The children of vampires are not vampires until conversion, and vampires cannot physically reproduce with others of their own kind. To be a vampire is not a thing of body, but of soul. The physical changes are only a symptom of the deeper corruption of self.


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    In the meantime, Jair had one more pressing problem to deal with. And he had no idea where to start.


    Eythron Zoress, his beloved madman of a mentor, would not stop trying to jump into the volcano. Despite Uqiar pleading with him, despite Qahrvirna threatening him, despite a dragon sitting on him… The moment he got a chance, he’d be running for the volcano’s central shaft.


    In all timelines he''d lived, Jair had never successfully convinced Eythron to leave Orard. He never even convinced him to leave the Oriad, much less the continent.


    It felt unfamiliar and wrong to see him here, delirious and self-destructive.


    Jair was used to Eythron being gruff and chaotic, but always in a way that was generally understandable. Eythron was insane, and he had his own particular brand of chaos, but he wasn''t entirely unreasonable.


    What he was doing now was entirely unreasonable.


    People are not meant to jump into volcanoes. Yet any attempt to move him away would result in him fighting his very hardest to get back as close to it as possible.


    Once, Uqiar wasn''t quite fast enough to notice he''d slipped out of his shackles. Eythron ran out past them and went ahead and dived straight into the magma without pause. Whatever compulsion he was following, it wasn’t a bluff.


    Jair cursed and jumped in after him, just in case it was something survivable that he could pull him out of, but it wasn''t, and he had to revert the timeline. Fortunately, they only had to repeat the afternoon. It was nice not having to go back whole days or weeks every time. Being able to lose only a few hours was so luxurious.


    Even holding Eythron in the antechamber a bit off to the side was a fight, away from the overlook to the main shaft but still within a few steps of the volcano''s molten core.


    Jair doubted he''d be able to get him to leave the mountain entirely, unless he forcefully moved him elsewhere with Darkflame.


    Though he may end up doing that anyway if things kept on as they had been. As much as Jair didn''t want to forcefully apply his abilities to his allies and friends, it pained him even more to watch Eythron try to destroy himself again and again. Not an enjoyable experience or one Jair considered worth salvaging.


    "What is wrong?” Jair demanded, frustrated, as Uqiar chained Eythron in a new set of shackles. “Why does he keep doing this?”


    Eythron''s incoherent mumbling about death and the call he must answer were the only response he got.


    Uqiar turned to him once they were out in the hall alone. "I do not know why he does this, but it is nothing new. This happens every time that he leaves the Oriad."


    Jair glanced back to where Eythron watched them with blank adversity. "I''ve never seen it before. This is nothing like him."


    "True." Then the beastkin man paused to frown down at Jair. "You were very close to him in the future?"


    Jair nodded.


    Unfortunately, this far back in the timeline, from Eythron''s perspective Jair was a stranger. He was not Eythron''s trusted student, his most frequent companion throughout their adventures in the Oriad.


    He was just some kid the seer convinced Eythron''s friend to drop them off with.


    That distance was painful. He''d rebuilt his relationship with Eythron countless times in various ways over the years. From the initial versions with Jair little more than a scared child, overawed by the great wild hermit, through the years when he started to see Eythron more as an inseparable part of his life. Then the years they worked out the recipe for Maelstrom together, loop after loop, trading notes back between timelines as they iterated toward perfection.


    Jair had seen his mentor in so many circumstances over the years, but never once like this. This was an Eythron Jair didn''t recognize.


    That was the real problem, wasn''t it?


    Throughout all those loops, Jair had been the one changing. He''d grown, tested, shifted, while Eythron remained constant. Chaotic, unpredictable at times, but reliable. He may not agree with what his mentor chose to do, but he could always believe that Eythron had a purpose for whatever he was doing, however mad it may appear on the surface.


    This was not that. The manic gleam in Eythron''s eyes as he struggled against his bindings did not conceal the dullness beneath. Whatever was possessing him, driving him, it was not of his choosing.


    "If you knew he would get like this, why did you agree to bring him?"


    Uqiar grunted and crossed his massive arms over his dark-furred chest as he leaned back against the wall where he could keep an eye on their friend-turned-prisoner. "If you knew Mersine—"


    "I do. And I know you. You''re not the sort to bend easily."


    Uqiar gave Jair a reassessing glance. "She promised to destroy the Oriad entirely if I didn''t."


    Jair blinked. "That doesn''t sound like her."


    Uqiar snorted, and Jair reflexively flinched back.


    Maelstrom was in his hand before he consciously recognized the sound. That was the exact same snort that the invading beastlord made every time he found Jair in the ascension forge at Mount Sanctum.


    Uqiar lowered his tone. "Are you alright?"


    "I will be." Jair took a breath and closed his eyes. His heart was racing. So many lifetimes of vigilance were hard to shrug off, even knowing intellectually that this was a different man entirely. "You were going to say something?"


    "I don''t think you know any of us as well as you seem to think. Fame is a strange thing and tends to distort the images it reflects. No matter how well-known we are to the community of the Oriad, that is not the same as true friendship."


    Jair scoffed. "Easy excuse there. No, my experience is personal. He and I go way back. I spent more time with him than anyone else. Not that he’ll remember."


    “I don’t like seers.”


    “And yet you’re willing to practically kidnap your friend at her request.”


    “You do not know Mersine.”


    Jair frowned. “I’m beginning to think you’re right. But I do know Eythron. He vowed never to leave the Oriad. You forced him to break that oath, and now he’s doing his best to destroy himself. What part of this is of benefit to Veor? Or the world?” He started pacing as he thought aloud. “It can’t be to get him away from the Oriad, or it would have happened in previous timelines too. She specifically sent us to this volcano, despite it providing him a ready destructive option.”


    “He does not need a volcano to destroy himself.” Uqiar shook his head. “I have seen his contingencies. He has always been paranoid. This is something else.”


    “But what?” Jair spun to narrow his eyes at the massive beastkin. “And how exactly did you two meet?”


    “He is my…I believe the correct term for our relationship structure is uncle. Though without the genetic relation."


    Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    Jair was immediately and vividly reminded of the fact that this man was genetically identical to a tyrannical conqueror from another world. If he was some kind of created clone, or if both of them were part of some experiments, it would go a long way towards explaining the impossible similarities. But… Eythron? Of all the people to have potentially created that monster, Eythron was the last person Jair would have suspected.


    Granted, a large portion of his failure to even consider it was Eythron’s absolute determination to remain in the Oriad at all times. It would be very hard for him to mastermind an invasion from one of the moons while hiding in the jungle the whole time.


    Jair had largely avoided Uqiar in the past, as a result of his genetic similarities, not wanting to treat the man unfairly based on something he had no control over, but also incapable of looking past the surface. If the beastlord of Celsin were dead, Jair could probably have convinced himself to look past the similarity and treat Uqiar as his own person. But, since he had to face the beastlord time and again, the associations with danger were impossible to excise.


    Jair looked the massive beastkin up and down. “How old is Eythron, really?” He’d never gotten a serious answer from the man, but generally assumed it to be in the seventy to ninety range. That seemed about right for a magical human of his caliber. “Qahrvirna said he’d been in the Oriad around sixty years, but knowing her that could mean anywhere from thirty to three hundred. Her idea of time is not the best.”


    Uqiar laughed, and it was the first sound he’d made that Jair had never heard from his evil lookalike. “That it isn’t. But in this case, she is correct. Eythron and I arrived in Orard a little under sixty years ago.”


    “You traveled with him before he came here?” Another piece of information he’d never heard before. Uqiar had never been the forthcoming sort, and Jair had never found a way to break his dedication to silence.


    Apparently, watching his oldest friend and honorary uncle try to throw himself into a volcano was what it took to crack his composure.


    It was a long time before Uqiar responded, and when he did speak it was with a gentle quiet that Jair could barely hear over the background roar of the volcano. “I owe him more than my life. I would do anything for him.”


    “So tell me what you know. Perhaps we can figure out a plan to help him.”


    “His secrets are not mine to share.”


    “Is there any point holding onto them if it means he’s going to die? Is not the honor of your survival owed the honor of his in return?"


    Jair held his breath as he waited for the response. Beastkin were very particular about things like honor, except where they weren''t. The exact nuances varied not only between subspecies, but from clan to clan, and even individual to individual. This made it very difficult to know how to avoid offending them in any given situation.


    Jair had gotten pretty good at the generalities of beastkin honor, and many more specifics about those individuals he interacted with regularly. Uqiar was not one of them. Jair knew enough to hold a civil conversation with him when he came to visit Eythron, and how to get out of a conversation with him without causing offense.


    He also knew that the man was exceptionally resilient to any manner of violent coercion. There''d been a few times when Uqiar’s resemblance to the beastlord came too close and hit too strongly for Jair to ignore it, and he ended up taking it out on the more accessible beastkin. Twice it was purely an accident, the other times it was purposeful. Even if the timelines had been reverted, it was painful to recall just how far he’d gone. But even then, Uqiar had refused to answer any questions about his and Eythron’s relationship. Even the ‘uncle’ term was new information.


    "I do not know how it will change anything, but if you can find any way to help him, I will be in your debt forever."


    Jair raised his eyebrows. "That''s a bit stronger phrasing then I would expect for someone who is only a kind of uncle."


    Uqiar gave one last look at Eythron, chained against the wall and doing his best to slice through the reinforced chains with his soulsword, and the last hint of uncertainty in his eyes disappeared.


    "I will tell you, but only you, and if you use it against him, I will kill you."


    "Understood.” Jair exhaled with relief. “So tell me, what is it I’m missing?"


    “He saved my life, but more than that. He built my life." Uqiar spoke haltingly with long pauses, as though each sentence were a struggle.


    Jair gestured for him to go on.


    "When my parents fell to Zoress, I was too young to take care of myself. Eythron held me safe within the collapsing dungeon, prevented it from crushing us, and there he raised me."


    "You were raised in a collapsing dungeon? How?"


    “The collapse was gradual. The chambers my parents fought in were among the first to fall, but Zoress was large and it lasted many years.”


    “Wait. Zoress is the name of a dungeon?"


    “No longer. Zoress is gone.”


    “Eythron Zoress, Heir of Death,” Jair murmured. Pieces were starting to come together, but this chapter of Eythron’s history only raised more questions. "But what was he doing? No one stays in a dungeon that long and comes out."


    Jair only had to spend six months in a dungeon—Oronthire, the crystal bastion—in pursuit of the dragon-tear pearls he’d used in Maelstrom''s forging, and even that left a chunk out of his soul. Nothing so dangerous as a seascourge or star hydra, but dungeons were not to be trifled with. They would wear away at you gradually, until you don''t even notice there’s nothing left of who you started as.


    Who knew how many of the monsters and creatures that inhabited it were, in fact, previous visitors who had stayed a little bit too long?


    And yet… Eythron and Uqiar had survived. Years, if the beastkin’s recollection was to be trusted. "What did you do in the dungeon for that long? It doesn’t sound like a good place to grow up, constantly fighting."


    "It was a place I will always remember fondly. Yes, we would fight every morning when the monsters came for us, but then we would spend the rest of the day living. He taught me to read and to fight, to cook and survive. We went through the dungeon’s every layer, until I could survive in all of them blinded and handicapped."


    Jair narrowed his eyes. "You were born to actual parents? That isn’t just a cover story for you being a dungeon creature that escaped the destruction of your home?"


    Uqiar’s voice was brutal and cold. "I''m not a liar. I was born to a fourkin woman and her moonkin consort."


    "And you’re sure you don''t have a twin brother?" He’d asked this more than once in previous timelines, but this time he was getting more information than any other.


    "I do not."


    "No son, or clone?"


    "Not as far as I know. It is possible that I have spawned off somewhere, I have not been without the occasional fling. If so, none has ever acknowledged me."


    That was new information, technically, not very helpful. "Isn''t staying in a dungeon long term dangerous? Aside from all monsters, won''t the dungeon itself sort of… eat you?"


    Uqiar shrugged. "I do not think we have been eaten, but how would I know?”


    “You’re exhibiting no traits of being soulless,” Jair admitted. “So that’s just one more question for Eythron once he snaps out of this.”


    “He is not forthcoming with information,” Uqiar agreed. “He will probably kill you for hearing this much.”


    “You mean, the dire secret that under all the violent murdering he’s a decent guy with a soft spot for chaotic young disasters? I already knew that.”


    Uquiar snorted in amusement.


    Jair successfully suppressed the urge to draw Maelstrom at the sound. “What happened to the dungeon? You said it was collapsing for years, but how long were you there?”


    “It finished its collapse after twelve years. The furthest floors crumbled first, until only corridors remained. When that happened, Eythron brought us out. We stood right at the entrance as the last remnants of Zoress fell in on themselves, leaving no sign of its presence.”


    “Do you have a title from that? Heir of Death, perhaps?”


    Uqiar shook his head. “My only titles are those I have earned since reaching adulthood.”


    Jair considered this a moment, then gestured for Uqiar to continue his story.


    “The day we left Zoress, Eythron gave me a sacred charge. He said we must go to the heart of the Oriad, and that nothing he did or said after should change that. Even if it meant I had to fight him and carry him screaming over my shoulder. He gave me exact instructions for how to travel, who to speak to, where to go. At first, we simply traveled together. We took a lunar passage to Suthyrel, and it is there that the fight began.”


    “On Suthyrel, not on the moon?”


    “Yes.”


    “Which moon was it?”


    Uqiar pondered this and shook his head. “I do not remember.”


    “So you took him to the Oriad.”


    “I did. He tried to turn back many times. He screamed and argued and fought. But he never hurt me. Even at his most furious, he could not bring himself to do any harm to me, as I think he knew would be the case. No other could have been entrusted with this charge. He would have destroyed them."


    “Yeah.” Jair chuckled at that. Jair certainly had not escaped his apprenticeship with the mad mageblade unscathed. Eythron had killed him many times, in various circumstances. Which only made Eythron’s intense connection to Uqiar all the more unexpected. "So to him, you’re like a son."


    Uqiar shook his head. "He has been there my whole life, but he has never sought to supplant my parents’ memories. They are precious to me in a way he can never replace.” Jair had never heard that voice so gentle, and for the first time he was able to fully disconnect his perception of Uqiar from his evil lookalike from the future.


    For all that they had in common, Uqiar was nothing like the Letyran Beastlord. When they were both silent monoliths it was easy to confuse them, but having seen glimpses of Uqiar’s heart finally gave Jair the perspective he needed.


    But understanding Uqiar’s connection to Eythron was only half of the puzzle. He still needed to understand Eythron himself, and figure out what exactly was pushing him to such vehement self-destruction.


    But Uqiar was right about one thing. This wasn’t Eythron simply trying to destroy himself. He was specifically jumping into the volcano. Something about the situation was tickling at Jair''s memory. Something to do with Reskas, the Oriad, Orard as a whole. But he couldn''t quite bring the pieces together.


    “I think it’s time we had another chat with our new neighbors. Perhaps the Mercurios know more about their matriarch’s lair.”


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