A/N: Right! BEFORE you start reading the chapter, go onto your usual music streaming service and search for "Listen To Your Heart" – the SLOW version – by DHT (ft Edmee, but it should come up if you search "dht listen to your heart slow"). Play it as you read the chapter. Trust me...Let me know if emotion is evoked. ~ Mika

Some years after Chapter 41, "What Sorrow..."

It was a beautiful Spring day, but Damas was directly in the middle of a trance in a dark room and Rufas was out for the day at a friend's house. The Sage had a quiet day in the house all to himself and he was going to enjoy it. Sara and their brood were also exploiting the day and had travelled to the coast for the day. Damas, who was not the biggest solar enthusiast owing to his high tendency to turn red rather than brown (as opposed to his sister and father) chose to meditate; to try and make contact with the other side and search for Rapace. He could not do this in bright light, so when he and Sara had moved in together after a shotgun wedding two years ago, they had chosen it carefully, blocking off the windows in one selected and well-thought-out room.

The other side was not a place one wanted to remain. It was perennially misty and one could not distinguish floor from atmosphere; not to mention if one remained too long, they were forever lost. Damas spent many long hours concentrating in an attempt to reach this place since his sister and son died. He supposed it was a way of grieving. He did not know of his missing father's status, but kept it in mind to search for him.

He felt his body convulse and his vision shrouded in white. He realised that he was there; he had entered the spirit world.

"Rapace?" he called, his voice echoing dramatically. "Jakuelynn?" He blinked, swallowing before calling out the final name. "Father?"

The calls rang out unanswered. He remained in the same spot he had entered, sighing, wondering if he was ever going to make contact. He decided that he would give ten minutes and if nobody appeared, he would end his meditative state.

"Father?" a voice answered.

He straightened up. "Rapace? Is that you?"

"Damas, you can't stay here..." his dead son's Dark-Eco-wrecked voice croaked at him. The boy appeared into view, skeletal with skin ashen-grey, eyes completely bloodshot and streaked with purple. Contusions covered what exposed skin he had and he was hunched over in pain.

He looked exactly the same in death as he'd done in the last six months of life, body wasting, consumed by Dark Eco.

The Sage's heart both broke and lifted at seeing his lost son again. "R-Rapace..."

"Damas, go back!" Rapace lifted a hand, breath rattling in his lungs. "You must go back. You need to get away from here before it's too late and you're stuck here."

Where have I heard that previously, Damas thought. Locking eyes with his son, he drew a deep breath, tone softening.

"I just wanted to see you, Rapace. Is that too much to ask?"

His dead son's face also softened into something akin to devastation and he ran to his father, crashing into his arms and locking his own as tightly as he could around the older man, emotion pouring from his eyes and mouth. Damas' own eyes were warm with tears as he held Rapace tightly for the first time in two years.

"I'm sorry, Father..."

"I'm sorry too, Rapace." He stroked the young man's head. "I could not save you from my Darkness, nor stop you from inheriting it."

Rapace said nothing in response to this, just held his father for a long time. Eventually, he released the older man, pushing him away a little.

Damas creased his brow. "Rapace..."

"I...I gotta go, Dad." A lopsided smile. "But...appreciate what you have. You could lose it in a heartbeat."

Without another word, he turned and walked away from the Sage, who stretched out a hand after his son.

"Rapace! Rapace, come back..."

He felt the real world pull him back.

"Rapace, have you seen Jak?"

~x~

"Uh!"

Damas shook his head, in shock as he was pulled out of his trance to the sounds of the doorbell ringing. Still stunned by being pulled back into the real world, he pushed himself up to his feet and ran downstairs to answer the door.

He opened it to two armour-clad Freedom Leaguers, who bowed as they saw him.

"Your Highness..."

"Yes?" Damas said faintly, frowning in confusion, not flinching from his title as his sister. "What is it?"

Both soldiers looked very uncomfortable. "It's about your family..."

The Sage felt his spine freeze, panic forming in his gut. "What? What's happened?"

"There's been an accident," the one on the right explained. "One involving your family...Their Zoomer collided with another at high speed, causing it to explode. I'm sorry..."

A roaring began in Damas' ears and he gripped onto the door for support. As the Leaguer spoke, the roaring got more and more intense, numb feeling washing throughout his body.

"...there was only one survivor from the collision,"

The former racer's heart lifted a little. "W-was it any of my family?"

The Leaguers looked at each other. "No. I'm sorry, but none of them survived the explosion. The driver from the other Zoomer survived long enough to tell us what had happened..."

His throat dried. "They're all...g-gone? All of them? Even S-Sara?"

The Leaguers nodded, unable to say any more for fear their words would barb him. Damas, however, felt a series of agonising pains rip through him as his soul was shredded with the news, even as his numb mind denied it.

"Where are they?"

"If you come with us, we'll be able to take you straight to them,"

~x~

It cannot be...

The mortician peeled back the sheet to reveal the cold, calm, burned, bloodied and beautiful face of his wife. The Sage drew his cloak about him, body shaking from both the crippling emotion and icy cold as he cautiously approached the gurney, bending down over her and placing his hands either side of her face. Foreheads meeting, he kissed hers and squeezed his eyes shut as tears built behind them.

"Oh, Sara," he whispered, unconsciously slipping into Allabinan. "I should have come with you. I shouldn't h-have let you go alone today..." A few salt drops leaked out from his tightly-closed lids, dripping onto her unresponsive face, freezing almost instantly. Deciding now was the time to stop before he collapsed into an emotional mess, he planted a tender kiss on her forehead and lifted the sheet back over her, moving onto his too-still children, including his and Sara's two-year old daughter Almara.

My babies...All gone.

After an emotional half-hour, he trudged back to the police car, silent and sullen all the way home. When he got to his empty house, the second the door slammed shut behind him, he unleashed his Dark side, exorcising the anger and grief that had built up inside him these last few hours. When he was finished, claws retracted, covered in blood, the house was utterly destroyed, his breathing heavy.

Suddenly, a voice.

"Uncle Damas?"

He closed his eyes briefly and turned, opening them to see the black-violets of his nephew. His sole remaining family member.

"Rufas..."

"Where is everyone?" The boy was hesitant in speech, but he was learning, and quickly at that too. As well as English, he was learning Allabinan, something Damas reckoned would aid with international relations.

"They...they've gone to the P-Precursors," Damas stammered, emotion getting the better of him. "Rufas...they're gone...they're not coming back. Do you know what this means?"

The little boy's face ran the spectrum of emotion as he processed this news. His tongue seemed to lie thick and heavy in his mouth as he finally spoke, much like the first time. "I'm...going to be King?"

Damas nodded, tears spilling down his cheeks. "You are," he choked. "You are now the heir to the Spargan-Sandover thrones. Nobody can take that away from you, neither I nor any corrupt Council."

The young heir incumbent opened and shut his mouth for a long time, not knowing what to say as his broken uncle straightened up and walked away, shoulders hunched in grief.

Swallowing, he ran to his room, sitting on his bed for a long time, not knowing what to do or say, curled up and stared at the opposite wall, numbness covering him as night covered Sandover City like a spangled blanket.

I'm going to be...King? But...

Where's my family going?

He bowed his head, staring at the duvet beneath him for a long, long time as tears escaped from his eyes.