had started begging for what he shouldn’t have begged for. Nicole had almost caved, as hungry as he was.
That’s when they decided they should just get married and make legal everything that they were about to do anyway.
Then the Ambassadors Reception had come and it was only by a fluke, a twist of fate, that he hadn’t been with Nicole and her family that night. Now they were all gone, burned up, decimated, and his heart had become a rock-like thing that hung suspended and unmoving inside his chest.
Something else had hardened inside him as well, crusting over his innocence like drying cement. The war against the death vampires had raged all around him but had never, never gotten this close. If he hated the war before, he loathed it now, almost as much as all the political BS that Commander Greaves streamed around the world constantly. Maybe Greaves was the sole reason that the world was in trouble, but Arthur had other ideas—for instance, what about Madame Endelle? She was at fault, wasn’t she? As Supreme High Administrator of Second Earth, she’d had the power for two millennia to contain the monster and she’d failed.
So now he was here, in a Mortal Earth rogue colony, a hidden, secret place. He’d sent a message to his father saying he was perfectly fine but that had been that. He had refused to reveal his location. He had things to figure out, his future for one, and he just couldn’t bear the thought of being in a place that stood for everything he’d lost.
He loved this colony, this hidden place on Mortal Earth, where the war remained so distant, so far away, the people safe beneath an unusual layer of mist that combined the traditional lace-like element with some kind of moss-based component. He could see the dome of protection, even though almost everyone else here couldn’t. The mist kept the locals undetectable, especially the hundreds of Seers who had sought asylum in the world Diallo had created for those ascenders who had gone rogue.
He had told Diallo just today that he meant to make his home here. He needed to speak with his father, of course, to break formally with him and with the rest of his family. He was very young in ascended terms. But in experience? He’d lived a century.
He couldn’t keep pretending that he could follow the path laid out for him, to enter his father’s import business, which had extensive dealings with Mortal Earth export firms run by Second Earth expats who still lived on the grid and were monitored by the bureaucracy of COPASS.
What had begun as a simple organization, the Committee to Oversee the Process of Ascension to Second Society, had turned into an administrative monstrosity with fingers in every lucrative pie to be found in the financial sector of Second Earth.
Arthur’s disgust was profound.
He’d learned only a week ago that he was related to one of the infamous Warriors of the Blood, Warrior Jean-Pierre, a circumstance that explained so much from a genetics standpoint. He had always excelled at sword-work and at hand-to-hand combat. He’d received Militia Warrior training from the time he was eight, the youngest age a boy or girl could enter the various youth programs that focused on weapons training and military discipline.
He’d taken to it all with ease and with a superior skill that kept Militia recruiters knocking on his parents’ door once a week for the past decade. Now that he was nineteen, they received personal visits even from Colonel Seriffe’s staff, and the colonel at times headed the entire Militia Warrior operation worldwide.
As he stared out into the dark night, as he felt the future looming closer and evil not far distant, he stepped back into the shadows and changed into flight battle gear. He’d gotten really good at making the change and only had to do a minimal adjustment at the waist this time, although one of the two daggers he sported needed to be secured a little deeper into the sternum piece.
Yeah, he was
That’s when they decided they should just get married and make legal everything that they were about to do anyway.
Then the Ambassadors Reception had come and it was only by a fluke, a twist of fate, that he hadn’t been with Nicole and her family that night. Now they were all gone, burned up, decimated, and his heart had become a rock-like thing that hung suspended and unmoving inside his chest.
Something else had hardened inside him as well, crusting over his innocence like drying cement. The war against the death vampires had raged all around him but had never, never gotten this close. If he hated the war before, he loathed it now, almost as much as all the political BS that Commander Greaves streamed around the world constantly. Maybe Greaves was the sole reason that the world was in trouble, but Arthur had other ideas—for instance, what about Madame Endelle? She was at fault, wasn’t she? As Supreme High Administrator of Second Earth, she’d had the power for two millennia to contain the monster and she’d failed.
So now he was here, in a Mortal Earth rogue colony, a hidden, secret place. He’d sent a message to his father saying he was perfectly fine but that had been that. He had refused to reveal his location. He had things to figure out, his future for one, and he just couldn’t bear the thought of being in a place that stood for everything he’d lost.
He loved this colony, this hidden place on Mortal Earth, where the war remained so distant, so far away, the people safe beneath an unusual layer of mist that combined the traditional lace-like element with some kind of moss-based component. He could see the dome of protection, even though almost everyone else here couldn’t. The mist kept the locals undetectable, especially the hundreds of Seers who had sought asylum in the world Diallo had created for those ascenders who had gone rogue.
He had told Diallo just today that he meant to make his home here. He needed to speak with his father, of course, to break formally with him and with the rest of his family. He was very young in ascended terms. But in experience? He’d lived a century.
He couldn’t keep pretending that he could follow the path laid out for him, to enter his father’s import business, which had extensive dealings with Mortal Earth export firms run by Second Earth expats who still lived on the grid and were monitored by the bureaucracy of COPASS.
What had begun as a simple organization, the Committee to Oversee the Process of Ascension to Second Society, had turned into an administrative monstrosity with fingers in every lucrative pie to be found in the financial sector of Second Earth.
Arthur’s disgust was profound.
He’d learned only a week ago that he was related to one of the infamous Warriors of the Blood, Warrior Jean-Pierre, a circumstance that explained so much from a genetics standpoint. He had always excelled at sword-work and at hand-to-hand combat. He’d received Militia Warrior training from the time he was eight, the youngest age a boy or girl could enter the various youth programs that focused on weapons training and military discipline.
He’d taken to it all with ease and with a superior skill that kept Militia recruiters knocking on his parents’ door once a week for the past decade. Now that he was nineteen, they received personal visits even from Colonel Seriffe’s staff, and the colonel at times headed the entire Militia Warrior operation worldwide.
As he stared out into the dark night, as he felt the future looming closer and evil not far distant, he stepped back into the shadows and changed into flight battle gear. He’d gotten really good at making the change and only had to do a minimal adjustment at the waist this time, although one of the two daggers he sported needed to be secured a little deeper into the sternum piece.
Yeah, he was
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