Chapter 44: Hello, Officer.
Iskander Briand
My body, which I usually commanded with the effortless precision of an Asuran weapon, felt like a foreign object—a leaden, unresponsive boulder someone had unceremoniously dumped onto the cold stone floor of the Aethercave.
Every muscle fiber screamed in protest, every bone felt hollowed out and filled with sand. The sheer, absolute exhaustion was pinning me to the ground, and for a long moment, I lacked even the will to draw a full breath.
'Child!' Sylvia's voice was a faint, frantic echo in the vast, empty cavern of my mind, a distant spark in the profound darkness of my drained aether core.
She couldn't manifest, not even as her tiny mouse form. The energy required for a physical presence was beyond us both.
The proof was all around me; my armour dissolved not with its usual controlled fade, but in a shower of pathetic, dying sparks of pale golden light before the remnants were sucked back into the safety of the Djinn Slate.
I laid there, utterly still, listening to the frantic hammering of my own heart, a desperate drumbeat in the overwhelming silence.
The memories of the night were a chaotic blur—flashes of terror-stricken elven faces, the crackle of teleportation magic, the draining, soul-deep vacuum as Sylvia pulled aether from me in great, desperate gulps to fuel our crusade.
Sylvia, I thought, the mental words a laborious effort. Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure all those elves are safe? It was a plea for reassurance, a need to anchor the night's colossal effort to a positive outcome.
We had crisscrossed half of Alacrya, a ghost in the night, appearing at estates and manors, each teleportation a fresh blow that left me weaker, more hollow.
The desire to follow them, to see them step onto the soil of Dicathen myself, had been a powerful ache, but the cost was astronomical. My reserves, already taxed by a dozen Creations and countless uses of Static Void, were simply gone.
'Yes, Child. I am sure,' her reply came, a soft, steady ember of certainty in my mental darkness.
I sighed sprawling across the pavement of the Aethercave—the basement of Briand Manor.
"I am truly enjoying this floor of mine," I said, the playful words a stark contrast to the utter wreckage I felt. The chill of the stone was seeping through my clothes, a blessed numbness against the fiery ache in my muscles. It was oddly refreshing.
I remembered then the look in the eyes of those captive elves—the ruin etched into their bodies, the hollowness gnawing at their minds. They had been slaves from another continent, yes, but there was no reason to believe such a sight was rare.
In Alacrya, it was likely ordinary.
Unads, I recalled they were called. Those without magic. No runes carved into their backs. No mark of divine favor. In a continent where power was worshipped as a gift from Agrona, they were the unblessed—cast aside, diminished, treated as if their very lack were a crime.
We are going to heal people, I thought, the decision solidifying into an unshakable vow. First thing tomorrow.
But for now? The warmth of the resolve was instantly swamped by a tidal wave of absolute fatigue. My aether core was a barren desert, but I could feel it already, a faint, ghostly trickle beginning the agonizingly slow process of pulling the ambient energy back into itself.
For now? Goodnight.
As the thought drifted, the last vestiges of my consciousness surrendered. The cold floor ceased to be cold and the ache ceased to be an ache.
—
The rain fell on Mainland Aedelgard as a slow, relentless drowning. It wasn't the dramatic, crashing tempest of the Vritra's Maw Sea that bordered the island; this was a grey, weeping misery that seeped into everything, turning the world into a waterlogged grave.
I stood at its edge, the tall and monolithic buildings of the Island Borough at my back, a ghost at the feast staring into the abyss.
What was before me was a scene of profound, systematic devastation. It was a gut punch of familiarity, a grim echo of the war testimonies I'd been forced to watch in Etharia about Trayden—the broken cities, the displaced masses, the hollow-eyed survivors living in the skeletons of their former lives.
But this was worse. This wasn't the aftermath of a conflict; this was a permanent state of being. These were not homes reduced to rubble; they were structures never intended to be homes in the first place. Shacks.
The word was too generous. They were hovels cobbled together from rotting timber, rusted sheets of metal, and frayed tarpaulins, leaning against one another for support like a crowd of consumptives, each one seeming to exhale a miasma of damp decay and despair.
Rows upon rows of them, an endless, suffocating maze of poverty stretching into the grey, rain-blurred distance.
"Aedelgard has enough space for all these people," I murmured to myself. The island was a sprawling monument to excess. "And yet they are kept here, distant from the eyes of the ones living on the island."
Out of sight, out of mind. The philosophy of tyrants and cowards across two worlds.
My attention was caught by a burst of sound from one of the shacks—a sharp cry, followed by a low, guttural argument. The walls were so thin I could hear every strained syllable, a family's private despair made public by the flimsiness of their existence.
The shack itself was perhaps the size of my bedroom in the Briand Manor. The thought was a visceral blow. My sanctuary, with its vaulted ceilings and sprawling space, could contain this entire family's world with room to spare.
The argument cut off abruptly as I walked past, my presence on the narrow, muddy path between the shacks acting like a spell of silence. I was an anomaly, a grotesque intrusion.
"I really am a pain in the eye amidst all these people," I murmured again, the shame a hot coal in my chest. It was a truth too awful to keep locked inside.
My clothes were a mockery to their lives: a pristine white jacket and trousers that gleamed with obscene brightness against the universal grime, shoes that were already caked in mud, each step a small betrayal of the privilege they represented.
I was a walking insult, a reminder of everything they were denied. The sight of my own wealth against the backdrop of their profound suffering churned my stomach, a nausea born of impotent guilt and rising fury.
The rain intensified, sheeting down in a cold, drenching curtain. I watched water cascade off a sagging tarpaulin roof and form a rushing river in the mud of the "street," and a horrific thought occurred to me: could these people drown in their own homes?
But the grim, practiced way a woman further down the path was already digging a small trench to divert the water told a story of brutal familiarity. They survived this. They endured this. Every single day.
I walked on, head bowed against the rain, hands shoved deep in my pockets in a useless attempt to appear smaller, less conspicuous. Another difference struck me, more profound than the squalor.
In the Island Borough, every street, every plaza, every building had a name—Highbloods Park, Regalia Square, the Briand Manor. They were testaments to history, to legacy, to ownership. Here, there was nothing. No street signs, no markers. The paths were just mud. The dwellings were just shacks.
And the people… they were Unnamed Bloods. They weren't only poor, they were erased. Denied even the basic dignity of an identity.
My right foot bumped against something soft and round. I stopped, looking down. Through the rivulets of water running off my black hair, I saw a ball. Or what passed for one. It was a sad, sodden sphere of tattered rags, clumsily wound together and caked in mud, now slowly coming to a halt in the wet gravel.
I raised my head. Two children, a boy and a girl, stood frozen a dozen feet away. They were soaked to the bone, their clothes little more than rags themselves. They watched me with huge, wary eyes, their gazes flicking between my face and their pathetic toy, too terrified to claim it back from the strange, well-dressed lord.
'Poor little ones,' Sylvia's voice echoed in my mind, brimming with a deep, empathetic sorrow that felt like a physical ache.
Her maternal instincts, so often a source of comfort, now flared with a protective anger that mirrored my own.
Without a word, I bent down and picked up the sorry object. It was cold and heavy with water. In my palm, it felt like the embodiment of this entire place—something made with love and desperate ingenuity, but ultimately fragile and doomed.
A spark of pale golden aether, drawn from the core of my being, flickered around my hand. It wasn't much, just a tiny expenditure, but it was a act of pure defiance against the overwhelming grey.
Creation.
The ragged bundle dissolved, and in its place, a new object formed. It was a ball of sturdy, brown leather, stitched with strong thread, the kind kids had kicked around on Earth centuries ago. It was simple, solid, and, most importantly, it was real.
"Here," I said, my voice softer than I intended. I crouched, bringing myself down to their level, and offered it with a smile I hoped was reassuring and not frightening. "This one won't break as easily."
To prove it, I gave it a small, careful bounce on the muddy ground. It sprang back with a satisfying, solid thump.
The effect was instantaneous. The wariness in their eyes didn't vanish, but it was eclipsed by a dawning, incredulous wonder. The boy took a tentative step forward, then another. The girl followed, her hand clutching his sleeve. Seeing their lingering shyness, I simply rolled the new ball gently toward them.
The boy snatched it up, holding it to his chest as if it were made of gold. A tiny, almost imperceptible smile touched the girl's lips.
"T-thanks... Oh, Lord." the boy stammered, his eyes wide as he finally looked directly at me, truly seeing the grey skin and the horns that marked me as something other. The gratitude was there, but it was tinged with that ingrained, automatic deference, that fear.
This fucking grey skin. For all that I loved my new body—its strength, its resilience, its latent power—I hated the Basilisk legacy it screamed to the world. I was a living monument to their oppression, even when trying to offer kindness.
I just gave them a ball... I did nothing, I thought, the gesture feeling absurdly small, a single drop of water in an ocean of need.
'It was a very cute gesture, Iskander,' she insisted, but her tone was heavy.
I turned to leave, the weight of the place settling back onto my shoulders. Were all Alacryan cities like this? If just one city of Sehz-Clar harbored this festering secret, what horrors laid in the heart of Vechor or Truacia or the vast city of Cargidan? The thought was a chilling vortex.
"That was very generous of you, sir."
The voice came from behind me, calm, measured, and utterly out of place. I turned, my movements deliberate, to see a man standing under the slight overhang of a shack's leaking roof.
He was tall and lean, and he was in the process of taking off a wide-brimmed hat, revealing a head of short, perfectly combed black hair. He was clearly not from here. His clothes were refined, a long black trench coat fastened with a leather belt, beneath which was a crisp white shirt and a tie.
His shoes, I noted, were exactly like mine—practical, well-made, echoing the utilitarian elegance Seris preferred and as thus kept in her villa when I took them for myself.
But what truly captured my attention was the symbol embroidered in silver thread on the right breast of his trench coat: a black serpent, sleek and powerful, coiled around a straight baton.
"May I ask who I am talking to?" I asked, my tone politely neutral.
The fact that he wasn't a Vritra Blood was a small, immediate relief; it meant this wasn't some pre-arranged trap by the regime.
"Hercule of Named Blood Dent, sir," he said, offering a polite smile that didn't quite reach his keen, observant eyes. He had the air of a man who missed very little. "It is uncommon for men of your stature to be here in the slums. What brings you here?"
I turned slightly, my gaze sweeping over the heartbreaking vista of rain-soaked poverty.
"A stroll..." I began, then corrected myself, forcing the term out like it was a piece of broken glass. "...I hoped that maybe I could help some of these unads."
The word felt filthy on my tongue, a label of inferiority I was forced to adopt to maintain my cover. A magnanimous Highlord might condescend to help the less fortunate, but he would never see them as equals.
Hercule Dent gave a slight, almost imperceptible chuckle, a dry, knowing sound. "Are you perchance the new Highlord Briand, sir?" he asked, his voice laced with a strange mix of respect and calculation.
"And how did you—" I started, but he was already moving. With a fluid motion, he showed me a small, laminated card from an inside pocket. It bore his portrait, the same serpent-and-baton symbol, and beneath it, the words: Aedelgard Police Department.
So. The guards I'd seen, the ones with a semblance of order, they were police. Alacrya continued to be a land of bizarre contradictions—a brutal caste system with a functioning civic police force with technology that was both medieval and modern.
"Oh, I understand. Officer," I said, my stance shifting slightly.
"There is no need to be so formal," he demurred, tucking the badge away. "I am from an humble Named Blood, after all."
He paused, his gaze intensifying, becoming direct and uncompromising. "However, Highlord, after what you did previously, I think it's useless to play around the topic."
He took a half-step closer, his voice dropping, though the drumming rain ensured our privacy. "I would like your support in the upcoming Mayor elections for the city."
He didn't wait for my reaction, launching into his pitch with the precision of a man who had rehearsed this moment.
"As you certainly know, Highlord, after the last war between Vechor and Sehz-Clar, the High Sovereign himself gave the city of Aedelgard relative independence from the rest of the Dominion. A move," he added with a significant look, "that made Scythe Seris herself decide to build her new personal estate just a few hours away from our city."
The implication hung in the air between us. This was about the unique, precarious position of Aedelgard, a city caught between a distant Sovereign and a nearby Scythe. It was a potential powder keg, and Hercule Dent was looking for a match.
'Child, isn't this a bit too—' Sylvia's warning voice began, a note of caution in my mind.
I didn't let her finish. My decision was made in a single, crystalline moment of clarity. I looked at Hercule Dent—at his sharp eyes, his audacity to approach a Highlord in the pouring rain in the city's worst slum, the symbol of order on his coat that stood in stark opposition to the chaos around us.
This was no ordinary bureaucrat. This was a man who saw the same rot I did and, in his own way, was trying to fix it.
In that exchanged glance, I saw a potential ally.
Without a second thought, I extended my hand. It was a spontaneous, irrevocable choice. The rain fell on our linked hands, a seal on a pact made not in a hall, but in the mud and the misery of the forgotten.