Rhia was out of touch with the world around so much that she jumped when she heard someone knock on her door. The door opened and the person she least expected came in her quarters.

"Lord Alkanphel? What are you doing here?" she said.

"I heard what happened," he said and hugged her without warning. Rhia turned at least twenty different shades of red when he did that, and he was the only person now that even gave her hugs. "I thought you would like a friend to talk to."

"That's kind of you," she said, her cheeks turning even redder. "I wished I knew how to talk about this."

"How about we start with how you feel about it," he let her go and they sat down in front of her glass cased cabinet that protected the iei of her mother. "I may not be your parent, but I know that you need to talk about what you did."

"I feel horrible," she began. "Mother always told me that it was a terrible to kill a person without just cause, like protecting a helpless person. How do I justify what I did? He wasn't pointing the gun at Purgstall; the gun was pointed at me." Tears came to her eyes. "I didn't have just cause to kill him, and it felt wrong to take his life. I felt him enter the void. It was like part of my own soul had been ripped apart."

"It appears that there is another lesson I need to teach you," he said and got up. She watched him, puzzled, walk over to her night stand and pick up


Imakarum was starting to worry about Lord Alkanphels heiress until he saw two blurs, one white, one violet, zoom pass him and he heard Rhiannon yell, "COME BACK HERE!"

"What the hell was that about?" he said and followed them to the upper levels of Cloud Gate. He could not believe what he saw: Alkanphel was laughing and Rhia was chasing him, apparently mad about something.

"Give it back, Alkanphel!" she demanded and Imakarum saw him hold her sketch book over his head. "Mother gave that to me! Give it back!"

"Okay," he said and handed her the sketch book. She looked at him with absolute puzzlement on her face as she took back her book. "Now, think back before you killed that man. Did he not say that he killed his brother?"

She nodded and Mirabilis knew where this was going.

"What he didn't tell you is that he killed a number of Zoanoids on the way to where you were. If he had lived, he might have killed more before he himself was executed."

"I would never have thought of that," she whispered and looked at the floor.

"This is your lesson, Rhia," he lifted her chin up. "You have to move on in life. You cannot continue to live in the past."

She heard those words before. Her mother had whispered those words to her before she died.

"Starting today, you will begin your training to be a Zoalord," he told her and she bit her tongue to keep herself from objecting. "Purgstall will be your mentor, and he will be keeping me and Dr. Barcas updated on your progress. I expect you to have leadership skills by the time we meet again. I hope you do well, Rhiannon."

He walked away from her and teleported away, leaving Rhia bewildered and shocked. Mirabilis walked away to leave the girl to her thoughts.