“I was…extremely lucky,” Sylvia told me quietly, several hours later. She hadn’t let go of my hand for some time now, to the extent that it had gone somewhat numb. I didn’t care.

  I wasn’t inclined to let go either.

  I’d left my officers and the Order members who could make behind it to deal with the Throng. Renauld in particular looked like he’d been gearing up for war the last time I saw him, but he had outright told Sylvia and I to get out of there, and neither Isolde nor Maria had gainsaid him. I still didn’t even really know just what the Throne was doing here in truth. Both Sylvia and I were just…too preoccupied with each other to care about current events.

  Not when we once again had each other.

  I hadn’t wanted to return to the Bastion, considering I not only wanted some privacy to catch up with my partner, but I got the impression Sylvia did as well. While she was unhurt, she had still looked a bit…bedraggled, in a way I’d rarely seen her. Sculpted didn’t typically have the same upkeep requirements that us fleshies did, but they still groomed themselves in their own way. I don’t think she’d had access to such a thing while she was with the Throng.

  Sylvia was quiet as I led her to my lighthouse home, instead, abandoned this last week. I…had noticed, once the high of simply seeing her had died ever so slightly, that she was alone. I knew for a fact that Sylvia had departed Blutstein those weeks ago in the company of her squad within the Order of the Eclipsed Dawn. I hadn’t known them all that well, in truth.

  And now I suspected I would never get the opportunity to rectify that.

  I kept one of Sylvia’s personal Sculpted grooming kits in my washroom at home, and thankfully, I had forgotten to take it with me to the Bastion when we left. Sylvia had quietly asked to be alone for a bit while she tended to herself, and of course, I agreed. I…pretended I didn’t hear her quiet sobs of mingled sorrow and relief as I left her in the washroom.

  I knew Sylvia. There would come a time for comfort later, when she was ready for it. But for now, she needed a moment to herself. I headed downstairs and over to the lighthouse proper instead, and threw together a quick meal with some leftover ingredients I’d left behind in my kitchen stasis cabinet.

  When Sylvia was done, she easily found me finishing up our meal and quietly sat down at the private table inside. Oddly, I noticed that she brought along one of her patching kits with her, sitting conspicuously next to her as I served our food. For her, those contained a few sheets of Mithril, as well as some solvents and tools to help mend wounds and rents in her metallic surface.

  We remained quiet as we ate, though we did so with only a single hand.

  The other was occupied by holding each other.

  It was only when our meal was finished that Sylvia began to hauntingly speak about her own experiences with the Skyfall. Though…she required some clarification on that front.

  “The Gnolls called it the Reckoning, instead,” Sylvia said quietly, staring down at our clasped hands. “But…the Skyfall works just as well. I…didn’t tell you what my mission was when I left.”

  At the guilty look on her face, I clenched her hand tighter and shook my head. “You typically don’t, and I’ve told you I understand. It’s…not my business, how the Eclipsed Dawn operates. Not anymore. I don’t need to know every detail about what a rival organization is doing, and you couldn’t have foreseen just what was going to happen. Nobody could.”

  Except, perhaps…for Anima. I still needed to speak to her again. I’d left the Great Spirit of Life with very little explanation for my abrupt absence, and I did feel a little guilty about that. She was quite literally a prisoner right now.

  But I couldn’t help my feelings, and so I’d seek her out later.

  “Perhaps.” Sylvia eventually whispered after a quiet moment. “Nonetheless, I should have. As you might suspect, it was a contract issued by the Throng. The Eclipsed Dawn was contacted by them with a request for a suitable squad that could hunt and kill a particularly elusive Prime. Their own hunters had been having limited success in tracking it. As I and my…sq-” She visibly choked on the word for a moment, before gritting her Mithril teeth hard and forcing it out. “My squad were specialized in scouting Primes who exhibited stealth abilities, we were issued the contract. I…we only had a few days to begin our hunt once we reached the area, but in the meantime, the Throng was allowing us to stay with them. As I said, I was…so, so incredibly lucky. I was at our camp, within the wards of the Throng, when the…Skyfall occurred. My squad was, at the time…out searching for…” That was all Sylvia managed to get out, before she began to shudder and her grip on my hand tightened to the extent I was worried for the bones.

  But I didn’t care. Instead, I scooted closer in order to wrap my arms around her. Sylvia gratefully fell into my embrace once more, and I rubbed her back as her grief overwhelmed her.

  I sighed regretfully as I stared out over her head. More casualties, to apparently lie at the feet of Orus, Neris…

  And the Mad God.

  May they rest in peace.

  Sylvia didn’t raise her head from my chest when she spoke again. “Ezrael, Tina, and Thirty-Four…” She said, softly enough that I could barely hear her. “Their bodies might just still be out there…if the monsters haven’t…” She shuddered. “Commandant Marcel wouldn’t let me go search for them in the aftermath. Nobody was allowed in or out of the wards once we realized that they were all that were protecting us from the poison infecting the world. Instead, he and the rest of the Gnoll’s ruling circle started to pack up and immediately make for Blutstein. They didn’t know just how badly the Reckoning had hit anywhere else, but they believed it must be safer in one of the Gem Cities. We were on the road the entire time.”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  “It hit us hard, too,” I acknowledged, frowning. “I…let me fill you in on everything that’s happened.”

  And so I did. Carefully, I took the time to tell Sylvia everything that had happened since she and her team had set out. She was as dismayed as I was to find out that nearly all of the disparate Order forces of Blutstein, including her Father and Honoka, had left on a horde dispersion campaign not long after she had. I think she had been hoping that Grey might be around to comfort her as well, after her loss. And if not him, then at least her Master. Sylvia was grimly unsurprised to hear about the casualties that Blutstein had suffered from the Skyfall, but thankful that we had at least escaped the worst of the initial incident.

  The Gnolls…apparently hadn’t, from what she told me. Their moving wards were strong, yes. But not as strong as Kyronkars emergency ‘war wards’, as Anima had put them.

  There were… quite a few of their deceased lying within the Throng, waiting for a final resting place. Unfortunately, they likely wouldn’t find it here. The Blutstein cemeteries within the walls were already overwhelmed. Before now, we couldn’t exactly venture outside of them either, to bury them within the external plots. In the last week, we’d taken to burning a great many of our dead. The pillars of smoke from the non-stop funeral pyres dotted the Blutstein skyline like new, grim towers that stretched up to touch the bars of foul lightning above.

  Sylvia was especially interested in learning about the APD’s, however.

  Carefully, she fingered the small crystal star I still had pinned to my breast. I…had forgotten to take it off, in all the excitement of her return. “Such a small thing…” She said softly, before smiling up at me. “It has the potential to save many lives, Nathan. I’m…proud of you, for what it’s worth.”

  Softly, I leaned down to brush my lips over hers. We lingered like that for a moment and then separated as I returned her smile. “It’s worth quite a lot to me. Thank you, Sylvia.”

  She breathed deeply then and pulled back from me. Strangely, she looked away from me in seeming embarrassment, before reaching for the patching kit she had brought with her. “I…could use some help with this, Nathan,” Sylvia said bashfully. “There are a few…areas that might benefit from your…touch.”

  I blinked, taken aback. Ah…that was…

  Hmm.

  Sylvia was essentially asking me to lay my hands on her…unclad body, and ‘mend’ any potential damage she might have. That was…not something we’d ever done before, either in the relationship we’d had before her amnesia, or the one we had now. She had always been very shy about such things. There…had been some private moments, where we had…explored her newly enhanced body together, in the wake of her second Ascension ritual.

  The facsimile of flesh that her Mithril skin had undertaken was…surprisingly realistic.

  But we had never gone that far.

  Somehow…I got the impression this was different. Sylvia had never needed my help for something like this before.

  I…was starting to think that maybe the kit was just a prop.

  Furtively, Sylvia looked up and met my eyes. When she did, the smile she gave me was simultaneously shy…and maybe a bit mischievous.

  My own smile widened in response, and I took her hand in mine once more. Carefully, I stood from my chair, bringing her with me. With my other hand, I picked up the kit. “Sure,” I said, a crooked smile on my lips. “I’d love to help you with your…‘wounds’. Let’s go somewhere more comfortable, shall we?”

  Sylvia’s shoulders relaxed, and she released my hand to wind it around my waist instead. I copied her, pulling the Sculpted woman closer to me as I did so. “I’d like that,” She said softly, as we left the lighthouse kitchen behind for the stairs that led to the second floor.

  And my bedroom.

  In our wake, we left the dirty plates of our dinner unattended for another time.

  There were…more important matters at hand.

  ………………………

  When the two of us were finished with our…repairs, Sylvia and I left for the Bastion, far more relaxed than I think either of us had been for weeks. Hand in hand, we arrived at the fortress of my Order, to find a…surprise waiting there for us.

  The enormous vehicle that Renauld had called the Gigant had, somehow, navigated its way through the gate and the streets of Blutstein…to park within the yard of the Lowerstone Bastion. There was a nice, neat spot where it managed to fit, where we had been intending to build another of the rowhouses. Frankly, it was large enough to be mistaken for one of them.

  I stopped, for a moment, staring dumbly at the massive construction of iron. Mentally, I tried to trace a path from the eastern gate to the fortress, only to realize that it was possible. The streets down here in the lower layer of the city were…pretty large, to accommodate the sheer amount of merchantile traffic the city had seen before the Skyfall.

  Huh.

  But…what the hell were they doing here? Surely the Gigant had been needed to stay outside the walls, to continue guarding the rest of the Throng from the corruption?

  No way in hell they’d managed to fit all of them inside the walls of Blutstein…right?

  Suddenly, I wasn’t so sure.

  Wenzel…must have moved fast. I had to find out what was going on.

  Exchanging a baffled look with Sylvia, my lover and I approached the closed doors of my fortress, only to stop in front of them when we heard shouting coming from inside. I…don’t think there was an urgent crisis or anything going on. If there was, Fade would have contacted me over our bond by now. The last update I’d had with my familiar had been several hours ago, before the arrival of the Throng, and he’d told me that he and Aveline were doing just fine.

  He must not have thought any of this was urgent if he hadn’t said anything to me.

  Relieved by my own rationalization, I reached forward and pushed open the rightmost door…

  Just in time to watch as an incredibly furious Renauld reared back and slammed a hooking punch into the jaw of an older Gnoll man looming over him. As he staggered back, I could see that the other Gnoll was dressed in almost decorative-looking leather armor, with a yellow turban wrapped around his head and a curved blade sheathed at his hip.

  I…couldn’t help but notice that this Gnoll was remarkably similar looking to Renauld. He had the same black and white coloring, only with more aged silver around the muzzle, but his eyes were a stark grey. The older Gnoll rubbed his jaw almost thoughtfully as he regained his footing, eyeing the still furiously heaving Renauld with an almost impressed eye. “I see you finally found some fire in you, boy,” He finally said, in a rough, almost gravelly voice.

  Renauld just sneered at him in response and spat on the floor off to the side. “Shove it up your ass, you old bastard.”

  Hey now.

  Who was going to clean that up?

  Sure as hell not me.