BETWEEN THREE ROGUES

By Eric 'Erico' Lawson


Fifty: The Great Silver Lie

Low Arcadian Orbit

The Great Silver Shrine

362 Days After the (First) Grand Fortress Escape

Compared to the airships of the world below, flying her skyship was a dream. If there had been more of a charge in the supercapacitors or if they'd had more time, Fina would have given Vyse a turn at the controls so he could experience what it was like to fly in a ship able to touch the edge of space, untethered by gravity.

This was supposed to have been something wonderful, a promised gift for Vyse and Aika at the end of their journey. To be fair, she was still giving it to them. She was showing them the world as they'd never seen it. But while they marveled at seeing the curve of the blue world they called home, and witnessed the Moons lingering in geosynchronous orbit above their respective lands, the tension took away from it all for her.

It was amazing how small her world had been, living on the Silver Shrine forever separated from the world. Both she and Ramirez had lived...lonely childhoods. They'd coped in different ways, partially because of the roles that they'd been trained for. Ramirez, the warrior, had studied the world below and made ships, had dreamed of seeing it all. Fina, who'd been trained in the prayers and abilities of a priestess of the Silver Shrine and struggled with it, had turned to books and stories and imagined romances to lessen the loneliness she felt. Each of them had struggled in their childhood, to fight off the solitude, the extrovert and the introvert. It was funny how it felt like their roles had changed.

Her world was so much larger now thanks to her lovers. What she'd uncovered had revealed terrible gaps in her knowledge, in the written histories of her people. Things that the Elders didn't know about.

Or didn't tell you about, a cynical voice that sounded too much like Ramirez sneered.

A hand came around her waist and squeezed gently, and Fina blinked. Aika was there, smiling at her. "Doing all right, babe? You're woolgathering again."

"Just thinking to myself." Fina said. She smiled and changed the subject. "What do you think of Arcadia from this side of the sky?"

"It's weird. And wonderful." Aika answered. "And your people lived up here? Since the Old World?"

"I was taught that the Silver Civilization did not fight in the Gigas Wars." Fina explained.

"Your people stayed out of it, and you were spared when the Rains of Destruction came." Aika finished the thought. "Or maybe it's just that you were above it."

The observation got a small laugh out of Fina. "Maybe." She said, sighing. Damnit, it had been such a good moment. "I can already tell what the Elders are going to say. They didn't expect me to succeed. But how could they have planned for Ramirez turning on us?" She shook her head. "And I'm not staying. They'll think I've lost my mind. What if they try and stop me from leaving?"

"Then they'll try." Aika pointed out grimly. "And they'll fail."

Fina thought of all the security drones and automachia which patrolled the Silver Shrine. Oh, if the Elders were serious, they'd definitely try. And her silver magic would be useless against them, they were artificial and without biomass.

But if it came to fighting, she wasn't alone. She'd also learned far more magic in the past year than the Elders had allowed her to train in before. The thought of combat wasn't wonderful, though. Not after Crescent Island and Ramirez. Fina swallowed thickly.

"Do you have another Riselem Crystal?" She asked Aika.

"Yeah. Just the one. You used the other bringing Vyse back."

"It's enough." Fina breathed a little easier knowing that there was that last bit of reassurance. She hoped it wouldn't come to that.

Ahead and just above them, the Great Silver Shrine loomed larger, unmistakable by its polyhedral shape and the sheer size of it. Fina stared at it and swallowed heavily as the skyship's navigation console beeped, signaling that the Shrine had picked up her IF/F beacon and the skyship was diverting control to the station's flight control program. She kept her hands close to the controls just in case, but the flight was smooth and the skyship slowed up just as it was supposed to.

The presence of Vyse came in behind her and Aika, giving her the courage to swallow down that bubble of panic. "It's all right, the Silver Shrine's bringing us in. Automatic pilot." She reassured him, turning her head slightly to see him over her shoulder.

"I can guess at what you mean by that, but I'm not worried." Vyse reassured her, looking between her and their Valkyrie. "Did you ever go flying just for the hell of it?"

Fina smiled. "Oh, sometimes." The smile dampened a little at old memories but she held onto it. "At first, Elder Prime would take Ramirez and myself for a flight, then he taught Ramirez to fly. Just close low-orbital flights, we never strayed far from the Shrine. I learned to fly a little with Ramirez, but once he left, I...It was Elder Helos who finished my training." She leaned back into his shoulder. "When things would get too stressful and I couldn't take anymore, I'd go flying. Just to clear my head."

"But you couldn't go anywhere." Vyse pointed out.

"Not until they sent me to finish what Ramirez had started." Fina confirmed quietly. They flew to the underside of the Silver Shrine, and Fina looked down when her console chirped and the HUD laid out instructions in Silvite script.

Skyship 2-Beta authorized for landing. ATC guiding to docking post Sol-Alpha. Welcome home, Silvite Fina.

"So when we land, what's the first thing we're doing?" Gilder asked, finally saying something. Fina had almost forgotten he was back there.

She was in no fit state to stare down the Elders. Not immediately. A trip to the inner hall of the Sanctum would have to wait. Especially since she wasn't staying here, this might be her only time to say farewell to the place that had been her home for all of her life.

"Would you like to see my room?" Fina asked them timidly. Aika and Vyse blinked before smiling, and Gilder huffed.

"I'll pass, but I'll come by later. Just hang a sock on the door, you three." A year ago, Fina would have wondered what Gilder meant by that. Now she laughed, and rolled her eyes when Aika kissed her cheek, and suppressed the tremble in her legs.

Just give her a few more tender moments like this, she prayed to the Silver Moon. Give her the chance to replace memories of loneliness with new ones of belonging. Give her a little happiness before she had to tell the Elders of her failure and beg for a miracle to save the world from its destruction.


It was strange to be back with everything exactly the same as she remembered it. The Silver Shrine was a place where change came slowly, if at all. Beneath the atmospheric shield that laid over the skyline of the Silver Shrine's belly, she looked up (down) at the breadth of the sphere of Arcadia beneath them. There directly beneath their position in orbit was the Silver Sea, and though she couldn't see it from here, she knew where to look to find Windmill Isle, and Shrine Island, and Dangral, hovering on the border of the Great Vortex.

She wasn't the only one caught up in the view. "Everything seems so small from up here." Vyse murmured. "You were right, Fina. You were right about everything. The world really is round. Kind of hard to mistake it for anything but from up here." He glanced around as they started walking again, moving further from the skyship docks and towards the linked walking paths that made up the residential block. "You can see so much of the world. So many of the places we've been."

"Yes." Fina agreed. "But as peaceful as everything seems up here, it's nothing compared to actually being there." Where there were people. Where things were real. Fina knew the value of physicality and proximity now.

Something her people had given up on, a long time ago. But not all of her people. The ones who had stayed on Arcadia, who had tried to help rebuild after the Rains…

No. She would lose her mind chasing down that rabbat hole before she could speak to the Elders and get a straight answer out of them. She left it behind and walked her two companions in front of one door. Well, to her it was a door. To Aika and Vyse it would have been little more than an arch, one that glowed as she moved closer to it. Aika gasped and Fina paused to look over her shoulder. "Don't worry. Just walk on through." And she did.

The mechanism was necessary on the Silver Shrine where conserving space mattered. The doorway itself was a teleporter. It led from the pathways on the Shrine's exterior to the space of her room, which was stacked up with all of the other rooms on the station in a geometric block beneath the outer armor. Fina took a moment to breathe in the filtered and recycled air, complete with its antiseptic and sterilized taste, and moved to her foldout bed to make room for the others. They came in a few seconds later, pressed tightly to each other and more than a little nervous as they blinked and took in the sight.

"Your room?" Aika asked. Fina smiled, leaning forward over her knees, and made a grand sweeping gesture with one arm.

"This was home."

"...Cozy." Vyse said. He stared at the silver walls and the flatscreen showing an image of the space outside of the Silver Shrine. "Hm. There's a desk, and your bed, and...huh."

Aika flopped onto the mattress next to Fina and let out a languorous sigh. "Oh, this is good. Fina, you had a bed like this all your life?" The redhead lay back on it and rolled onto her side, smiling as she closed her eyes. "How in blazes did you manage to sleep when you got down below?"

Well enough, she thought. At least once Aika and Vyse had rescued her from Valua and joined her on her quest to retrieve the Moon Crystals. "It's nanomesh core polymer foam, but the real trick is the linen."

"Wait, is it like the same stuff your dress uses?" Aika asked. Her wonder made Fina smile.

"More or less, yes. Sure, it's comfy, but...I don't think I could get used to sleeping on this again."

Aika blinked. "Why not?"

Fina nudged their shoulders together. "Not enough room." She answered, and Aika leaned her head against Fina's, humming.

"Where's all your books?" Vyse asked suddenly. Fina watched him trace a hand along her desk, searching the bare walls and nearly empty shelves.

"...My books?"

"Yeah. You were always telling us about the stories you read, and the things you learned, but there's no books in here." Vyse said. "Is there a library somewhere in the Shrine you used? Honestly, I thought we'd get here and find your room covered in paintings and murals and pages with bent corners where you marked them. But there's just..." And he motioned to the only object on the desk, an old doll.

"Ah." Fina gestured, and Cupil detached from her wrist. It floated over to her desk and plopped onto it to transmit the RFID access key, and the metal morphed to reveal a drawer with her old SilvOS tablet and a faded, handwritten hardbound copy of the Silver Priestesshood Codices. "There."

Vyse pulled them out, dubiously examining them. "Just one book? Where's the rest?"

Fina blinked, and immediately groaned when she realized the disconnect. "Right. That book is all I had to go on when I was learning how to become a priestess of the Silver Shrine. There was nobody else around who could teach me. Everything else I read and learned, I used that tablet or my viewscreen over there for when I was here. There were other viewers elsewhere in the Shrine as well. We don't have books like you'd think of them. They're digitized, stored in the database."

Vyse thought about that, and held up the tablet. "You mean - this - has all the books you talked about?" She nodded, and Vyse shook his head. "That's pretty impressive. How do they all fit inside? Magic?"

"No, technology. It's information. So long as you have the ability to store it, you can put as many digitized novels and textbooks and…" Fina stopped talking when the thought hit her. She swore, which got a surprised look from the other two. "Of course. Fina, you idiot." She muttered, and touched the hidden toggle on her desk. It produced a power and data transfer cable from another recessed compartment, and she quickly plugged her old tablet in, waking it up. It was slow at first, the charge on the battery was down to 20 percent. Not surprising, considering it had been sitting shut down and ignored in her desk for more than a year.

"Princess? Did you have an idea or are you mad at something?" Aika ventured carefully. Fina shook her head, already putting the wheels in motion. For this? She'd need more than her own tablet. She would need so much more. In this, the Silver Shrine could provide. The desk's surface glowed and projected a keyboard simulacrum for her use, and she used it, bringing up a queue for items to be delivered. Hesitantly at first, but then her speed picked up. She was rusty, the skill wasn't forgotten.

"I just remembered that since I wasn't staying, maybe I ought to make sure to take everything I wanted to keep along with us. And then, I thought, why not bring everything I think I might need as well?" Long-term isolinear datacubes, high density. A box of transfer sticks. Two dozen SilvOS tablets from storage and an impact resistant carrying case for them. Four dozen SilvOS cables - they always got lost. A collapsible solar generator kit - the deluxe weather-resistant version with the modular design, and enough durability to recharge more small appliances. Diagnostics and repair supplies. There would be no replacements, no production foundries available when she left. They would need to last.

"But that's not enough." Fina went on, looking up to find Aika and Vyse on their feet and standing behind her as her fingers flew over the keys. "I've seen the world. I've seen the state of it, I've watched people suffer from illnesses my people eliminated millennia ago and go hungry when they shouldn't have. Arcadia is full of good people, people who we've helped and who just want to live peaceful lives. The things I know - I've tried to teach Uncle Ilchymis, but I'll never remember everything I glanced through just because I was bored."

Textbooks. Organic and non-organic chemistry. Physics. Mechanical engineering. Anatomy and physiology. Pharmacology. Botany. Surgical techniques. Psychology and an old catalogue on mental conditions and treatments. Treatises on philosophy and ethics, studies on social contracts and relationships.

"The world lost so much when the Rains of Destruction came and ended the Gigas Wars." Her voice quavered a little. The duality of the Green Civilization who lived in tune with life and growth and yet studied the stars was the first thing that came to mind. She added the files on celestial mechanics, optical glass and astronomy, spurred on by the memory of their time in Rixis. "And it's been slow, getting it back. Valua's pushed technology on, but at the cost of the devastation of their own lands and the subjugation of others." She paused, and parsed a search for anything related to - yes, there, diplomacy and international relations, that would be useful - and added it to her queue. "I don't know what, exactly, we will need. I don't know what's going to be the most useful, or what will be seen as frivolous"

Knowledge, precious knowledge from thousands of years ago and kept static. Silvite technology hadn't really advanced since the time of the Old World, it had reached a plateau. Nothing new had been invented. No new dreams created. She flagged the whole of the cultural database, every song and story that the Elders had seen fit to save before the Silver Shrine had lifted away and escaped the devastation of the Rains. What was lost...maybe it could be returned. Maybe the world wouldn't stumble through centuries of re-learning old lessons through pain and suffering.

Wasn't that part of the Code of the Blue Rogues as well? They helped out those in need. All that their ancestors had lost when the heavens punished the Old World with the Rains...maybe she could give it back.

"I love your beautiful brain." Vyse laughed softly, and she felt his nose snuffling at her ear right before he moved her hair and kissed the side of her neck. "I trust you, Fina. Do what you need to. Do what feels right."

The Fina who had left the Silver Shrine would have thought her mad for doing this, for bringing primitives from Arcadia up and revealing all her secrets. Who she was now didn't bat an eye over it.

The queue she'd set up processed and the monitor over on the wall chimed. She looked over and winced at the figure it gave. A couple of hours were needed for the downloads to finish, and for the Shrine's delivery drones to finish gathering and packaging everything she'd asked for. But they'd deliver everything here to her quarters, at least.

A few seconds later, the flatscreen chimed and showed a new message. She read the message written in Silvite standard and winced.

"Now what's wrong, babe?" Aika nudged her.

"It's the Elders. They've picked up my Skyship docking with the Shrine and they're wondering where I am."

"We have to meet with them, right?"

"Yes. In a while." Fina agreed, typing in a reply. Resting. Will come in an hour. She sent the message off and stood up, yawning a bit. Her lovers knew how to read the room as well as ever, and they pulled her back. The two sat on her bed and made Fina lay down across them, her head in Aika's lap while Vyse gently stroked her leg over the silver leggings she wore.

"I don't imagine that they'll be too happy to wait." Vyse mused.

"They aren't going to be happy about a great many things we'll have to tell them." Fina pointed out, closing her eyes and submitting to having her veil removed and her hair petted by Aika. She was delaying, and she knew it. They knew it too. But they allowed it.


The three of them cuddled for maybe half an hour before Gilder came in, walking backwards with a hand covering his eyes as he announced his arrival very loudly. The man had been mortified that he might be walking in on them all making love, but as soon as Aika busted out laughing and Vyse sighed and sounded the all clear, Gilder turned around and instantly relaxed.

They left Fina's room and she paused for a second as they walked past the archway that led to the room Ramirez had lived in. Did she want to go inside? No, not particularly. Not when she found herself unable to forgive him, unable to fathom what he'd been thinking. She started walking again and the others followed.

The transition between the outer residential block and the Path of the Faithful in the Silver Shrine was less sedate and far noisier than the smaller gateway that the others had experienced to get to her room. Elder Prime had told her once that it was meant to humble those who sought the Sanctum and the wisdom of the Elders. The Path of the Faithful that led to it? That was meant to test their conviction.

"Woah." Vyse murmured, blinking wildly as the light of the transporter died down and they could make out the broad space inside of the Silver Shrine's shell. Fina was used to it, but she remembered her first time seeing the strange pathways in the open space, which stretched out in every direction and went in angles and curves. They looped around in directions where gravity would have made them impossible - if the pathways themselves didn't emit their own localized gravitic fields. To Vyse and Aika and Gilder, this would have been terribly confusing. And alien. "Look at all these roads!"

"Pathways." Fina corrected her lover gently. She swept a hand out around them. "This is the Path of the Faithful. Those who seek audience with the Elders have to first prove themselves."

"It's a maze." Aika blurted out, and Fina laughed a little.

"Yes. The goal of it, a long time ago as I was told, was to make sure that only those with a true need of the wisdom of the Elders would find their way to them. The maze would keep out the curious and those whose need was not so great." She winked at the others. "Luckily for all of you, though, as a priestess of the Silver Shrine I know how to get us to the Sanctum quickly."

"You memorized the right path through the maze?" Gilder questioned her, folding his arms. Fina shook her head and detached Cupil, who morphed into a basic form and began circling her head like it always did when it was on standby.

"Nobody can memorize the Path of the Faithful, it changes occasionally into a new configuration." She hummed and made a gesture, and Cupil chirped, floating on ahead. "However, my friend Cupil has a subprogram in his memory which turns him into a living tracker. So all we need to do…" She said brightly, and started walking forward as Cupil chirped again and bobbled forward at walking pace, "...is follow the bouncing ball."

Vyse and Aika both laughed and did so, but Gilder took a moment to run a hand through his hair before bringing up the rear of their procession. "You three just love finding new ways to surprise me. Okay. So the transforming weaponized pet of yours is a tracker huskra as well. Okay. This is fine."

The Path of the Faithful was a marvel of design, one which denied a person on it the reliability of orientation to rely on. Only by looking to the central suspended chamber or the teleportation pad at the base of the Path could someone regain their bearings, and even that did them no good when they stared into the miasma of the pathways. A crafty or insightful traveler might try to make a map, or leave a trail so they could retrace their steps.

Fina had read the old stories, though. The tricks that might have worked in mazes elsewhere in the Old World had never worked here on the Path. More than one explorer had failed when they relied on such parlor tricks, like Ferranzano the Sly or Domis Khee. And yet when Orpheel had brought his dying daughter onto the Path in the hopes of seeing her restored to full health, he had found the Sanctum seconds after his little girl had breathed his last. Unlike all the others, Orpheel's request had been granted, and his daughter lived and grew to become one of the greatest composers of his age.

Fina was a priestess of the Silver Shrine, self-trained through tome-bound study and hearsay and secondhand accounts. She had accomplished everything that the Elders had put before her up to the moment that they had sent her below. It was why she had been given Cupil. It was why she was trusted with the secrets of the Path. It was a Truth in her existence, and she had so few of those left.

They were perhaps a third of the way through the Path of the Faithful when that Truth was shattered. A Guardian automachia and a half dozen Hunter-Seekers manifested on the pathway ahead of them in the silver swirling light of an emergency teleport. Their targeting beams activated, taking aim for her three companions.

Vyse barely had time to shout out a warning before the shooting started.


If not for their experiences in fighting the drones in the city of Glacia, it all could have gone so much worse than it did. They all scattered and avoided the mortal wounds the machines had been aiming to inflict, but the heat of the thin particle beams still seared the air around Fina, even though none of the robotic defenders were aiming at her.

"Damn!" Gilder swore. He pulled out his pistols and unloaded both of their shots into the nearest buzzing Hunter-Seeker lining up for another shot. The heavy metal slugs tore through the thin armor of the drone and set it sparking and spinning out of control, falling away from them before it blew apart from an instability of its power core. Fina sent up a Pyrum flare that scattered the rest for Gilder to pick off, which left Aika and Vyse free to deal with the biggest threat on the board. A Guardian was built to be menacing and immovable, and Fina expected it would take all of them to bring it down. She'd never fought one herself.

When she turned to aid Aika and Vyse, she found them harried, but not as intimidated as one might expect for facing a robot half again as large as a person's average height. In fact, as Vyse ducked and weaved beneath the heavy-armed swings of the Guardian, she caught what might have been a grin. A fierce one.

"This one's got a bit more spirit than that busted up one on Shrine Island!" Aika shouted out, clipping the side of its head with her Bluheim-forged boomerang enough to knock it back a step and ruin its targeting beam.

"You've fought one of these before?" Fina cried out. "And lived?!"

"It was in pretty bad shape, but yeah." Vyse replied, grunting as he hurled a condensed blue arc of spiritual energy that crashed over the robot's cannon arm and cut through the top layer of armor plating to make the interior throw off sparks. It countered with a flurry of smaller shots from the fingertips of its other arm which Vyse hurriedly defended against. One got past his double-bladed guard and made him yelp when it burned his forearm. "Aika's right about this one having some more fight in it!"

Fina closed her eyes and centered herself, then drew on her power. As strong as she'd become, it was the work of moments to pull up enough spiritual energy to fuel a Lunar Blessing and throw it over them all, a faint silver glow settling over their auras. The regeneration would be enough to repair glancing blows, and that was all she was really concerned about, now that she knew Aika and Vyse had some skill in dealing with these things.

That still left the main problem of why in blazes the Silver Shrine's automated defenses had kicked in.

"Cupil!" Fina shouted, and her pet jetted over to her side, chirping curiously. "Signal broadcast!" The transmorph squeaked an affirmative and its tail thickened, then broadened out into a miniature transmitter dish. "Command override, Zeta-Delta-Four-Nine-Upsilon!"

There was a low and thrumming pulse, and the surviving Hunter-Seekers and the damaged, but still functional Guardian all went still. A few seconds passed with the other three warily watching and waiting before a hidden external speaker on the Guardian crackled to life.

"Priestess Fina. There are foreign and unauthorized life forms on the Path of the Faithful, and the automachia reacted as programmed. Would you care to explain why you issued a station-wide security system shutdown, and why you are acting in defense of said unauthorized life forms?"

Elder Cross, Fina huffed. The man was cold and abrasive on a good day, near robotic in his mannerisms. During her youth, she'd interacted with him rarely, and every time she did so he'd never failed to put her on edge.

"They are my allies from Arcadia. They are my friends. I trust them with my life and more besides." Fina said, trying to keep her voice steady. Becoming emotional would do no good with Elder Cross, he was infuriatingly immune to the tactics that Elder Prime had often conceded to. "They are no threat to me, or to any of you."

"You are young and inexperienced. You think you are capable of such a judgment?" The gravelly voice of the wizened Elder questioned her.

"Considering that you sent me on an impossible task out of desperation with no assistance and they were willing to help me when nobody else rationally would?" Fina snapped back. Damnit, her irritation was swelling, but she hadn't come all this way to get Gilder and her lovers shot at. "Disable the automated security. On my authority as the only Priestess of the Silver Shrine, I vouch for their conduct. We need to speak to the full council of Elders. All of us."

The Hunter-Seekers hummed as they hovered on standby, and Fina kept the Guardian in her peripheral view as she watched the three surviving drones for any sign of re-activation and aggression. Long seconds ticked by with everyone wondering if the cease-fire would hold.

"Very well." Cross said mechanically. The drones and the Guardian disappeared in shimmers of silver light, leaving the pathways open again. The Elder's voice seemed to echo in from all around them on the Path of the Faithful. "We shall be waiting in the Sanctum for you and...your acquaintances to make your report. I have fully deactivated station security, they will not be attacked again. Proceed."

Fina let go of the breath she'd been holding and nodded. "Thank you." She tapped the surface of Cupil's skin and her pet shifted back into standard form, moving back to the front of their small formation.

"Well. That was a heck of a warm welcome." Gilder grunted, reaching for his belt pouches to reload his pistols. "Nice to know you can shut them down."

"Nice to know that they didn't cancel out my permissions while I was gone." Fina answered, shaking her head.

"Who was that talking to you?" Vyse asked, stowing his blades and exhaling when they hit home in their scabbards.

"One of the Elders. His name is Cross." Fina rubbed at her forehead. "The seven Elders are the leaders of our people, and...And. Well. Aside from Ramirez and myself, they're the only Silvites still living."

"You're kidding." Aika blurted out as they started walking again. "Seven Elders and...that's it? What happened to everyone else?" She waved a hand behind them towards the still visible teleporter pad at the base of the Path. "There were dozens of those doorways like the one that led to your room!"

"Rooms that are all empty." Fina shook her head. "I told you. I never knew my parents. Aside from the Elders, Ramirez was the only person I knew growing up."

Vyse gave that reminder of her life before she stumbled into theirs a few seconds to percolate before he spoke again. "So. These Elders. Can you give us a rundown?"

"Elders Helos, Halos, Cross, Stout, Orbis, Lennis, and Prime." Fina rattled off their names, moving faster now, forcing Cupil to glide along at a more brisk pace to match. "They're all very old, and aside from Lennis, they're all men." She thought about things before exhaling. "It's probably best if I talk first, Vyse. They may not react well to...well. You heard what Cross said."

"Cross is a bastard." Aika snorted. "Are they all like that?"

"No." Fina said, shaking her head, trying to project confidence. "They aren't."

She hoped.


Great Silver Shrine

The Sanctum (Chamber Of The Elders)

She was no stranger to the Sanctum. The Elders hadn't seen fit to bring her before them often, but they had done so close to half a dozen times. The last had been a year and change ago, but after they passed the threshold and emerged into the space and breathed the air which tasted just a little bit different than anywhere else in the Shrine did, Fina found herself remembering the others.

From the first, when Ramirez had tugged at her hand and led her along the Path of the Faithful when she'd just been four years old and hid behind his legs in their presence. The second time, when she'd been six and Elder Prime had actually come down from where the others hovered to tell her of her sacred duty of becoming a Priestess. The time where she had stood as witness when they charged Ramirez with locating and securing the Moon Crystals.

Two months after that, when they brought her before them to announce his status as Missing In Action, presumed lost.

The Sanctum smelled the same now as it had then. The sterilized and filtered air of the Shrine but with stale puffs of moonblossom oil that came from hidden infusers. It was a scent that only existed here and there was a historical reason for it, something about how moonblossoms were a plant used in incense burners in the Old World by the Silver Sages. All Fina knew was that the smell stung her nostrils a little and never failed to make her heart beat a little faster.

The Elders had already gathered, hovering within their transmission frames and watching at a distance. They wouldn't manifest in the Sanctum unless they needed to, they rarely ever had. None of them had particularly welcoming expressions, but there also, they never had. Come to think of it, Helos and Halos had the same looks on their faces that they had a year ago, which Fina had always marked up as 'disinterested.'

She recognized the looks for what they were now. None of them spoke, they waited in silence and stared at the four of them. At her. Judging. It was Elder Prime who spoke first, and Fina was glad for that. Of all the Elders, he was the one she was closest to.

"The prodigal daughter returns." Prime mused, floating out of his transmission frame but staying elevated above the party. "Elder Cross informed us that we had additional visitors. Unsanctioned...but vouchsafed by you." His smile was flat, but he at least made an effort at it unlike so many of the others. That had meant a great deal when she'd been younger. "Who are these...friends of yours?

Fina's introductions came out woodenly, and Gilder bowed slightly. Aika just folded her arms and Vyse gave a nod of his head, smiling a bit when she added that he was a captain of the Blue Rogues, which she further qualified to the Elders by declaring their purpose as a resistance movement to Valua's imperial ambitions. That was easy. Elder Prime gave them all a slight bow as well, the whole of the hovering machinery that encased his withered body creaking a bit at the dip.

"I am surprised that you went against our advice on trusting anyone, but I have known you the span of your lifetime, Fina." Prime went on. "For them to be here means that their assistance in your mission must have been valuable."

"I would not have lasted a day if not for Vyse and Aika." Fina argued. "I wasn't ready for what you'd asked of me."

Prime's ancient shoulders creaked inside his preservation suit as they shrugged, a motion which the legless suit mimicked. The dichotomy of an internal body and a machine acting as one was off-putting to the unprepared as Gilder shivered a little from the sight. "There was nobody else left who we could send."

Her irritation flared up. Who was left here on the Shrine but the Elders and herself, after they'd sent and lost Ramirez? Why hadn't one of them gone to recover the ancient relics instead?!

"Regardless." Elder Orbis chimed in, moving away from the diversion. "Your return is welcomed, as it means you must have been successful in your mission. We did detect several Gigas activations while we were monitoring the surface...and one very spectacular explosion in the Yellow Lands from Yeligar's destruction. Please produce the Moon Crystals for us."

Fina breathed. She would not sound weak or apologetic. She had done the job. "I cannot." She told them, shaking her head. "We had retrieved all five of the other Moon Crystals, but we were attacked, our home was destroyed. The Moon Crystals were taken."

"You lost them to the Yellow descendants?" Elder Lennis demanded. The old woman's eyebrows tipped up as her eyes went wide, and Fina balled up her fists.

"No. We lost them to Ramirez. Who's working with Valua."

She'd been expecting them to start talking over each other at that, and the silence as the Elders shared looks between their transmission frames was a little off-putting. And maddening.

"Didn't you hear me?!" Fina blurted out. "I just told you that your precious warrior turned on us! He took the Moon Crystals and he's giving them to Valua and they're going to try and conquer the world with them! They'll wage war on all of Arcadia and the heavens will summon the Rains of Destruction to punish them, just like they did to the Old World!"

Elder Prime said nothing, he just floated back a few widths while the look on his face grew more troubled. Elder Cross shook his head. "No. He would not betray us. He knows how important the Plan is."

Fina's anger sputtered out fast at his words. It spilled over and melted into confusion far too quickly. "Plan? What in the hell are you talking about?"

"You are not authorized for that information." Elder Stout tried to argue, but Fina started to feel sick and dizzy. And confused.

"What plan?" She repeated, taking a step towards the transmission frame which Elder Cross floated behind. "Answer me! What? PLAN?!"


Her heart thundered in her chest and her head hurt as all the different thoughts and fears and memories whirled inside of it. Nearly all of them were of Ramirez. Things he'd said to her. Things about him she'd heard secondhand.

I can no longer trust in humanity. From now on, I will only believe in strength.

The Elders were all silent, turning their heads towards each other in silent congress. Nobody spoke up.

The Elders long ago gave up any claim to wisdom.

But they were...They were…

You were lied to.

"ANSWER ME!" Fina screamed. "Damn it, I tried! Ramirez is with the enemy! What in the hell do you mean, PLAN? We have to save the world, and we can't do it if you've been keeping secre…"

"Incorrect." Elder Halos cut in, his voice buzzing with mechanical undertones because of his more extensive preservation suit that made him little more than a floating head on constant life support. "Your statement is incorrect. There is no saving the world. That was not your purpose."

Ask the Elders.

Fina stared as all those voices went suddenly, painfully still. "You're lying." She got out, a faint whisper. "You - you sent me to retrieve the Moon Crystals, because if Valua got their hands on them and used their power, then the heavens would…"

She needed to retrieve the Moon Crystals to keep the world safe. They needed them to prevent the Rains of Destruction. Right? What did Halos mean, there is no saving the world?

The Elders just stared back at her, all but stone statues for their lack of reaction. Fina trembled in place, startled when a hand pressed against her back.

"Breathe, Princess." Aika told her, and some of the dizziness faded when she did so. The Elder's eyes fixed on them even further. Elder Prime floated down to their level and away from the boundary of his transmission frame, mustering another one of his smiles that she knew from experience was his effort at being reassuring.

"Perhaps, Fina, it would be best if you shared your experiences with us. From the beginning."

Sure. That would be easy, right? To just sum up a year's worth of pain and triumph and love in a nice, neat little package that the Elders would understand. It wasn't as though her brain was screaming about what all they'd kept hidden from her. It wasn't as though she was…

When secrets give way...hold fast to your truths.

"The day that I came down from the Silver Shrine into the part of Mid-Ocean that the Arcadians call the Silver Sea, I didn't know what I might find. I wasn't expecting to be found. But the Valuan Armada had a ship patrolling in the area, waiting for me. Almost like they knew I was coming. Given that I found out short days later that Ramirez was working as the right hand of Valua's leading admiral, that's not a terribly farfetched possibility. I would have been their prisoner, tortured for the information and the secrets I had in my head if Vyse and Aika hadn't led the charge to rescue me. They had nothing to gain from it. They'd already seen their friends and family captured and hurt, their home burned to the ground for helping me." Aika and Vyse came up and flanked her, taking her hands. She smiled at them and continued. "The very first thing they did was save me when they knew nothing about me or my mission. And after I told them, they pledged to do all in their power to help me, so Valua would not win."

"You were instructed to trust no one. To tell no one." Elder Lennis declared. "And at the first, you broke that order."

"Uh, no." Vyse cut in tersely. "She didn't tell my father a damn thing after the first rescue. She thanked us and was polite but she kept her secrets. It was only after we got her and everyone else from the Albatross out of the Grand Fortress alive and in one piece that she came clean. You should be grateful that she did. If Fina had tried going it alone, she would have never been able to succeed."

"She was given one of our skyships, the very same craft that you all used to arrive here." Elder Helos added.

Fina shook her head. "My ship spent the better part of this past year resting at the bottom of the Abyss, resting half-buried in a mudslide on the undersky mountain range beneath the Great Vortex."

"You didn't." Elder Orbis blurted out, and there was something...Fearful, in how he spoke. "How did you survive?"

Fina huffed. "Because I had friends. Because we didn't retrieve it alone." Orbis was still staring at her, his mouth hanging open in shock. She'd never seen him shocked before. She was tired of dancing to their tune, though. Time to finish it. "You told me, roughly, where to find the Moon Crystals. Rixis. Pyrynn. The Great Seal. The lands under the Blue Moon...Glacia."

Glacia. Another 'bag of worms' as some of the crew liked to say about complicated things.

Daughter of Ruin…

You think the people of the Silver Moon saints and heroes? You think you are Innocent? You know nothing, little girl.

Fina swallowed. "But all the information on the Old World...it was incomplete. Nothing in any of the historical records I studied said anything about any of our people returning to the world after the Rains of Destruction fell. Yet in Rixis we found a monument erected by the mages of the Silver Civilization who stayed to repair the damage Grendel had caused, and I know that they went other places too. They stayed and intermarried and helped. There is a pharmacist in the Blue Rogues I call my Uncle, because the blood of our people beats in him." She paused, and for once she didn't feel like flinching. She felt sick and angry, and she looked back at all of them with accusation. "How could so many of our people go unaccounted for in our historical record?"

"We knew of them." Elder Lennis shook her head. "Their existence was not necessary to your mission. That data was irrelevant."

Not necessary? Irrelevant?!

"Like telling me the truth was irrelevant? Like me not knowing about this Plan of yours was irrelevant?" Fina demanded hotly. Again, she was met with nothing but their silence.

Moons, it hurt. She shut her eyes. "Why did you send me?" She asked them, softer than her angry words of before. "Leave out that we were succeeding. Leave out everything else about how I'm glad that I went, how I found people to care about and who cared for me in turn. I was a Priestess, not a trained warrior. You sent me with outdated knowledge and no preparations, no means of succeeding or getting by in Arcadia. Why did you send me, instead of going yourselves?"

"We cannot leave." Elder Prime told her. "To set foot outside of our home would kill us like a puppet's strings being cut. You were all we had left, although it was not what we had intended for you. It was not part of the Plan."

She was beginning to hate hearing that word. It set her on edge, left her fearful, and she kept her eyes closed. "What aren't you telling me?"

Elder Prime's sigh seemed mechanical and forced, as if done in afterthought. "Tell us of Ramirez. We must know why he has turned against us. Against the Plan."

Fina slammed a fist into the side of her leg. "Tell me what I want to know. Tell me why you kept so many secrets from me!"

"It was not your purpose." Prime deflected. It was the last straw.

"FUCK my purpose!" Fina howled back at the man who was the closest thing to family that she had left. A man who lied to her now.

Who must have always been lying to her. But how much? And how badly, her heart cried out.

"Fina…" Prime tried to speak again. It took everything she had not to snap at him again.

"A trade." She forced the words out. "I tell you about Ramirez. You tell us the truth, about this Plan, about the Silvites..." About me.

Prime almost looked heartbroken then, and that was surprising. "What is learned cannot be unlearned." Fina stared, and Prime bowed his head. "Very well, Priestess. We will tell you. Ramirez first."

She swallowed. "Ramirez was...rescued by the Valuans. By an admiral named Mendosa. I don't know what he was thinking. I don't know if he lived with them because he was investigating them on his own, or because there was no other way. He saw corruption and greed, and snapped, and Mendosa died. His daughters survived while separated, and 7 years later, he was the right-hand man of Galcian, the leader of Valua's military. Ramirez is their sixth Admiral now, loyal to Galcian beyond any measure, and Galcian...he's led a coup. Our friend and ally is the exiled prince of Valua and he's gone home to warn them, but we don't know if they'll listen. We tried to stop Ramirez. I...He shook off my Eternum spell like it was nothing. The Moon Crystals are his now. So stop prevaricating. What is this Plan you're all so obsessed about? What did Halos mean when he said that there was no saving the world? How can we stop Ramirez and Galcian and their forces from using the Moon Crystals? You're the Elders! You know more about technology and mysticism, and the Truth than anyone else living! They have five of the Moon Crystals, enough to shake the world and the heavens and make star-blessed divinity summon down the Rains! So give us a solution!"

Elder Prime shook his head as Fina gulped down shuddering breaths. "Oh, child. You're wrong. He and his new master Galcian do not have five Moon Crystals. They have all six."

Someone gasped. Fina knew it wasn't her because her mouth wasn't moving, and she had gone completely still.

"What do you mean, all six?" Vyse demanded lowly. Elder Prime's withered hand moved within the confines of his preservation suit and touched his chest and the silvery robe that covered it.

A powerful, silver-colored gleam burned to life above his heart, and when it glowed, it caused something in Fina's chest to react with warmth and light as well. She looked down to the diamond cutout of her Silvite dress and saw the same glow. Around them from all the transmission frames came the same light. With only a glance, Fina screamed in her head at the impossibility. At the truth. At what shouldn't be and yet was.

It was the light of the Silver Moon Crystal...inside of him. And her. In all of the Silvites.

"Vocal communication is inefficient." Elder Lennis stated, cruelly indifferent to her blanking thoughts. "Authorize bio-digital uplink?"

Chimes of affirmative responses rang out from the other transmission frames, the other Elders. Elder Prime shook his head, but conceded to the motion. "As the Council wishes."

Vyse and Aika squeezed her hands tight. "What are they doing?" Aika asked her fearfully. "Fina?"

Fina knew what was coming. She had experienced it before, when the Elders wanted to save time and thought educating her about something from digital books alone was insufficient. For the first time in her life, she was afraid of it. She dreaded it.

The voice of the disembodied Glacian spirits trapped in the ice rang in her mind and drowned out Aika's words as the world went white.

No pain we could inflict on you would be greater than what you will do to yourself when you learn the truth.


The Hall of Knowledge (Silver Shrine Bio-Synaptic Database Aggregator)

The Hall of Knowledge glowed with streaming lines of silver light that blazed trails across a background of blue and violet walls. At least, that was how Fina perceived it. In truth, she and the others weren't actually 'here' at all, this was nothing but a construct that linked their conscious minds - and the Silver Shrine's database.

In this space, one wasn't confined by physical limitations. Though Fina had found that her avatar took on the form of her perceived self, she'd learned to fly around in past encounters.

Gilder was doing it on his first try, and unintentionally at that if the croggled look on his face was anything to go by. Vyse and Aika, startled by the sudden shift, stayed on the ground and latched on to her.

Even in an artificial space, she took their presence and let it ground her, and tried to offer her own reassurance. "It's all right. We're not really here, this isn't a room. We're merely linked together right now."

"Linked?" Vyse repeated, struggling to comprehend. He hit on a possibility. "Like - like when we're all tied together and charging the Moonstone Cannon on the Delphinus?"

"No, not quite." Fina shook her head, because that was magic, and this was pure technology. "It's safe."

Elder Prime's avatar appeared close to them, still as ancient as ever but without the heavy machinery of his preservation suit. Out of it and in this place, the absence of all that extra metal and tubing made him seem far more approachable. It did nothing for the empty feeling that came from his eyes. Everything flashed again, as the Elder used his administrator privileges to take over the Hall of Knowledge and force a vision.

Nothing here was real, or could harm her, and yet Fina felt her heart flutter and race, her stomach turn. She had wanted to know.

She wasn't ready. It didn't matter. The Hall of Knowledge disappeared, they disappeared, and in the darkness that replaced it came the glow of six familiar colors. Moon Crystals that revolved around an invisible axis, congruent to each other in hexagonal position.

"The Moon Crystals. Each Civilization of the Old World made one. Ours was unique as the magic commanded by our Sages and Priestesses. Life and Death, the fullness of total restoration and the oblivion of a painless end. We found that its physical form could be divided, and so we did, giving a shard to each trusted Silvian to keep secret and safe, away from the prying eyes of the other Civilizations that began to covet and fear the power held by their neighbors."

The other Crystals faded, and the Silver Moon Crystal split apart into fractals that fell like raindrops onto a sea of humans. Silvians, Fina realized, and in each of their chests lay a pinpoint of light.

"We were surprised to learn that each shard of our Moon Crystal somehow carried as much resonance as the full artifact, and we linked it to our study and focus of silver magic; All or Nothing. The part, made whole. When the world's frictions grew, we counseled patience and diplomacy. When they built their terrible living weapons, the Gigas, we tried to contribute to the lessening of tensions. We were not sure who acted first, or what minor skirmish caused such offense. The other Civilizations were merely looking for an excuse. They declared war on each other, on us, and we withdrew to our own continent, a technological marvel of a continent repurposed and rebuilt from the bedrock up. Our home of Soltis became our sanctuary."

Another image flashed into existence, an entire continent covered in gleaming silver spires that was manufactured and controlled. A land Fina had never seen before, and felt dizzy staring at.

A land that made Vyse swear and utter faintly, "I know that land. I've seen it. I…"

Elder Prime kept on with the same steady cadence, not bothered in the least as Vyse's epiphany.

"The Gigas Wars raged for years, growing worse and worse as the Civilizations ravaged each other and themselves. We tried to keep clear of it. We declared ourselves neutral and we lived separated from the rest of the world. They would not stop, and soon, we realized this. They would not stop until all the others, Soltis and the Silver Civilization included, were all dead at their feet. It would not matter that they would be masters of a pile of ashes. Something had to be done. Something was done."

Among the flashes of war and the lightning-quick images of Recumen and Grendel and Plergoth and Bluheim and Yeligar fighting each other and hosts of terrible ships commanded by their peoples, a different image took central dominance. When the fires had finished flaring, a circle of hooded Silvians, the ancestors of Fina's people, stood gathered around their largest manufacturing forge. Their power and their focus linked together with their strongest machines as they channeled up a Working of unfathomable power.

"We looked on the other Civilizations and found them wanting. To bring an end to the Gigas Wars, to bring peace to the world, our greatest minds came together to make a Gigas unlike any other. Its power would be absolute, for Death was absolute. We named it Zelos, and it did its job perfectly. That is why Elder Helos corrected you, Fina. Our goal is not to save the world. It was beyond saving then, it is beyond saving now. We sent Zelos out into the world and it used its absolute power as we had intended. It brought death and lasting peace to the troubled world, washing it clean of the lives and sins of the vermin that plagued it."

No. No, Fina felt the scream bubbling up in her again as she watched Zelos, the Silver Gigas, cast a beam of light up to the sky that spread out in every direction as it circled the globe. A beam of light that struck every one of the Moons. From the Moons came a rainstorm of flaming rocks. A hailstorm of absolute and unflinching death and oblivion. She knew what it was. She'd known ever since she was a girl what the Rains of Destruction had looked like.

She had not known. She had not known. The Rains of Destruction. They had lied. They'd lied to her all of her life. She had been taught that they were sent by the heavens as divine punishment.

It had been no punishment. It had been the final strike in a pointless war. It had been a summary and unilateral judgment handed down with no chance of appeal.

Oh, Moons.

"There were survivors, but their ability to wage war had been taken away." Prime went on. Images flashed of the Green Civilization's settlements atop the mountains in ruins, while the fumes of the burning rainforest in the valleys beneath them sent up clouds of soot and ash to choke the survivors with poisonous fumes. The ancient walls of the Blue Civilization that had once stood so proud and unbreakable had been torn to rubble, entire swaths of it crumbling away foundation-first into the depths of the Abyss. Vast swaths of the Red Civilization's semi-fertile lowlands had been blasted to glass, and nothing would ever grow there again. It would become arid desert, as the centuries passed by. Fina felt nauseous as she saw the Temple of Pyrynn on its edge in the shadow of the mountains, and realized she'd seen that desert.

"There was...disagreement." Prime said. "The Silver Civilization, the Silvians as the others had called us, had long been neutral in the world's affairs. Two dissenting opinions emerged in the aftermath of the final strike. Many of us, tired of the world's poisonous rot, wished to retreat and leave it behind to burn and collapse. Through the power of the Silver Moon and our technology, we had at last attained the long-aspired dream of immortality. It was meant to be a blessing given to our most intelligent minds, our wisest souls. Others in the world of more covetous hearts had sought to conquer us and take immortality's secrets for themselves. Surely, if we left and led a more isolated and ascetic life, we would be better off. That was the first opinion, and I was among that number. The second group, Silvians who had traveled and lived in the world and spent more time outside of the peace and tranquility of Soltis than inside of it, argued differently. They claimed that we had broken the world, and it was our duty to put it back to rights."

Fina saw it, in stills and in badly degraded digital video clips, files copied and viewed so many times that errors had piled up in them. Their ancestors, arguing in grand forums. Pictures of Silvians who fell to their knees, hands over their mouths as they cried at the horrors they had unleashed. Silvians who stood next to others, people from other lands. Survivors. Men and women who held hands as they demanded action. Not for vengeance. For change. For healing.

Opposing them were hundreds of Sages and councilors, the Immortals and the Elders with blank faces and emotionless stares. The stone-hearted against the wild-hearted.

"Soltis...fractured. We could not reconcile our differences. Each refused to follow the will of the other, and so we divided. Those who stayed in the ruins of the Old World would try and help the survivors rebuild, live on, and those who would shun the world and the darkness that came from the hearts of mankind. In only one thing were the two sides agreed on -the Gigas had to be put away. The ones who stayed would see to the others. Zelos, we caged in the heart of Soltis and chained in slumber. To prevent anyone from ever using it lightly, the power of all six Moon Crystals was brought together to form the Silver Seal, and the Moon Crystals were scattered, sent away to be hidden so that their power would not be coveted. The greed they inspired in the hearts of men could not be allowed to return."

There came a great migration away from Soltis. The last standing continental stronghold of the Old World powered down, and the Silvians left it. The ones who remained, the ones who would imprison the Gigas and create the Great Seal over the Maw of Tartas and the mural of remembrance above the ruins of Rixis left in ships like Fina's or in ships of other designs, scattering to the winds like seeds.

The Elders, the Sages, the Immortals...the ones who left the world of Arcadia to its fate and sought isolation marched into the Great Silver Shrine and detached it from the central spire of Soltis, rising away from their homeland. When they left, Soltis descended beneath the clouds, causing a mighty disturbance that made the thick blanket of moisture-rich storm between the Lower Sky and the Deep Sky shake and tremble. Only a single pillar from the Outer Districts did not descend, its mechanism somehow shorting out and keeping it aloft while the rest of the continent disappeared. That tower, that scrap of land it was embedded in became weathered and overgrown by the wilderness until Shrine Island was recognizable years later, a marker of what once had been.

"Soltis, and Zelos, we sank beneath the clouds where only we could reach. Our world-seeking cousins left to bind their fate to the survivors of the Old World, and we of the Silver Shrine made our way to orbit to fulfill our role. We would watch, detached and separate, maintaining our vigil. And so we did, watching as the world rebuilt itself and new life washed away the scars of the Rains from the land. We watched as the survivors walked away from the ruins and rebuilt. We watched as high technology went forgotten and the people of Arcadia struggled to live their lives. We watched as the people began to grow things, build things again. We watched as rough settlements took shape, and then larger ones, and then finally cities, pale imitations of what was, but civilization nonetheless. We watched and we studied and we waited. And we worried as they took to the skies once more, venturing further and further away from their patches of land." The images disappeared and Fina found herself in the Sanctum.

...But not. For this too, was an image, a memory. One of the Elders gathered together and speaking to each other, making plans. Coming to resolution.

"We saw and foretold it all happening again. The rebuilt world turning to rot and ruin, the same familiar sins rising up as trouble brewed between two great kingdoms, skirmishes in ever-increasing frequency between ships made of wood, and then wrought metal. Ships that grew larger and deadlier. Whatever purpose our Millennia-separated kin had tried to achieve must have failed. We passed judgment on the world and found it wanting, again. But we could not go, we could not leave, for our immortality carried a price. We would need some other means of carrying out our mission, so we took the last of the shards of the Silver Moon Crystal in our possession and set to work. We needed them to create life from nothing - to make them strong."

Frozen, fertilized embyros. A genetic library of life that Fina had never known about, stored aboard the Silver Shrine, meant to be used in repopulating Arcadia with flora and fauna but never touched. The two shards, inserted into the zygotes that would become a male and a female. That did, growing from a single fertilized cell and gestating…

Gestating, not in the womb of a living woman, but in a machine, kept alive by the shard of Crystal that both existed and did not and fed that potential into them.

She had asked the Elders about who her parents were so many times. Always, some form of deflection. Some imprecise and vague answer that never truly satisfied. She had never known her parents, had not known a mother or a father. Because she had none.

She saw the fetuses grow side by side in tubes as variants of Hunter-Seeker drones patrolled and monitored. She saw them reach the age of birth in living humans, saw them gestate for three months further before they were pulled out.

Ramirez and Fina...the last two Silvites. Or the first two.

"The Plan." Elder Prime went on unbothered as someone screamed faintly and her ears rang. "The world needed to be cleansed again. Zelos, and Soltis, were needed. Our kin thought living among the lesser humans was the solution. They were wrong. We had thought living apart from them and removing the temptation of the Moon Crystals was the solution, and we were wrong. We would reset the world, remove the contaminated specimens, and repopulate with Silvites alone. We made two Silvites who would be the forebears of the new race. Ramirez, the Seeker. And you, Fina, Priestess and Oracle. Ramirez was taught of the Plan, of his role. You would be given the gift of ignorance. He would go below to Arcadia, gather the five missing Moon Crystals, then fly to Soltis on his ship. With the five made six, Soltis would rise, Zelos would awaken and bring the Rains of Destruction."

Fina saw it all happen, Soltis rising, the sphere of Zelos take to the air and blast the Moons with his power. Watched as the Rains of Destruction came again and destroyed all the places and all the people that she had learned to appreciate, to cherish, to love. She felt like she was drowning, she heard the screaming grow louder still.

"The world would be reset, we would bring peace and order to it at last. That was the Plan."

All at once, Fina found herself back in the space of the Hall of Knowledge, felt Vyse and Aika grab at her and hold her and try to say something that she could not hear. She saw Gilder watched with a shocked, pale face full of horror.

The Hall of Knowledge turned to light as Elder Prime exited them from the shared space of their interlinked minds…

She found herself in the chilly, sterilized air of the Sanctum at last. The shock, the truth of the Plan, the return of so many sensations...

Fina fell to her knees and threw up.


"FINA!"

An arm across her chest, one on her back, two around her face keeping her veil and her hair held back. She threw up again and again, unable to stop the emesis, choking on the acrid smell as she gasped for air. She hated that smell, but for once, didn't care. Lies. Everything, all of it, lies. She thought she'd been ready to learn the truth.

She'd been wrong. She'd been so, so wrong.

"What is learned cannot be unlearned." Elder Prime said again. The last scrap from her stomach was coughed out onto the floor into the rest of the puddle.

"You caused the Rains of Destruction." Vyse ground the words out. "You miserable bastards."

The Elders had told her that the Silver Civilization had stayed out of the wars, that their piety had spared them from the wrath of the heavens. They had lied. The Elders had told her that the Silver Civilization was the only one not to forge a Gigas. They had lied.

"We do not expect you to understand, young one. You are mortal, bound by mortal concerns, mortal thoughts, mortal feelings." Elder Cross dismissed Vyse's outrage.

"All this time," Fina heard Aika snap at them, even as she stroked back her hair and Fina fought off the trembling in her gut. "All this time we've been trying to save the world, and you...Damnit, don't you feel the least bit guilty? Aren't you the least bit conflicted?!"

"We feel nothing." Elder Stout declared, blinking twice.

"How in the hell can you say that?" Gilder shouted, a presence more distant than her two lovers, but no less felt.

"We are Immortal. We do not age. We do not die. We do not feel hunger, or pain. We do not feel. Our thoughts are pure." Elder Lennis explained.

"You aren't human, then." Vyse spat at them. "Because anyone who could come up with that as a plan…"

"We surpassed the human condition long ago, child." Elder Halos cut him off. "We are more. We are better. We are the Enlightened. There are none more worthy to guide the world you call Arcadia to an age of peace and enlightenment."

Her stomach hurt, and she was crying, and Fina felt so cold even as Aika held her tight. Again, she thought of the words of the Glacian people, disembodied minds trapped in a computer.

We remember how to feel. We remember joy and sorrow. We remember pride...and regret. We dare not forget them. Or we would be as heartless as…

As the Silvites, Fina filled in the missing blank. What the old woman's presence had said after she had euthanized Plergoth welled up also.

Maybe you are different from the other Silver people, Priestess. You still have a heart.

"Fi? Babe?" Aika whispered worriedly. "Come on. Talk to me."

She shook her head. What could she say? All this time, all this time she had been gathering the Moon Crystals to try and save the world. Her people wanted to destroy it. And Ramirez…

And after…

"It is clear that Ramirez has taken matters into his own hands."

"Can you stop him?" Vyse demanded. "To hell with your Plan. To hell with all of your lies. He's going for Soltis! The Valuans have been building an elevator off of Dangral Island. We thought they were going after Fina's ship so that they could make a run for your home and the Silver Moon Crystal. But it was never made for her ship. It was for Soltis. Ramirez knows where it is, and he's going to bring it up and give it, and your precious Gigas, to Galcian!"

Elder Orbis gravely shook his head. "No. We are bound to the Silver Shrine. Ramirez was meant to be our agent. Without the Moon Crystals, we cannot proceed."

The help that Fina had hoped for...nonexistent.

"Considering you were going to annihilate all life on Arcadia and try to start over?" Vyse snorted. "I'm not losing sleep over it. But you didn't think your plan through. You said you put the last two Crystal shards you had into Ramirez and Fina. That you couldn't…" He paused, sorting the word out, "grow new Silvites without them." He sounded repelled by it, and Fina whimpered, which made Aika hug her even tighter. "So how in blazes were you going to repopulate the world with your people?"

Fina knew. She knew, and she was sickened by it, and she couldn't say it. Didn't want to say it. It was repulsive, and the thought of it…

"In Fina." Elder Prime declared. "Artificial wombs require a shard to sustain a developing fetus. But in a living host, the fertilized embryos could grow normally. She is genetically and mentally predisposed for it. We ensured this." She watched mutely, numbly, as the eldest of the Elders looked at her. "Your role was not to go below and search for the Crystals. Your survival was paramount to the Plan. We sent you when there was no other option."

"Did you ever ask her?" Aika's question came hot and ready, and her palms pressed in flat over Fina's abdomen, where… "You heartless monsters, did you ever ask her if she wanted that?!"

"Irrelevant." Elder Orbis shook his head. "It was what she was made for." Fina whimpered and ducked her head, and Vyse was there in a heartbeat, holding her and Aika in his broad arms, kissing her forehead. She didn't feel the warmth of him or Aika like she usually did.

She felt so cold, cold and used.

What she was made for.

"Fuck your Plan." Vyse bit the words out. "Fuck your Plan, fuck this Shrine. And Fuck You. Fina was the only good thing that ever came from here and you were going to treat her like, like some kind of…" He must have been jerking his head around, he was shaking.

No. No, that was her that was shaking like a leaf. Aika and Vyse were just trying to hold her steady.

"Her place is with us." Aika declared, a tremble clashing with her fury. "We're taking her away from here. We're taking her back home. You don't love her. You don't know how to love, or to care. You say you're immortal, but all I see are a bunch of old people that gave up everything worth living for and turned themselves into heartless machines. Even the Glacians cared more than you do."

If the Elders reacted, Fina didn't see it. She was spiraling, lost.

"Fina. Please. Please, say something. We're here. We're right here." Vyse pleaded with her, his outrage at the Elders and their heartless machinations dying so quickly when it came to her welfare.

They weren't. They couldn't be. How could they ever look at her again, when she was a monster? Everything she'd done, everything…

Lies…

Lies...

When secrets give way, hold fast to your truths.

What truths? Her people weren't conquerors, they weren't saviors. Enlightened only in that they did not care enough to hate or rage. Could not, because they'd lost the ability to feel, to empathize, to value others whose lives they saw as shorter and less than their own. The Elders who she believed had cared for her in some way...she'd never been anything more to them than a pawn. A priestess of the Silver Shrine second, a womb to be used up and exhausted for their repopulation first.

They had used Ramirez, had told him everything, and he had broken and turned on them, turned on their Plan. At least, the part concerning the Silvites. He seemed to have no qualms about handing over Soltis and Zelos (Another lie, the Silver Civilization had made a Gigas when she had been told they hadn't) to the Valuans. To Galcian, who now acted independently of Valua.

Ask the Elders, Ramirez had said as Crescent Island had burned around them.

"Fina, please." Aika begged her. Fina shook her head. She didn't deserve them. She was the pawn of genocidal monsters asked to find the Moon Crystals so they could start all over again. How could they ever love her, knowing what she was? What she had so unwittingly almost done?

The moment hung heavy as she opened her eyes again, wiped away the tears. She saw Gilder standing protectively close by, hands on his pistols that still hung in his belt. She saw Vyse stand up, hands close to his waist and doing the same.

She saw Elder Prime rise up above them out of reach, looking down at them all and the others lingering in their transmission frames sizing up the situation. Would it all come to blows?

None of them were expecting the teleportation pad to power up and admit someone else, and perhaps that was why there was no immediate reaction. They all could do nothing but stare in horror as Ramirez himself manifested in their midst.

"Ramirez?" Elder Prime invoked his name. "What are…"

Fina couldn't breathe as the man she had once looked up to as an older brother turned and stared at her. His mouth tightened as he held his already drawn sword and nodded. "So. You know the Truth now. Did they share only a part, or…"

He was cut off as Gilder roared and opened fire, filling the air with slugs of spiritual energy that forced him to dodge and deflect, and Aika followed it up with a cyclonic blast of fire that kept him on his toes while Vyse raced in.

Right before their swords could clash, Ramirez vanished. Vyse struck empty air and whirled around, eyes wild with rage. "Where is he?!" He shouted. "How did that bastard get up here?"

Elder Cross jerked his head to the side and frowned as a holoscreen popped up in front of his eyes. "Second skyship now registering at the docks. Reactivating internal sec…" The Elder paused, breathed. "Impossible. We're locked out."

"Not impossible." Ramirez taunted them, his voice echoing from the speakers inside of the Sanctum. He reappeared in a flash behind Vyse, and the Blue Rogue only just managed to raise his swords in time. Ramirez smirked. "I never lost my ship. I just hid it away. And thank you for disabling internal security for Fina. It made my job of shutting it down permanently so much easier." Vyse snarled and slashed at him, and Ramirez blinked away again.

"He's...The Genetic Database, it's…" Elder Cross went on, sounding lost and for once, panicked.

"Dispatch fire control drones!" Elder Halos ordered. "Those are separate from the security protocols!"

"Your Plan was folly from the beginning. You put all your faith in two children, one that you told everything to, and one you told nothing to." Ramirez hissed from the speakers.

Elder Prime hovered out into the open air in the center of the Sanctum. "You would hand the power of Zelos over to a kingdom who burns the world for their ambitions?"

"You would slaughter everyone in the world below for yours, Prime." Ramirez countered. "Oh, I agree that Soltis must rise, and the Rains of Destruction must fall again. I serve a new master now, though. One who uses his power with far greater discrimination, and who doesn't send his loyal subordinates to die."

"Like Hell we're letting you destroy the world for Galcian's twisted ambitions!" Vyse roared, his cutlasses shining with power. Ramirez laughed dismissively, and the Elders spun around in their transmission frames.

"The fire control drones are reporting in, the damage is…" Lennis blurted out, and Ramirez cut her off.

"How does it feel, Fina? To finally learn the Truth?" Ramirez asked her. It was meant to be a taunt but it didn't sound like one. He sounded resigned. "In the end, we were nothing but tools to these seven undying relics. You were meant to be nothing but a baby factory until you gave out. They would have had you gestating two, even three children at a time. They even promised me that I would be given the chance to put one or two in you myself, live with you. I figured out that was a lie once I reached the surface and realized that to break the lock on Zelos, I would have to remove my own shard of the Silver Moon Crystal. Which would kill me. I suppose that they thought I wouldn't find that out until it was too late."

Fina sobbed. Let this end, she thought. She had nothing left to give, she felt empty and stripped to the bone.

"Ramirez, please. Don't do this." She begged him, stepping back away from Vyse and Aika and spinning as fast as her aching head and her burning stomach would allow. "Don't give them to Galcian. Don't give them to the Elders. What's the point? What's the point of any of this now? Please!"

A pause.

"I am sorry, Fina." Ramirez finally said, the madness gone from him entirely, leaving only bone-deep weariness. "But I can't stop here. I've come too far and sacrificed too much."

"Why are you here?" Elder Prime demanded, turning in a circle as he hovered, watching every dark corner of the Sanctum like he expected Ramirez to jump out of it. "You have ruined everything. You have all you need if you plan on taking Soltis for yourself and causing the Rains of Destruction to fall again. Your presence here serves no purpose other than rubbing salt in the wound."

When Ramirez manifested again, it was directly behind Elder Prime. His gleaming blade slashed into the lower antigrav unit of Prime's preservation suit and he jerked it upwards in a shower of sparks that must have severed the primary mechanocortex uplink node, because the entire assembly that held Prime aloft shuddered and went limp. It, and Prime, and Ramirez, came crashing to the ground.

While Prime gasped from the crash, Ramirez pinned the man's true body down with the weight of his own and kept his sword raised high for a killing strike.

Fire blazed in Ramirez's eyes. "I still need a Silver Moon Crystal shard to unlock Zelos. And I'm rather attached to mine."

Fina stared in dawning horror as Ramirez turned and looked up at the rest of them. He was going to kill Elder Prime, kill him and tear the Crystal shard from his body. Of all the shocks she'd felt, there was still room to feel the horror of that coming act.

Vyse yelled, and he and Aika and Gilder charged towards Ramirez to either make him quit his barbarous act of murder or make him pay for it dearly.

Ramirez raised his free hand and a burst of light exploded out from his palm, blinding everyone including Fina, who let out a cry and raised her arms up to shield her eyes from the flare.

No. No, not like this. Ramirez could do more than kill Elder Prime if they were all blinded. Not Gilder. Not Aika, and not Vyse!

"No, don't! Ramirez, d -" She blurted out, and choked on the word when something punched her in the back and stole the air from her lungs. A near blinding pain from her chest came a second later as she wheezed, and something tore inside of her.

When the light died down and she blinked the stars from her eyes, Fina looked down. She saw Ramirez's sword jutting through her, a gleaming pinpoint of light coated in torn flesh and viscera glowing at the tip. Fina followed the blade back to what she'd spent a moment disbelieving. He'd stabbed her through the heart from behind, his sword aimed perfectly. Blood welled up through the cutout of her dress where the sword had passed, soaking into the fabric and turning it red. His free hand reached around her for the gleaming point of light at the end of his sword, taking it.

Taking her own shard of the Silver Moon Crystal that he'd ripped out of her.

She felt so cold.

"Rest now, Fina." He whispered in her ear as she gasped for air that wouldn't come and felt darkness overtake her sight. The last thing she saw was Vyse and Aika, stricken, coming up to their feet and shouting for her.

She only heard Ramirez. "Compared to what the Elders had planned for you...this is a mercy." His fingers closed around her shard and blocked out the light, and he jerked his sword back out of her.

When secrets give way, hold fast to your truths.

What truths? They had all been torn away from her. Fina slumped to the ground on her side, hearing Vyse and Aika scream her name like she was underwater, like she was drowning. She was so cold. She was so tired. She was the daughter of monsters...she was a monster, not born, but made.

You still have a heart, the Glacian woman had said. Maybe once. Not anymore. The Elders had crushed it. Ramirez had torn it out of her.

The darkness closed in, and Fina let death take her.


Author's Note: Hearts are easily broken, and not so easily repaired.

Happy Valentine's Day.