Yuri didn't like the looks of things. As they neared the black tower, they found that it was hardly just that. It was a floating hunk of mountain and city twisted together in an horrid stone amalgamation, having risen up from what was once Aspio, leaving only a large carter in the Astefiellus Mountains.

Ba'ul didn't dare fly too close. None of them knew what the tower could be capable of and the prospect of finding out the hard way was not a scenario Yuri wanted to deal with. It was better that they got a look at it from a distance and calculated their moves from there, rather than rush straight into it. Whatever information they could get off of it from here would be of assistance when dealing with it later. Yuri had no doubts that Duke was there and that they were going to have to go there to stop him.

"Does Ba'ul notice anything strange about it that we don't?" Flynn asked Judith, who had been in nearly constant communication with her partner since the tower had come into sight.

"He said that there's a strange formula attached to it. It's something like a large blastia."

"But rather than running on the aer from krenes, it'll run off the life force of living creatures," Yuri added. It was just a hunch, but from the look on Judith and Flynn's faces, they believed that also.

"The spirits say that its very dangerous. Since we are protected by their power, we should have no problem, but it has already started to amass the life energy of people from all over Terca Lumireis," Estelle said, watching it cautiously. "We need to hurry. There's no telling how much time we have before finishes taking the energy it needs."

After a second of quickly spinning around the tower, they returned to the inn at Capua Nor and made further plans.

"We need to gather the world leaders," Flynn said. "We have to get them all to agree to meet at a designated place so that we can explain the situation and get a ruling on our plan."

"Raven, Karol, Repede, and I will go to Dahngrest. Hopefully Harry will be up to it," Yuri replied.

"Rita and I will go to Nordpolica. Natz shouldn't be a problem at all," Judith said.

"Then, Lady Estellise and I will return to Zaphias and speak with His Highness, Prince Ioder. Where will we hold this meeting? We need a place that is as neutral as possible." Finding such a place was a difficult task during times of war. Neutrality meant death, but it would serve them well now.

"What about Zaude?" Rita offered. "It's not owned by any one country."

"I thought it was crumbling into the sea," Yuri said.

"It's not in great shape, but there are no monsters and even though it's no longer working, it'll hold out for a little while. And it's as close to 'neutral' as we're going to get at a time like this."

"All right," Flynn said. "We'll split up for now. Let's agree to have the meeting take place in two days time at Zaude."

Zaphias hadn't changed much. People were trying to rebuild what they could, while still cautious of the monstrosity in the sky. It was slow going, but progress was progress.

Estellise had gone off to handle some affairs of her own and Flynn found his desk covered with reports from all across the world, a million kinds of trouble that his troops were having to deal with. But these would have to wait for his attention later. The current matter was much more pressing, and he went almost straight away to see Ioder.

"Have Palestralle and the Union agreed to send representatives as well?"

"I'm certain that as we speak, the others are getting their go ahead. We've chosen Zaude as a meeting place."

"How fitting that the place that was nearly the undoing of us all could be the place where we finally make peace." A small smile tugging at the corner of Ioder's mouth. "Does that mean that you have a plan for dealing with the Adephagos?"

"Yes. But we need everyone behind it."

"Are you going to tell me what it is now?"

"No, Your Highness." Flynn still had reservations about their hastily assembled plan. But it had to work. They were quickly running out of options. His biggest fear now, other than the end of the world at the tentacles of the Adephagos, was the reaction of the future Emperor himself. If even one of the three world powers decided not to get behind the plan, it could spell ruin for all of them. "We are still working out some of the details. We plan to inform all the parties concerned at the meeting in two days time."

"I see. Well, you have as much of my support as I can afford you."

"Thank you, Your Highness. We will be departing for Zaude at dawn the day after tomorrow."

Ioder nodded and dismissed him easily, leaving Flynn to return to the pile of reports at his desk.

It was still strange to think of this position without Sodia at his side. LeBlanc was faithful and well meaning and by the letter of the law, but it just wasn't the same. He felt that he could have trusted Sodia with anything, and he found himself on guard about LeBlanc. On all accounts, he was a dutiful knight with years of service underneath his belt, but it wasn't the same as someone who he had served very closely with. It wasn't the same and he was going to have to get over that.

The reports were worse than he anticipated, and he found himself going over them and working up solutions well into the night. LeBlanc did all he could to aid Flynn, but Sodia had been faster, more on the ball. She anticipated things. She was brilliant. She was also stripped of her rank and under house arrest for her attempted murder of Yuri.

Finally, they became too much, and he crawled into bed. They could wait until morning, until after a night in a bed that was his own, even though he still felt strange about the empty size of it all. They could wait until after a hot shower, and a meal the was too decadent for his tastes but still filled his belly. He still had one more day to get everything wrapped up. That was plenty of time to finish whatever was left. He could postpone a meeting with the Council and continue to issue orders.

There were a lot more orders to issue now that they were planning on sacrificing all the blastia. There would need to be soldiers in every city to keep the monsters at bay once the barriers went down. Official mages and engineers would need to be available to try and get vital systems running once more without the use of the power that they had relied so heavily upon. There would be chaos, but he would have to try to keep it under control, until the people understood what had to be done.

The bed was so cold and no other he asked for could have made it any less so. Far distant from those he had traveled with so closely, from warmth and human contact, from Yuri.

He shook that thought from his head as soon as it appeared. He still had the sword. The one that Yuri had left on his mantle, the one that had belonged to Flynn in his childhood. Its handle was still unwrapped, showing him once more the letters carved there years ago that reminded him that he need to talk to Yuri about it. But he hadn't found the time, or made the time. The prospect scared him. He didn't even know what Yuri was going to say about the sword and why he had it, and he wasn't sure he wanted to know. But the evidence was there, plain as day, plain as the threads, doubling in numbers quickly, that were connecting them.

Yuri was... Yuri was something that Flynn had trouble describing, and even more trouble contemplating. He was bold and brash, mischievous and reckless, strong and sarcastic. But he was more than that and it was that depth that surprised Flynn so. Yuri was thoughtful and sensitive, caring and kind, street-smart and wise. It didn't just surprise him. It scared him. Yuri wasn't what Flynn had initially labeled him at all. Guildsman. Criminal. Enemy. He was so much more.

And Flynn still wasn't sure exactly how he felt. There was still a strange sense of completeness. He wasn't sure that he remembered how he felt before he met Yuri, but it was nothing like this. Had his whole life before this been patches of unobtrusive grey bordered in strict black and white, suddenly brightened and colored by Yuri's prescence? He had never been so angry at someone or so worried for them as he had been for Yuri. He felt like he had never known what it was like to be attracted to someone, beyond the passing smile of a lovely young woman in the streets, but even that rarely turned his head and it wasn't the same. It was getting harder and harder to deny that the word he used, the word that he was trying so hard to not connect with Yuri, that wasn't the truth. What had his life been like before Yuri Lowell came into it and why hadn't it happened so much sooner?

Dahngrest still didn't feel like home. People seemed glad enough to see him, but it had changed. It was cold and unwelcoming and he wondered just when it was going to start feeling like home again.

His apartment was empty. He had half expected Kellas and Paulie and the baby to still be here, since there was some evidence that they had been, but Karol informed him that Kellas and the children had taken up residence in another of the apartments that Karan owned above her own bakery. He was hoping for some presence to distract him, but it wasn't going to be so. Karol and Raven had errands, and Yuri wanted to wait to do his. Maybe in his own bed he could get some sleep. And if he couldn't find sleep, maybe one of his 'sparkly friends' would be up for a toss of the sheets. But he wasn't much interested beyond the distraction that it would provide him.

Those thoughts were quickly squashed when Harry arrived, apparently having heard from Raven that Yuri needed to talk to him. And here he had hoped that the old man would have handled it since he was still a member of Altosk.

He let Harry in and they sat across from one another, on one sofa apiece as Yuri explained a bit of the situation. He didn't go into the plan. He only wanted to have to explain that once all the parties involved and let that be that.

"Meeting with the Empire and Palestralle..."

"Natz with Palestralle's a really level guy. If he harbors any ill will about what happened to Belius, he's never bared his fangs about it to me," Yuri explained, leaning back into the cushions. He wanted to save this for tomorrow. He just wanted to sleep.

"And what of the representative of the Empire?" Harry asked.

That thought made Yuri cringe. He didn't want to think about who that would be, but he already knew. "It'll probably be Ioder, the Imperial prince." He didn't know if there was anything good he could say about Ioder, considering the Yuri had found him to be two faced. He seemed to honestly trust and believe in Flynn, but he was shrewd and intelligent and where his ambitions lay further, Yuri didn't know.

"What's he like?"

Yuri wanted to say exactly how he felt about Ioder, that he was a two faced little creep, but he bit his tongue. There was no point impressing that on Harry before such an important meeting. "I don't know him all that well."

"Oh." Harry sighed, sinking down into himself and fidgeting with his hands. Of course he was nervous. This was going to be his first world meeting and it was going to be a very important one at that. But this could be the foundation of peace, of a world without war and without blastia. A world of justice. A world that Flynn would make.

He didn't want to think about Flynn right now, but it wasn't going to be that easy.

"It'll be fine. Just do that best that you can. That's all we're asking of you."

"Okay, Yuri."

It didn't take much longer for Yuri's desire to be alone forced him to send Harry away, seeming a little more hopeful and a little more helpful than previously. By that time, though, he was too tired to pursue any interests beyond his own bed, so to it he crawled, Repede in tow.

Yuri let the dog sleep with him. It was something that allowed him a least a little rest, as he knew that his partner would alert him without fail at the slightest hint of a threat, and that if he did so, it wasn't a threat to be taken lightly. He never had to worry about Repede barking at nothing or howling at all hours of the night. Repede was thoughtful and intelligent and the best partner that he could have asked for. And that usually made the ability to sleep come a little bit easier.

This particular night, though, Yuri tossed and turned, having Repede reply to his constant motion and restlessness with grumpy noises from in his throat. He just couldn't get comfortable, even in his own bed.

Finally, Repede gave him a sloppy lick on the face and laid his head down on Yuri's stomach. If Yuri persisted, the dog would continue to inch onto him until Yuri was unable to move beneath his weight. So he laid his head back into the pillows and stared up the ceiling with the hope that sleep would fill his eyes and he could rest.

There were still so many questions that he had and answers that he didn't. None of them could be found in books or the wisdom of a hundred sages. They were questions that Yuri could hardly define, about subjects that he knew nothing about, ground in truths that he didn't know, and that was infuriating. And somehow, his mind always came back to Flynn.

Where was he now? At his desk with a stack of papers, burning the candle at both ends, or perhaps having long ago crawled into his own bed where sleep came easily in the soft sheets afforded to the Commandant. Was he in meeting with the prince that made Yuri's skin crawl, or with the Council that didn't make him feel much better? Was he somewhere out there, devising his next move, or simply reflecting? Could Flynn have been out there thinking about him?

He shook that off. Wondering about Flynn's feelings were too much to bother with when he still didn't have much control or understanding over his own. And why should he care about how Flynn felt? It didn't matter anyway. There were a million more important things that should have occupied Yuri's thoughts. It wasn't like he liked Flynn being around. It wasn't like Flynn had somehow worked his way into Yuri's thoughts and stirred uncomfortable things up in his chest. It wasn't like Ioder's words had worried him, had convinced him that his own dirtied hands could only stain Flynn. It wasn't like all the strange connections that were cropping up between them were any more than coincidences. It's wasn't like he-

No. He buried that thought. Just no.