Teacher Wesi scratched her sharp fingernails on the attention slate set on the side of her lecture stand.

  The class of thirty young oceanborn and landborn squealed, groaned or made whichever pained sound they tended to.

  Ragay was a junior reef defender.

  He made no sound. He simply grit his teeth.

  “Thank you, students. Today, we shall learn something different. So, put away your infoslates and prepare to take notes.”

  “But—”

  “I know you were looking forward to the history of the Third Mainigayan Trench War, Lakidsaya, but we’ll do that next class.”

  Ragay gave his classmate a sympathetic look.

  She really looked crestfallen.

  As in her colorful fin crest actually flattened.

  “Now. Who wants to tell me about our greatest warrior, diplomat and general paragon, the Karagatan?” Teacher Wesi gestured a grand projection from the teaching orb on the stage behind her.

  The Karagatan.

  The current one.

  The only one Ragay had known.

  She was a pretty woman beneath the many scars on her blue-green face.

  He expected that he could see the rest of her body covered in the same had it not been for the deep blue, skintight armor that swirled like the ocean.

  It was the way of those devoted to the protection of Sinaya’s people.

  Every warrior he knew wrote the stories of that devotion on their skin and scales.

  Lakidsaya raised her hand a beat before Sibo.

  “‘Miss Karagatan’, um, Teacher Wesi, that’s what she commands us to call her.” She ducked her head.

  “Do not be shamed when you are correct.” Teacher Wesi said gently. “I stand corrected by Lakidsaya. The current Karagatan does indeed demand to be called ‘Miss Karagatan’. Although, I remember from when I was your age, my students, that she was much more… forceful with such demands. One could say that age has softened her harsher edges.”

  Sibo’s hand shot up like a great blue death breaching the surface to utterly demolish a resting long tusk.

  “Go, Sibo.”

  “Thank you, Teacher Wesi.” He cleared his throat.

  A trademark before launching into a perfect recitation of something he had read elsewhere.

  Ragay envied Sibo’s amazing memory if not the lack of social acumen.

  “Miss Karagatan has been charged and empowered by Sinaya to do all that is best for her people. She has—”

  “Thank you, Sibo. I want the others to have a chance.”

  Hands went up.

  Ragay kept his down.

  He wasn’t one for raising his hand in a general sense.

  Not that he didn’t know his lessons to an acceptable standard— his carers tolerated nothing less— but rather he had no passion for history.

  “She holds and wields the Heart of Sinaya,” Lilucca said.

  “It’s the lifewater that Sinaya replaced her blood with that lets her do all the cool stuff!” Tayabo’s eyes lit up.

  “Don’t for get her hook and lure,” Bahala said. “I thought that’s were her power really comes from. I mean, that’s where all her lifewater constructs shoot out from, right?”

  Sibo shook his head and sighed.

  “You’re all right. Those things are essentially the same. Obviously—” he caught Teacher Wesi’s unblinking gaze and raised brows. “Apologies.”

  Other students continued the discussion.

  Ragay had heard it all before.

  The heart, the waters, the hook.

  The Karagatan used all in her holy duty to carry out Sinaya’s Will, but she didn’t need all of them.

  He had read stories and seen recordings from previous Karagatan’s dating back over several thousand years.

  They did what they did even if one or two of the heart, the waters, or the hook was destroyed or otherwise removed from them.

  Indeed, the Great Kraken King of the Northern Depths had broken the Karagatan of that era’s staff and ripped the heart from his chest and still died when spears of lifewater pierced his every face hole.

  “That’s all interesting, students. But, I’d like to hear your knowledge concerning Miss Karagatan’s geopolitical impact.”

  Sibo again.

  “Her strength is a check on the drylanders—”

  “And the Frozen Eternities!” Lilucca chimed in.

  She’d know about them.

  If Ragay remembered correctly, she had many relatives on the floating fortresses patrolling the ocean passages to the southern ice.

  Sibo cleared his throat.

  “Yes, but the empress is a distant concern. She hasn’t been active in centuries. The drylanders are a greater concern since they are closer to our archipelago. Specifically, the Empire of Man since they’ve taken to the oceans in the last decade despite our treaties. They’d have already plundered our oceans of our fish like they’ve done to their coastal waters. And the black waters from beneath the ocean floor that they need for their machines. The foul substance allows them more killing machines and devices quicker than their primitive use of enchantments and other, superior and cleaner magical creations. Then there’s Suiteonem’s Sanctuary and its false—”

  Gasps filled the chamber.

  Teacher Wesi regarded Sibo in silence for several heartbeats.

  “One must take care of their words when a God may be listening. And your take is not entirely accurate or current.”

  “I was just highlighting Miss Karagatan’s geopolitical impact, Teacher Wesi. May I continue?”

  “Please, but be concise and measured.”

  “There would be more interference in Sinaya’s Gift from Suiteonem’s Sanctuary if not for Sinaya and the Karagatan.”

  “Thank you, Sibo. You are correct, but please watch your words in the future. Despite your personal feelings, power must be given respect for it can do terrible things to you when you least expect it.”

  A finger tapped Ragay’s shoulder.

  He glanced at Bahala as she leaned up to whisper in his ear.

  “An old one told me a story once. She said that she had heard from an old one about a girl in that old one’s village. The girl said something bad about our God and that night a golden light from the sky destroyed her home. There were no survivors. As in, not even any bodies.”

  The class discussed the Karagatan for the duration of their time together.

  Until near the very end Teacher Wesi fixed Ragay with a dark-eyed glare.

  “You’ve not said a word. You know the ways of my chamber.”

  “Yes, Teacher Wesi. No one avoids sharing. No matter how small or seemingly inconsequential because how can one judge the worth of words when they are unspoken?”

  “And what shall you contribute, Student Ragay?” Teacher Wesi drummed sharp fingernails on the attention slate. “Since this was a lesson on the Karagatan. How about Karagatan’s Oath?”

  Ragay stood for the oath had to be treated with the greatest solemnity.

  It was one of the first things a child of the Sinaya learned.

  It didn’t matter from where on and in Sinaya’s oceans they came from.

  It was important because every child of Sinaya could one day be called upon to take up the sacrifice of the Karagatan.

  …

  Cold ocean breeze in his face.

  Hot bonfire at his back.

  Ragay usually allowed himself to feel the sensations, to be in the moment.

  Not this night.

  His mouth worked, forming words in silence.

  The oath had consumed his thoughts for some reason ever since he had spoken them to end the lesson.

  It roiled like the waves of high tide crashing over the tallest point of the reef on the distant side of the dark lagoon. It followed him all the way to the cookout.

  “What’s with weirdo? He’s been staring at nothing and mumbling something since he got here.”

  He glanced over at Naujon, whose big and bulky form loomed too close to Talima where they all stood around the fire pit.

  He looked back toward the dark ocean, eyes drawn for some strange reason.

  He did force his mouth closed, not that doing that stopped the oath from running through his thoughts.

  Naujon hadn’t ever been a good friend.

  More like an adjacent-friend.

  The kind that was part of the larger group, but not particularly close.

  There wasn’t anything wrong with that.

  Ragay knew that was how socialization worked.

  Smaller schools forming within the greater school.

  Naujon could say the same about him.

  It was just annoying of late that Naujon had been making little remarks at and about him like nibbler fish taking their tiny, round bites out of the rough skin of a gray-tipped reef ripper.

  Talima sauntered over.

  Naujon scowled and made to follow, but Chamba stepped in with a perfectly timed joke as usual to deflect pursuit.

  For some reason Ragay’s friend shot him a quick wink.

  “How does he do it?” Talima said softly.

  “Do what? Who?”

  “Chamba. Great timing. Every time.”

  He blinked at her like he was a diskfloater. Slow and dumb.

  She reached up to fix his windblown hair, pushing a stray strand behind his left ear.

  “Nothing.” She giggled. “So, why are you mumbling the oath?”

  He looked at her.

  The yellow and orange reflection dancing on her cerulean scales and in her dark eyes momentarily made him forget about everything else in his mind.

  She waved a hand in front of his face.

  “Hello, Raggy?”

  “Huh? Oh, sorry, I, uh, was… confused,” he said in the smoothest of saves.

  “Obviously. So, Karagatan’s Oath…” She led him like a carer led a child through his first swim out of the nursery pools.

  “Wait! How did you know that’s what I was not saying?”

  “I was reading your lips.”

  “You can do that? People do that?”

  “I got a Skill last month. It’s pretty standard for my chosen passion.”

  “I don’t know why, but I’ve been thinking about it ever since I had to recite it in class.”

  “Oh yeah, I heard you guys had a special lesson.”

  “From one of your sources?”

  It had to be one of his classmates then.

  “Lilucca?”

  Her eyes narrowed.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

  “How’d you know?”

  “You two live in the same place.”

  “Okay, sure, but I also had other sources.”

  “Tayabo.”

  She crossed her arms beneath the thin wrap around her chest, which pushed up…

  Eye contact! he yelled silently at himself, like Aunty Biyala in training.

  “He also lives in the same place. How’d I do?” He smiled.

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Fine. You got those two right.”

  “Why are they even sources? For our history class?”

  “Not just your class,” she huffed. “I’m not keeping eyes on you.”

  That possibility had been in his mind.

  “I have sources all over the our schooling system. It’s important to know what they are teaching us and why.”

  “Why?”

  She sputtered for a moment.

  “Because it is! Unless you’re okay with them teaching you whatever they want for their own agendas.”

  That thought hadn’t crossed his mind.

  He told her so.

  She launched into a long explanation about indoctrination and the ways a society was shaped and controlled through its youth.

  He listened actively because it was polite and it sounded really important to Talima.

  He didn’t really get it, but all it took to really listen and pay attention was effort and she was important enough to him to give her his best try.

  Chamba timed his interruption for the end of Talima’s impromptu lecture perfectly.

  “C’mon you two lovefish!” He waved. “Food’s ready!”

  Ragay’s inner heat rose, so he got distracted and didn’t notice that Talima had grabbed him by the wrist to pull him toward the fire.

  They took a seat on one of the wood benches.

  He took the end like he always did.

  As one of the fighting ones he always took a position that let him leap to the others defense in the event of a random monster somehow getting past all the defenses.

  Talima sat next to him.

  Close.

  Her bare thigh pressed tight against his.

  Cool scales and warm skin.

  Pleasing as always.

  Naujon plopped next to her with his customary lack of grace.

  He moved quick and sure in the waters of the oceanball arenas, but on land he moved like one of those blubber-filled drylander ambassadors or high merchants that forced their presence on the islands of Sinaya’s Gift.

  Talima pressed closer.

  He gave Naujon a blank look.

  The frown on the bigger boy’s face disappeared as quickly as it appeared and he slowly, subtly shifted away from Talima’s right.

  “Bench is unbalanced,” he mumbled.

  Chamba ambled over with a huge tray of fire-cooked food.

  A variety of meats, vegetables and fruits from both the land and ocean.

  “Scoot over, big guy.” Chamba nudged Naujon’s knee. “Rules are rules. You got to be on the end in case of monsters.”

  “You’re the one in junior reef defenders,” Naujon grumbled, but he made room after a moment.

  “True, but my trainers will tell you that fighting isn’t my best attribute. So, you have to ask yourself, do you trust me to be the tip of the trident for you to hide behind?”

  “No,” Naujon said flatly.

  Suiteonem Prime, Frozen Eternities Fortress City, December, 2057

  Cal and Nila held the change of management all hands meeting inside one of the empress’ empty, giant halls.

  An immense cavern of ice and metal with a startlingly few number of thin pillars from floor to ceiling.

  Standing in the middle reminded him of standing in the middle of Angel Stadium, except much bigger.

  Large enough that the mist from breaths and body heat of the thousands of living enslaved— former enslaved— of the empress barely made it halfway up before before vanishing.

  He floated off the floor just enough so that they could all see him.

  “First of all, you’re free. As soon as I can arrange safe transport from this place of torment, you’ll have it. To wherever you want to go, with all the wealth and everything else you want to take with you. Free bags of holding for everyone.” He paused, double-checking the concerns running through their thoughts. He had already done so, but it cost him nothing but a little effort to make sure he got this right for them. “I understand that your peoples, your homes might look upon you with suspicion and they may pose dangers to you. Well, don’t worry about that. I will also arrange that all away. I’ll speak to them and make them see that this isn’t a trap. That you aren’t going to burst into bone beetles, ice flesh horrors or frozen plagues if they let you back in.”

  The empress had been fond of such gambits.

  “These revenants,” he gestured at the ones gathered below and dispersed through the crowd, “are no longer threats to your safety. They served the empress as unwillingly as you and with her destruction they control themselves once more.” He raised a hand. “Do not worry. They will obtain death mana from the monsters. They’ll keep you safe two ways in one. Killing the monsters means they won’t look to you for sustenance.”

  Falliana, Dawn’s Light, Revenant Paladin of the Western Reach, glared up at him with her crystal clear eyes. She remained unarmed and unarmored for the benefit of the living, but her powerful aura, though restrained, was impossible for them to not feel.

  “You’re free in all ways of the word. Just don’t harm each other or you will be judged and punished. I’m not replacing the empress, but I won’t allow such things. So, I’m going to assign people to roles for this transition period.”

  He had already spoken to these people.

  Revenants and living… he really needed to think of them all as simply people.

  The latter were obviously just people like him and Nila.

  Sure many of them were blue-skinned and hairy with light colors ranging from snow white to silver and much taller and larger than him, which wasn’t saying much.

  Granted they were, on average, significantly larger and more powerfully built than the tallest, largest Earthians.

  Local to the near polar region to the north.

  A small percentage were from other lands farther away.

  These were more familiar to him.

  Just like people from home with familiar coloration and features. What was unfamiliar were the combinations of the two.

  “Let’s finish this meeting up with a question and answer session. Please, don’t be afraid. There is no question that will upset us.”

  …

  “That went well.”

  “They were terrified.”

  “Yes, but they believed me, so… it went well.”

  They stood in their armor in an out of the way room.

  The enslaved quarters that had been empty for some time.

  As time passed from the end of the empress’ scheduled apocalypses, she tended to fall into neglecting the living portion of her holdings.

  Enslaved died through murder or old age and were no longer replaced leaving more sections empty of life.

  “It’s safe here. I planted a compulsion in all of them to avoid this area.”

  “Monsters?”

  “Most of the remaining undead are in shutdown mode and revenants have the rest under control. No spires nearby. And we’re deep inside a mountain. There’ll be plenty of warning time if something big attacks from outside.”

  “Okay.” Nila opened her armor and stepped out. “It was getting cramped in there.”

  It wasn’t. Not in the physical sense, but he knew her well enough without scanning her thoughts to know that her mind and emotional state had made her feel trapped and pressed in.

  “It’s cold.” She rubbed her arms. Visible breaths puffed.

  The skintight undersuit was insulated, but a place called the Frozen Eternities was predictably below freezing, especially since it had been decades since any living had been in the immediate area. Without life there had been no need to bring warmth.

  He stepped out of his armor and embraced her, thinking warm thoughts to heat the space.

  “There’s a heating enchantment.” He activated the gem hidden in a dark metal plate in the ceiling with a telekinetic touch. “There.”

  “Can you just hold me for a bit?”

  “Always.”

  She nestled into him, squeezing her arms around his waist and molding her body to his.

  “What’s next?” she said after a long silence.

  “Well, once you’re sleeping I’m going to do as we planned. Quick world scout. The tree and the moon. Then I’ll have to check the Rime Pits. There are revenants and undead hordes down in the underworld fighting those giant humanoid centipede things.” He closed his eyes and tried not to think of his son. It was hard enough that their Boy was always in his wife’s thoughts. “This world is… he turned what could’ve been as close to a sanctuary from the spires as possible into his personal entertainment death world. Remember that space empires game I used to play?”

  She sniffed and nodded.

  “Sometimes I’d populate the galaxy with factions modified to be as violent and genocidal as possible. This place is like that, but its real. These are real people and they’ve been suffering for over twenty-thousand years. He made entire peoples, races and species extinct through his apocalypses. Then he’d bring over more for the next one. Through force or trickery, they come here to live, fight and die for one man’s entertainment.”

  “I almost don’t care,” she whispered. “He killed our Boy. That’s all I can think about.”

  He stroked her hair.

  “We won’t let Suiteonem exist while Boy’s gone. We’ll make this place into something good for him.”

  Silence reined for a time until Nila spoke.

  “I want to remember while I sleep.”

  “When?”

  “It was in the Fall, but not yet Thanksgiving. He was three. It was the first time he wanted to help me bake cookies. I can’t remember what kind. Maybe, snicker doodles? I remember getting him on that little stool we kept in the kitchen.”

  “Because you couldn’t reach the top shelves.”

  “Like you could.”

  “Tell me more.”

  “I had just put flour in the bowl. Normally, I would’ve just used the KitchenAid, but I was so happy he wanted to help that I wanted it to take as long as I could make it. I was behind him, my chin on his head. He still had that baby smell. And he… he…” she hiccuped.

  “It’s okay. I think I got it.”

  “No! Let me finish.”

  “Okay, take as long as you need.”

  “He leaned his head almost right into the bowl. I think he wanted to see, but when he breathed out… when he… he…” Laughter that turned into a sob escaped her lips.

  “I remember. You sent me the picture. My two favorite people smiling. Faces like ghosts.”

  “That was it!” Nila smiled through her tears. “It was sugar cookies for Halloween.”

  “That’s the memory you want to dream?”

  “Yes. The entire morning. The first time we made cookies together.”

  A therapist would say that it was, perhaps, unhealthy to relive memories of a departed son especially the way he and Nila were doing it.

  It wasn’t like looking at pictures or watching videos.

  His powers allowed them to truly relive those moments as if for the first time.

  He pulled a sleeping mat, sleeping bag and pillow from one of his wife’s bags of holding.

  All had been enchanted to provide a restful, pleasant sleep beyond what was naturally possible.

  An hour’s worth became twice as long.

  Dreams were pleasant.

  Nightmares weren’t present.

  He guided her into the happy memory as he fluffed her pillow and slid her into her sleeping bag.

  “Sweet dreams, Love. It’ll hurt less everyday.”

  For her, but not for him.

  His memory was too good and perfect to ever forget even if he wanted.

  Suiteonem Prime, Suiteonem’s Sanctuary, World Tree, Suiteonem III, 20136

  “This is your dormitory,” the eidolon intoned.

  The statue-like woman led demigod children through great halls that reminded Sixty-eight of the very halls of her nations government where her father worked.

  Her true father wasn’t a jerk sitting on a golden throne.

  She reminded herself once again.

  The pillars and walls were made of that fancy white stone that was smooth to the touch like a bathroom tub.

  They were plain and stark.

  Kind of painful to look at for too long.

  “You will only come here to eat, sleep and clean yourselves.”

  There was a surprising lack of servants.

  At least, living ones.

  There were many strange automatons standing against the walls every few meters or so.

  Strange because they were made out of wood without any noticeable seams in their joints.

  The only automatons Sixty-eight was familiar with were made of metal with their gears and tiny engines visible between the spaces. They had made noise even when standing at attention.

  These wooden ones could’ve been sculptures had she not seen a few of them moving around doing the work of servants.

  “You will each have a room. That is a privilege. A gift born of a father’s softness for his children. But, a God’s gift is not to be taken for granted. Fail or displease your God and you will find yourself in a common room no better than a conscript’s barracks.”

  Sixty-eight walked in a line.

  Sixty-seven ahead and Sixty-nine behind.

  She hadn’t understood why the other children had laughed at the sullen-faced boy breathing on her head.

  “You have noticed that your rooms do not have doors. A privilege to be earned. You will find many privileges to be earned or lost. You will be responsible for maintaining your room. Your God expects perfection in everything. Even cleanliness.”

  Sixty-eight fought back tears.

  Those would cost her.

  She wanted to go home.

  “This is your home. Do not squander the privilege.”

  The eidolon fell silent as the children found their rooms by the number etched into the white stone above the doorway.

  Sixty-eight scanned her room.

  Larger than she expected.

  She had been expecting something more like a prison cell.

  There was a bed more than large enough for one of the bigger boys, which meant that it would swallow her up.

  There was a locker at the foot of the bed and a cabinet against the far wall.

  A desk sat next to the cabinet nestled into the corner opposite the bed.

  The corner to her immediate left upon entry contained empty racks for armor and weapons.

  The corner to her right was empty.

  Stark white walls and a lack of windows had her revising her initial assessment.

  It was a prison cell.

  She stood in silence and breathed in and out deliberately with purpose.

  Strategy, like her parents had taught her.

  What did she want?

  To go home.

  How?

  She had memorized what she saw around each spire on her several world journey.

  The problem was that on each world the eidolon had taken her to another spire to continue to the next world and not all trips had been done in a way that allowed her to fix landmarks into her memory.

  One trip had been done deep underground in an aether-powered train capsule-thing.

  Another had been in an airship. There had been a decided lack of landmarks in the cloudy sky. She noted the need to study cloud types and seasonal patterns if she made it back to that particular world.

  There had been a lot of traveling through golden portals.

  A child despaired at ever seeing her loved ones again.

  For now, she focused on her location.

  They had been taken to the dormitory through a portal.

  She had no idea where it was.

  The lack of windows didn’t help.

  The highest likelihood was that they were in or on the World Tree.

  That had been what the first eidolon had said.

  They were going to the World Tree to make themselves worthy at the feet of their God from where he sat on the Golden Moon.

  One step at a time, she told herself.

  First was surviving the terrible trials ahead of her if the Grand Brawl was a sign of things to come and she had no reason to believe otherwise.

  Every word from the eidolons and her God had reinforced that belief.

  They were harsh and cruel and therefore she had to expect more.

  “Sixty-eight—”

  “Gah!” She leapt back into a combat stance.

  A wood automaton had appeared in the empty corner like it had been there the whole time.

  “This is your ten minute notification.”

  The automaton had a blank face so she wondered where the hollow, reedy voice came from.

  “A portal will open in the center of your wing upon scheduled time.”

  She recalled the circle carved into the white stone in the center of the floor.

  “Tardiness will be punished.”

  She focused on the automaton, hoping to see how it had entered by observing how it exited.

  It simply stood there like a statue until she had to leave.