Unbound

Felix eyed the throne. "Kind of ostentatious, isn't it?"

"It's a very nice throne," Iiana said. "Very…shiny?"

Before them, the official throne of the king of Pax’Vrell had replaced the shattered remnants of the duke's seat. It was made from gold and thin panels of mithril, beaten to form a scroll-armed, high-backed chair. The very top of it was shaped to look like the glyph of House Navarre, and quite well, too.

"Khalheim is infinitely more regal. It is a seat of Strength. This is..." Orun trailed off. "Simply expensive."

Felix didn't really argue there. It was gaudy, but the nobles who commissioned it had done so at considerable expense to themselves, and the craftsmen had apparently labored for an entire day.

They didn't bother to fix the floor, though. It was still savaged from when Felix fought the Hierei and the High Guard. Most of the debris hadn't even been cleared away.

He hadn't really wanted to go there—let alone sit in his new throne—but the audience chamber was where he'd been led when he told the servants he needed to gather up his friends for a meeting. A council, they had called it, and Felix hadn’t bothered to correct them.

They meant well.

Archie and the Chanters were already with him, having followed him from the array. As was the tray of food, which the servants had taken upon themselves to refresh with newer and more varied dishes. Hot soups and fresh-baked pastries abounded, as well as fruit and vegetables in a wide variety.

Felix turned and found Pit, still in Dire Hound form, talking to several kneeling servants.

"Of course, my lord, we will see it done." The servants stood and hustled out of the audience hall, and Pit jogged over to Felix's side.

"Ordering breakfast?"

Pit gave a doggy grin. "I haven't eaten since midnight. I'm starving." He sat down and scratched vigorously at his ear. "You really messed this place up, huh?”

“It wasn’t my fault—mostly."

"What happened in here?" Evie said, walking in with Harn on her heels. "Ooh, food!" She made a beeline for the table. "Fighting always makes me peckish."

"Ah, I miss food," Telys said. "The taste of things. Eidolon bodies are not made for such things."

"You can't eat?" Pit asked, his eyes wide and Spirit recoiled in horror. "Don’t you—don't you get hungry?"

"We experience neither hunger nor sleep. Even our Stamina depletes far slower than mortal flesh. Our sacrifice has eliminated many of our weaknesses. We live in eternal service, and it is our greatest honor to do so," Eagin said, and silence followed his words.

"Taste would be nice, though," Orun admitted.

Harn chuckled. "Aye, giving up taste ain't no way to live.”

“Maybe our gray-skinned friend can magic up some array to help," Evie suggested. "Atar has been studying all those squiggles long enough that he should have some ideas."

"Might be," Harn admitted. He gave Evie a sideways look and smiled. "What's got you so fired up?"

"I just don't like seein’ folks suffer, is all." She held up a fruit pastry and gazed at it with an incredible amount of sadness. "Imagine not being able to taste this?" She shoved the whole thing in her mouth. "Terrible!"

"My Lord, is this true?" Telys asked Felix, as the other Eidolons gathered around him. "Could your ally alter our Eidolon bodies?"

Telys, Orun, and Iiana looked to Felix with eager eyes. Despite his protests, Eagin too seemed interested in the answer.

"My chancellor, Karys, was an Exalt like all of you. Due to....unavoidable circumstances, he was transferred into a new body entirely." Felix nodded. "We can certainly try."

The Eidolons exchanged excited glances that may have sparked a whole new round of questions, until a voice sounded from the doorway.

"It seems everyone has assembled," Vess said. Beef walked in behind her and she gestured to the servants. The doors were closed as the liveried workers bowed out. "I apologize for our delay. The walk across the Citadel is something I have always misjudged."

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"Just the two of you?" Felix asked, extricating himself from his Eidolon guard. He eyed the charred edges of her sleeves and the grease and soot across the rest of her clothes. "What happened?"

Her eyes appeared to light up, the golden ring around her pupils stark against her normally brown eyes. “I felt you." She held up her arms. "You saved me. And the Dragons."

Standing so close to her, Felix felt a new resonance between them, like a tingling against his skin. “What is this?”

"You made it work, Felix. Yintarion's eggs have all hatched, and more besides."

"Really?" Felix leaned forward, taking her hands in his. The tingling vanished. "That's incredible! So you have six baby Dragons now? Is that where Yintarion is?"

Now he knew he wasn't imagining things. Vess's eyes actually glowed with gold. Her Spirit soared with a crescendo of sound that Felix could only describe as unfettered joy.

"We discovered more. A total of ninety-nine Hatchlings had been born."

"Are you kidding me?" Felix embraced her, lifting her off the ground and spinning her around while she beamed. "That's amazing!"

"Hey, a hundred," Beef said, appearing hurt.

"Yes, right, a full hundred," Vess amended, still in Felix’s arms. "One was unable to hatch in time, and Beef and Hallow bonded with it."

Felix blinked rapidly as he set Vess back to her feet. "You Raised a Dragon, dude?"

Beef grinned. "It was really hard, but yeah! Hallow is staying with her for now while Yin is corralling the rest."

"Damn," Felix laughed. It felt good. "This is excellent news, and way better than what I had to share."

"Can't say I expected rainbows and sunshine when your servant interrupted our spar," Harn said, coming closer. The rest gathered up around Felix, forming a rough circle around an unmarked patch of flooring. "What dire news will have us runnin’ for our lives next?"

Felix winced. "Well..."

"So, they're all being hunted by the gods," Evie summarized.

“Basically. I wasn't sure at first, but their touch just became more and more obvious.”

Felix was pacing. He had been ever since he'd started describing his visions of the Unbound. "The Twins were after the Kobolds. That blue metallic light is how they look when you see them in... And those knights definitely talked about justice and mercy, and that's their whole deal. Yyero, meanwhile, is after the Lizardman.”

"From what you told us, it is clear those were plague rats," Vess said, folding her arms. "But didn't Avet tell us that Yyero was after the Kobolds in Jaast?"

"He did. Apparently that's changed."

"Or the god of chaos was lying to you," Evie pointed out.

"That's a distinct possibility," Felix admitted. "Avet helped me at the end of my fight against the Pathless, so I have to assume some level of eagerness to aid us. But we can't mistake that for benevolence. The guy is following unknown rules. All of them are."

"Ouranic law," Archie said. He'd found a piece of rubble and perched on top of it. "Is there seriously nothing in any of your thousands of books about the subject?"

"Nothing we've found yet. I imagine if the gods can't even talk about it, the chances of it being written down are slim to none.”

“I would also guess the Ruin would have erased that kind of stuff," Beef added.

"Also that.”

“So faceless shadow monsters and red lightnin’ after the winged lady," Harn said, ticking them off on his fingers. "That's Noctis and Vellus, right?"

"Gotta be.”

“How is Vellus affecting anything?" Laur asked. "She was bound more than the rest, and she's mad to boot."

Evie snorted. "None of them seem exactly stable.”

“Noctis and Vellus were wed, so the legends say. Who knows what Noctis may have done to empower her wife," Tzfell said, steepling her fingers. A pair of polygons made of red energy flowed between her palms, one reducing to grow the other. "A sacrifice of power is not out of the question."

Felix stared at the Dwarf’s display. "And if they got an extra boost of power, then that's even simpler."

She nodded slowly. "They killed the Pathless before splitting up his Divine power between them all. That is the likeliest outcome."

Archie whistled. "Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.”

“That might explain why Siva looked to be directly tampering with the Theron Unbound. She seemed stronger. She hadn't been able to do that before. Those threads were definitely controlling her movements.”

“And the array was similar to ours? You are sure?" Tzfell asked.

"Pretty sure. It had so many familiar elements, but I couldn't see all of it. It felt," he searched for the right words, "like it was focused differently. A telescope compared to our microscope. Er, long range versus short range," he said, adjusting to accommodate the confused stares nearly everyone gave him.

"As far as Gabby goes," he continued, "I'm not really sure what I felt around her. The resistance was a lot greater than the others, but I'd just gotten the boot from Siva. It affected how deeply I could dive into her vision, I think. I’m only positive about two things. One, that the gods are still affecting her somehow, otherwise she wouldn't still be with the Hierophant. And two, she's finally awake."

Vess placed a hand on his shoulder. "I certainly hope she is, Felix. But we must proceed on the assumption that she is still a threat."

Felix closed his eyes. "I know. It sucks, but I know."

"What's the plan then?” Harn asked. "Who are we handlin’ first?”

“Master Tier or not, I can't be everywhere at once. We need the Shadowgates. All of them. And that means going home."

"What of the Dragons," Vess asked.

Felix opened his mouth before closing it again. "Good question. How do they feel about road trips?"

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