her Spirit was a bit less sour as they flew closer to her home, and Pit noted a profound sense of relief that trailed after her like a banner.

She led them all, navigating them past needle-thin towers at the edges of the islands and over dark stone buildings that clustered among vibrant green areas and manicured forests. Soaring bridges flitted by, each one made of some bone-white stone and appearing as delicate as spun glass. People walked across them or through the tended paths between curved buildings, pushing carts or carrying children.

Several stared upwards as they passed, hands pointing and mouths wide in shock.

Pit shouted. "You guys, look! Sylphaen!"

"Korvaa, too," Evie noted, leaning over the railing of their lead ship. "Lots more than I've seen anywhere else."

The bird-like Korvaa filled the streets alongside the far more statuesque and Elf-like Sylphaen. Though they all bore wings, several flitted across gaps between structures through wide openings, and others gathered in small groups that soared in tandem. Young Korvaa laughed alongside slender Sylphaen, their faces flushed as their wings sent them into complicated loops and twists.

Everyone seems so happy.

More needle-thin towers rose up ahead of them, marking a change in the city’s design. The first island they passed over had been clearly residential, but beyond that were six smaller islands, each connected by bone-white bridges. Atop those islands were massive structures that dwarfed everything else. Towers, domes, and wide, upswept fortresses filled the landscape, all of them made of that bone-white material and appearing to be so delicate that a single blow could shatter them.

Pit was impressed. The buildings were huge, taking up large portions of multiple smaller islands, and so high that their fleet had to divert around several of them or risk collision.

It was to one of these buildings that Scylla led their fleet: a low dome built into the pattern of what looked like a ten-pointed star. Before it, another ten-pointed star stretched outward in a platform covered in hundreds of deeply carved lines, each describing another star, until the interior of the platform was a complicated pattern of intersecting lines. Where they met in the center, they were traced out in blue tiles, forming a perfectly symmetrical shape that Pit first thought was a skeletal tree of some sort.

It almost looks like lightning, the way it branches at the top and bottom. Weird.

Scylla landed and the ships followed, lowering down onto the platform as shifting mechanisms whirred upward. Ancient clamps on still-gleaming arms cradled the ships as they descended, forming into berths and allowing the ships to settle into place without a single creaking board.

“Remarkable craftsmanship,” Yin said, peering over the prow. “I have not seen their like since my time.”

"This is all Nymean architecture," Vess noted.

“As were many of the Dragoons’ fortresses.”

"You are right," Scylla admitted, her wide gray eyes blinking owlishly. "You seem surprised."

"Most Nymean structures we've encountered have been heavily damaged," Vess explained. "This looks almost new."

"It is maintained," she said. "Has been so ever since the Fall."

"The Fall of what?" Pit got the impression that she didn't mean autumn. He could almost hear the capitalization.

The other tenku looked at him, and a fierceness creased her gaze. "The Fall of the Golden Empire."

A basso shriek tore through the air, and Pit immediately dropped into a stance ready to fight or flee. However, Scylla merely shrieked back, her own high-pitched voice echoing the same call, until it was taken up by other voices, each of them different, all of them from the dome before them.

From the ground, the sides of the dome were marked with large openings, archways that led into shadowed recesses of the interior. From there, dozens of tenku and wyverns appeared, pouring out of them like a flock of massive birds. They circled the star platform, repeating their ancient call.

Pit's eyes widened. "There are so many.”

“Brethren all,” A’zek purred. "We are home, cousin."

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