The Kitezan soldiers were easy to pick off, found by the angry Tuonelan crew as they pored through the halls in search of Prince Iresha.  Two guns became 12 in a hurry, and they soon found a singular guard willing to say something to spare his own life; not that it actually helped, since he was shot in the chest as soon as he gave them what they wanted.


    Five of the ‘mutineers’ peeled off to head to the upper decks, above where their Captain was heading, and were easily able to find where the Kitezans had stowed their hostage.  They’d stuck him into the crew’s singular rec-room, where the proverbial graveyard shift could go during down-time.  The two guards who’d been posted inside the door were caught by surprise, and only had enough time to turn around in shock before being gunned down.  One collapsed backward and banged into the young Prince’s leg, startling him enough to nearly knock him off the ottoman-bench he’d been waiting on.


    The blinding, deafening helmet was unceremoniously yanked off his head, and Iresha – in confused anger – nearly lit the room aflame just for the insult.  However, when he spotted those distinctively non-Kitezan white overalls, he realized he wasn’t looking at his captors…but rather, his fellow hostages.


    “…Are you the Prince that the Commander is talking about?” The communications officer asked quickly.


    Iresha blinked; eyes were still adjusting to the light, and he squinted terribly, but the faces of those five people were becoming clearer, “…Maybe?  Probably?”


    “Come with us!”


    He wasn’t quite dragged out, but there was definitely some haste in their insistence.


    Captain Dalcassian had made it his personal mission to bring the whole scheme tumbling down.  He and three others had gone up to the above-bridge observation deck, killed both guards standing outside of it, and forced their way inside.


    Duchess Far’nah was appalled to see the bunch of them, more so when she saw the blood of her men pooling beyond the door.  Guns were drawn on her, and she sneered at the group angrily, “…How dare you…”


    “You’ve been lying to us all this time…” The older man growled, that long weapon held towards her with his one good arm, “You told us that you were going to bring the Tuonela to the surface so we could deboard the survivors…  We stayed here, working diligently to ensure the stasis systems held while repairs were done, never once suspecting you were installing a super-weapon under our hull…  This is our ship!  It was a mission of hope and growth, of discovery!  You’ve poisoned all of it with your filthy machinations!”


    “And you’ve just taken the word of a flying, winged man who just appeared outside the ship from literally nothing.” She countered, staying where she was defiantly, “It’s ludicrous.”


    “Only the fleet’s command structure knows the I.D. codes of the leadership.  I don’t care if he appeared as a pink unicorn out there…if he knows that code, he’s either the Commander, or he’s God!” He snarled bitterly, and took a step closer with that gun, flanked by his crew, “You told us they were all dead.  You told us it had only been a few years since we crashed…  We believed you because we had no way of doubting you.  We doubted ourselves instead…  But the second you brought us up above the water, and we saw that city…  All those smaller ships flying around, the technology you’d developed…  But to see Commander Vor’antiss with my own eyes…  If you have the kind of technology we’ve seen, why would he not have his own?  All you ever wanted was to use us as a means to an end…”


    “You could never hope to understand what I wanted.”


    Captain Dalcassian just looked at her with skeptical fury, but just as he lifted his stolen rifle to point it at her, he heard a commotion from behind.  Without warning, the wall-bases around the entire room lit-up with flame, as though a gas-fed stove had been turned on.  The fire licked its way up the walls, and both the Captain and Duchess looked on at it with distracted concern.


    “…You’ve let him out.” Far’nah realized, “You don’t know what you’ve done.”


    “I think they know exactly what they’ve done.  And what they’ve said.  …And what it means for you.” Iresha’s voice sounded, and he stepped through the open doorway, eyes golden and bright with his anger, “…It feels wrong to call this mutiny when you shouldn’t be here in the first place, but it’s time to give the ship back to its rightful crew.”


    The communications officer ushered her Captain back into the hall, gesturing frantically, like she knew some secret that was about to become public.  He looked between the figures, but that miasma pouring from the Prince’s eyes whipped like the tails of a pair of angry cats, and with the blaze growing, he knew vengeance was well in-hand.  He quickly lowered the long-gun and stepped back towards the door, and the crew closed it per Iresha’s instruction.


    Far’nah took a half-step back, “…Stand down, boy.” She said defiantly anyway, even with those fires growing all around her.


    Iresha just narrowed his eyes a little, and lowered his face as he sneered at her, “…They told me you killed my father.” He started, “…That Lord Rylen is right outside, chomping at the bit to get in here, and that you started a war with - what sounded like - a malicious sabotaging of the Dawn of Ages celebration.  So go on…explain it.  Lay out your grand scheme.  Tell me with your own voice that my father is dead.”


    “You want to be Emperor, don’t you?” She wondered, “Before the Council sinks its claws so deeply into Sargon that your Empire is reduced to a colony, as the Eidolon are so fond of calling us.”


    The miasma flared brighter, spilling out to a wide range around him, dancing like the fires he was threatening to unleash, “Of course I do…but never like this.” He said, his voice threatening to crack already; it was harder to speak the fact of it himself, than it was to hear it from strangers, “My dad…he was the only family I had left.  What could you have possibly believed you’d gain by killing him?  I would never be a subservient puppet for you.  I would never be grateful for my rule if it came to me as garnish on a platter serving my own father’s head.”


    “The Eidolon were strangling your father themselves.” Far’nah insisted, “I merely put him out of his misery.  He’d been the walking dead since the day your affliction manifested, and he was forced to allow their detritus into his borders.”


    The fires roared and licked the ceiling, and Far’nah was starting to feel the heat from it.  Embers started to peel away from the walls as centuries-old paint and wallpaper started to immolate, fluttering between the two as Iresha did everything he could to hold onto his sense of reason, “…That’s just like you.  Putting the blame on everyone but yourself.  I knew you hated me, but I didn’t think you’d let it get to you this badly.  Is that why you taunted me about not needing the hand-maids when I first arrived?  Killing leaders doesn’t seem so farfetched for you anymore, now that you have practice…  You must’ve been planning some sick and twisted political marriage just so you could crown me, kill me, and assume the throne yourself as Empress.  It’s the only way you could’ve possibly maintained any kind of control…” He could feel the pain his throat creeping up to his voice-box, and the ache was getting unbearable.


    “Maybe you’re not as na?ve as it seemed when you volunteered for the exchange.”


    “You’re disgusting…” He said quietly, voice croaking from the pain.  He sneered at the woman, and flames began to nip at her regalia, and though she quickly reacted, realized it wasn’t burning her.  Not yet.  Iresha took a step closer, the tips of his hair starting to smolder as it, too, caught flame.  Tears in his eyes evaporated before they could ever escape the cover of the light, “You really must’ve thought you were going to win when I said I’d come…  What a long-shot, right?  My father was right to call me stupid for jumping into the middle of it…he would’ve never agreed…”


    “He would have eventually.  I had his brother, after all.”


    Iresha forced his head up, and glowered down at the slightly shorter woman, “…Aamin is half the reason my mom is dead…  If you think he’d trade me, his heir, for a half-baked traitor…  Well…  I guess that’s why you’re about to lose.”


    Far’nah backed up another half-step, though the map-table got under her back, and she realized she had no where to go.  She leveled the Prince a dire look, “It’s hard to believe that you and my husband were related, even if distantly.”


    The teen’s gaze twisted, and a deep resentment started to creep in from beneath the rage, “Mardu was a kind man.  Completely unlike you, too…  It’s time to end this, though.  I understand now why Lord Xanarken told me to burn you, even while my dad was still defending you instead. …You are beyond reason; beyond reach…and I will never forgive you for what you’ve done…”


    The Duchess could feel the prickle of the fire then, and it walked up her arms, spreading across her silks like they’d been soaked in accelerant.  She refused to react though, gritting her teeth against the heat and sting, and closed her eyes to bear-down against it.


    “Scream for me.”


    Eyes widened in shock…and from outside the ship, beyond the barrier, Rylen’s attention was suddenly grabbed by the explosive blow-out of an entire floor.  The conflagration made the entire front-end of the Tuonela shudder, and as the Eidolon had his bearer bring him higher to get a better look, he spotted the shimmer of the shield coming down.  Jense was desperate to know what was going on, and finally got his first look at the consequences of their nightlong war as the Sixth’s mantle shook away from him.  The nanotech coalesced forward, reshaping in its normal image on the utterly destroyed observation-deck.  Rylen looked around carefully – the room was unrecognizable as a space that could’ve once been occupied by anyone – and the Eidolon stepped around the scorched table to find the Prince on its opposite side.


    This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.


    “…I’ve closed…the circle.” Iresha said grimly, the glow in his eyes having faded with the initial detonation, “…She murdered my father, and so I…  What started with an atrocity has been ended by another…”


    The Eidolon looked at the immolated flesh lying in a heap at the Prince’s feet – the air was filled with the unsettling smell of charred meat, and that crackled flesh still boiled and wept with red.  He had no words to speak about the woman’s fate, “I didn’t see anything.  And…I’m sorry.”


    Jense landed just within the ruined exterior, and crouched on a knee as he waited for an order.  It came quickly, and he followed after his Eidolon, passing by the devastated teen.  He paused though, and gestured an arm around him in a wordless suggestion that the Prince follow, and Iresha snuffled a breath before turning to go.


    The only thing that remained of the Duchess was the antler-crown and the anti-nanotech medallion she wore.  Fingers and facial-features were so thoroughly burned that the ashes were white, and crumbled away with the vibration of the departing footsteps.


    .


    Finding the Fourth on the rocky beach wasn’t hard; the pair of Fafnir needed only follow the path of destruction he’d swept through the rubble.  They landed nearby just as the man had realized the ugly truth, and was completely inconsolable.  Ravan couldn’t make herself get any closer – even just seeing the legs of that distinctive red armor, unmoving, was enough – and she actually took a few steps back before she fell to her knees in the tide.  Corbin stayed where he was, the both of them in disbelief at what they were seeing.


    Aboard the Buckler, Furion stared with wide eyes as he watched the live-streamed footage from both of their points of view, “…Ren…?”


    Gabriel’s despair was subtly audible, but clear to see.  He kept his cheek pressed to hers, until he realized he wasn’t alone, and he lifted his head to spot the first of the pair.  Corbin was the first to see that those bicolored eyes were now both the same blood-red color, and it didn’t take much to guess that the second was now there for the fallen; one crimson iris for each of the women Gabriel had loved and lost.


    It was when they started to glow that Corbin got concerned.


    Furion, despite the stupor of that trauma, was able to form one, singular coherent thought about the moment; there were only two reasons why an afflicted person’s eyes would suddenly flutter with that golden light, and one of them was being held in Gabriel’s arms.  He forced the pain down, and focused on his duty, much as he knew how Ren hated it, “…You have to get them apart.  It’s not safe!”


    “…Sir?”


    Furion quickly grabbed for the neural-interface, and threw himself back into Captain Landon’s office-seat again, “Do it!  Get him away from Ren!  NOW!”


    Corbin was shaken by the sound in the man’s voice, and though he apologized repeatedly for his efforts, began what he knew would be a fight to get the Fourth Eidolon away from that armored body.


    Gabriel wasn’t having it though, and thrashed angrily, “You can’t take her from me!  Get away!  Leave her alone!” He yelled, flailing his left arm around as he tried to punch Corbin away; Ravan was too catatonic to react.  At least, until Furion yelled at her, too, and she forced herself to move, helping push Ren’s body down and out of Gabriel’s remaining arm as Corbin yanked the man away.  Fafnir strength was far beyond anything Gabriel could resist, and despite his efforts, found himself up on his feet and dragged into the surf.  He fought as hard as he could, but Corbin had his arms pinned back, and the only thing that stopped the Eidolon was the sight of Ren standing up.


    The armor was slow to move at first, and it struggled as the new pilot realized she had no working arms to help get her upright.  The image of that pulverized body being forced to rise was the stuff of nightmares, especially as it struggled and stumbled…turned slightly…and the thready sinew of the right snapped, leaving the arm to tear off and fall to the ground at the crush-point above the elbow.  Even Ravan yelped a horrified-startled scream, and she pushed back away as blood trickled from that ravaged limb-stump.


    Gabriel’s eyes flickered with that light as he beheld that terrible sight, but he quickly realized, “Furion, don’t…don’t take her…not like this!  I’LL NEVER FORGIVE YOU!  DON’T TAKE HER!” He begged, fighting all over again to get free.  The longer it took though, the more his eyes flared.


    Ren’s listless head drooped forward as her armor moved, and Furion gave the order for Ravan to swap with Corbin in holding Gabriel back, so Corbin could put Ren’s helmet back on.  It was gruesome work, moving that blood-soaked black hair so the helmet would seal, and Corbin felt sick to his stomach doing it.  With all the red smeared to her face, it was impossible to see the creeping black veins rising up her neck and jawline, and out from her empty eye-sockets.  Furion activated those big red quad-wings, and took one last glance at the absolutely hateful look on Gabriel’s face before he forced Ren’s armor into the sky.


    Corbin watched it go, then turned briefly to bow his head at the Eidolon before making the ugly maneuver to grab the disembodied arm from the ground, and went up after the glowing reddish streak making its way across the sky.


    “FURIOOONNN!!!” Gabriel screamed, the glow in his eyes settling-down again as the body was moved out of range.  He collapsed against the Fafnir holding onto him, both arms tight around his core as she tried to keep him grounded.


    “I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry…” Ravan pleaded, weeping behind that visor.


    They both dropped down to their knees in that red tide; the shock and trauma of it was all the more potent, now that the only thing left was the crime-scene.  The broken shoreline, the crimson splatters against the rocky walls, the ruins and devastation…and the crumbled blue mech that was still polluting the tide.  Ravan couldn’t stand to hold Gabriel down now that the others were gone, and he easily pulled free when he tried again.


    It was surreal timing then that the World Cloud poured over Oceanside in that moment, and the full Eidolonic raiment reappeared on Gabriel’s frame.  He didn’t care though; every alert was dismissed, and every notice ignored.  Nothing mattered anymore.  He thought he knew what sorrow was when he saw the image of Xanarken’s frozen face…but this was enough to seep into his bones.  It was an awful, paralyzing pain that seized in his throat and choked him, and the red that seeped from both eyes blinded him.


    .


    The Tuonela was landed on the outskirts of Oceanside, and Rylen – along with only Etienne – met with the awakened crew, bringing them up to speed on the truth of their circumstances.  First Wing ships joined what remained of the Sixth in the recovery effort, along with the smaller ships of the Fifth, and the allies who had sent support.


    Iresha made the horrid journey back to Trazad, leaving behind the horrid, destroyed ruins of the Kitezan palace, only to be met with those of his own home.  The salve of being able to reunite with his only friend was short-lived, as Furion arrived shortly after to give Seth the bad news about Ren…and then Seth was the one who needed to be consoled.


    The announcement came a day later, of the losses that had been experienced by both sides of the conflict.  That the Emperor of Sargon was murdered, that the Duke of Kitez had been sacrificed, that the Duchess had been executed as a war criminal – though not specifically by who – and finally, that the Eidolon of the Fourth Wing himself, Xanarken Tellan, had been lost alongside them all.


    Phexides was the first of the Wanderer’s vigil trio to find out, and reactions were varied as he gave the news.  Kourin was stunned to silence, retreated to her room, and refused to come out for days.  Tallus was initially shocked, but it was quickly replaced with anger, as everything they’d worked for had come to nothing.


    “…What are we supposed to do then?” Phexides wondered, “Xanarken was the keystone to everything.”


    Tallus could only think for a moment, “…We go back.”


    “…Back?  To what?  Kitez is in ruins.  There’s nothing to go back to.”


    “The Council.” He clarified, which only made the younger figure tilt his head.  Tallus rubbed his face with both palms, then combed them back up over his head and through his hair, “…All three of us.  And we’re not coming back until we have what we need.”


    The southernmost docking-spire in Agartha had been shredded by the explosive power of the one attack that had been able to slip through, standing like a morbid monument amidst the ruins of the city around it.  Flattened and pulverized, tens of thousands were dead.


    Lequerion was there to aid in the debridement of that massive wound, but even he had to take time to himself when his sons called.  The loss was like getting the news of the death of his own daughter, but like many of the Rydell warrior lineage, and much to the chagrin of the scholar’s side, he wouldn’t let his grief show on his face.  His eyes, though…just like Furion’s, lost a bit of life in them.  They were half like ghouls, shambling through whatever they needed to do to get by.


    Furion brought to bear whatever strength he had left in him, and took his brother aboard a ship bound for the capitol.  In the days that followed the end of the conflict, there were few and less words to be spoken, just the mutual sense that a cloud of sorrow hung over them.  And, knowing they were bound for Agartha on the same ship that was going to take Gabriel there, made that sorrow all the more prescient.


    The man who would be the new Fourth Wing hadn’t shown his face since the day Ren died, save the brief moment the Rydell brothers witnessed him boarding after them, albeit from a distance.  Furion couldn’t forget the utter loathing in Gabriel’s voice as he had flown into the pre-dawn night; no matter his reasons, no matter the excuses, he knew if the two of them saw each other again anytime soon, Gabriel would probably kill him…and probably not as quickly as they learned he’d killed the Magistrate.


    They were halfway back to the Council’s foremost city when Gabriel faced himself in a mirror in his cabin, seeing for the first time how both of his eyes were now crimson.  The dark circles under them made the red coloring even more vivid.  He hadn’t slept in days.  He hadn’t spoken to anyone in that time either.  Rylen had begun to wonder if it was still rational to make him replace Xanarken in the Eidolon System, but the announcement had already been made, and Gabriel could only ruminate on his fate.


    Ren’s face haunted him.  The last time he saw her alive - and the last time he saw her at all - switching between one another in his memories like he’d just been there to watch a dead woman walking.  The sun was high in that noon sky when Gabriel decided to leave the cabin entirely, and slowly made his way down to the hangar.  Though he was sure there were people he’d passed, he was lost in his own mind, and had nothing to say in return if he’d been spoken to in the first place.


    The docking-bay had a number of smaller, personal skiffs parked there, and the door out the back was not nearly the size of the ones at the back of a SkyFortress, so opening it took only around half a minute.  Whatever fear he once had for looking out from so high up seemed like such a distant concept, that now, as he stood only a few paces from the open ledge, he no longer felt it.  If his heart beat at all anymore, he was sure it was only a symbolic gesture; he’d died on the shores of Oceanside, and all that remained inside him was a void that left him in agony.  The hollow voices of worried crew called out to him, but he didn’t care.


    One step closer to the edge…two…


    .


    .


    …and he was gone.