Episode 2 | The Everlight Protocol

The fire salamander reared back on its hind legs, jaw unhinged with an ear-splitting shriek. Flame and smoke spewed from its nostrils, thermal flux clotting and distorting the air around it. Its shimmering black skin cracked, exhaling gas that smelled of rotten eggs. It barred obsidian teeth at them, spindled toes sharpened to hooks and cut into the overhang of roofs on either side of the alley.

It was a formidable creature during a heatwave, and it was not alone. Shingles broke and slid from the roofs as dozens of fire salamanders emerged, frills of flesh flapping aggressively as they hissed and snapped. These were smaller, no bigger than a cat or young child, but Hael’s unit of knights, now huddled and guarding each other’s backs, were outnumbered.

The accursed heatdome pressing down on Cystirin fed these beasts a banquet of stagnant radiation. As they gorged, they swelled, growing to impossible sizes and wielding flux with a disturbing amount of accuracy. Sun Prayers, they were called. Fire devourers.

Pain in my ass, thought Hael, unsheathing his lunar blade.

Hael’s unit spent the last three hours addressing thermal-based magical anomalies throughout Cystirin. The report noted that this situation was a low priority. Little more than a few rogue lizards terrorizing a bakery in Cerulean Alley. Clearly, somewhere, wires had been crossed, and miscommunications abounded. Not that Hael minded. All day, his thoughts kept wandering back to the mission, meticulously scouring every detail of their plan for unforeseen obstacles. Unease sank into his gut, twisting and relentlessly warning. Hunting down the magical anomalies gave him a task—a distraction that kept him vigilant and light on his feet. Rooted in the now.

It’s reasonable to care, Erde reminded for the millionth time. It’s normal to feel conflicted.

Not helping, Hael internally reminded her for the millionth time.

“We need to have a talk with the Science Division about the accuracy of their reports,” Silas grumbled, shifting from one leg to the other. “Small infestation my ass.”

“The report listed it as low priority.” Oryn inched back, breath unsteady. His eyes flicked between the threats. Assessing them. The energy of his flux barrier grew taut, woven so tightly around him that it became armor. “They’re normally small enough to fit in your hand.”

“Size has nothing to do with it!” Silas barked. “Rats are tiny enough, but I sure as hell wouldn’t want to face off with dozens of them.”

“Don’t tell me—” Oberon flashed him a toothy grin. One of his canines was missing. “—you’re afraid of rats.”

Hael smacked them both on the back of their heads. “Fear or not, we hold steady. With no complaints, understood?” His green eyes snapped to Oryn and narrowed. He pulled the Knight Scholar forward by the strap of his messenger bag. “And focus. Control your breathing. Stabilize the flow of flux, then expand the barrier to encapsulate the four of us. We finish this quickly.”

“Screw the shield,” Oberon growled over his shoulder. He raised his water-blessed axes, a sprawling of sigils encircling his wrist. “Let’s dash ‘em and slash ‘em right here n’ now.”

“Always so violent, brute.” With a flourish of Silas’ hand, a thin vortex of air encircled them, gathering strength. His ash blond hair whipped around his face in frenzy, a cat-like smirk of amusement matching a spark of mischief in his eyes. His voice was melodious, so light that each word was carried by the wind itself. “But perhaps, it’ll be fun for a change.”

Oberon puffed himself up, towering over them all.  A giant by Arborian standards. He earned the nickname of ‘Armored Bear’ with his grizzly, hulking build and large, roughened hands that could crush skulls. Unlike the others, his navy tunic was adorned in pieces of bronze armor, fitted to the bulk of his body. He wore his uniform like he’d been born in it, like he planned on dying in it.

He punched Silas in the shoulder, but the Knight Mage didn’t budge an inch. He raised an eyebrow as if to say you truly have a death wish. And perhaps Silas­­­ meant to verbalize his indignation, but Oberon wouldn’t dare give him the opportunity.

“My axes. Your aere. Astraeus’ lunar steel. What a perfect storm of carnage.” Oberon grinned, nodding his head. Then he hiked his thumb back at Oryn. “I doubt the Knight Scholar will be useful. No offense to him, but he’ll only be in the way. Look at him, he’s losing color!”

“Let us leave the expression of opinions to those of higher intellect,” Hael said loudly, nostrils flaring. The air in the alley went cold as he rubbed his temple.  “You are paid to plant your ax where I point, Oberon, not to speak frivolously on subjects above your talents.”

Oberon grunted in response, fists clenching his axes.

Oryn wiped sweat from his face his arm, fingers still locked in a steeple that held a rippling barrier around him. Sunset bent over his head, making the flush of his cheeks and glow of his golden eyes brighter than before. “He…isn’t wrong, sir. His words seem harsh but there’s truth in them. I am a liability. We knight scholars know nothing of prolonged battle. Our wars are with history and building barriers—”

Hael’s sword swung out, stopping just under Oryn’s chin. It glowed like moonlight, a haze of cold mist rising from its steel—a whisper from drawing blood. He faced the Knight Scholar, his grip on the hilt so hard that the metal bent inward. His starlight flux churned, burning his veins. Emotions stirred it, awakened it with sharp clarity.

A liability? The truth? What the hell did Oryn Thalas know about the truth? Hael’s instincts raged, demanded a softer approach, and his hand trembled slightly. But Hael needed Oryn to remember the lesson of this moment. To stop bowing his head in foolishness to fools and make them recognize his value. Everything—everyone—had a value. Once Hael’s mission concluded on Arboros tonight, the Knight Scholar’s life would depend on just how valuable he ranked himself among his people.

“If you were truly a liability, you would have been dead already. I would have spared you the suffering, and the Starward Legion would have spared itself the embarrassment. You are a tool, Thalas, and tools must serve their purpose. If I wanted a massacre, I would send Oberon. If I wanted an assassination, I would send Silas. But if I wanted an interrogation or extraction, I would send you.”  Hael exhaled, using his breath to slow the flow of flux burning through him. “And right now, we need to catch the salamanders—not kill them, Oberon—and you are the only one who can construct barriers. I do not care how pretty they are; they need only work. Do you understand your value now?”

Oryn swallowed hard and pushed the blade away from his face. His barrier thickened, protecting his flesh from the bite of the lunar steel. “Yes, sir. Loud and—”

A sudden flicker of light pulsed through the haze–their only warning.

Hael and Oryn barely had time to dodge it, darting to opposite sides of the street as a ball of fire hurled at them. It struck one of the sculptures lining the road–a grossly exaggerated figure of Knight Commander Hendril Opal–decapitating it.

The head landed several feet away between them, half its face smashed. Oryn stared at it, as if imagining a scenario in which it had been one of their heads. Oberon whistled in appreciation, laughing like a lunatic. Silas appeared beside him, as if conjured out of air, arms crossed.

Now it is a more accurate depiction, Erde mused, voice ebbing in the back of Hael’s mind. It just needs to blow off a few inches of his…

Erde! Hael bit the message back to her, running two fingers down his long blade. Intricate sigils glowed faintly, and the steel grew cold in his grip. Filter, please.

His starlight flux surged again, a rush of light from the center of his being. But it died at the tips of his fingers, coaxed back by the flow of breath Hael slowly drew in and out through gritted teeth.

Hael’s magic was not ideal for this situation. Its thermal energy could cook or cool the space around him, but the rate was difficult to control. The math did not always line up when it came to starlight. And it could be deadly, especially for humans in proximity. Cruel as his mission with the Dread Knights would be, it was not their intent to needlessly kill to make their point. Hael valued life, even though it meant that he had to sometimes take it.

But nor was starlight flux allowed. The Starward Legion classified him as an Illume—a type of flux channeler with the ability to produce and bend light. It took considerable amounts of biohacking and energy to hide the true nature of his magic from them. Because he had to fit into his role as Knight Marshall. Because he had to fit into his role as Knight Marshall. Because his starlight flux didn’t exist in the eyes of the Astral Veil. Not anymore.

Starlight magic was extinct. It was a bygone legend of the Ethereal Blessed–those who evolved to use the magics of the Esin. Magic no longer worked like that.

Old magic was cruel. Oppressive. Dangerous.

New magic was altruistic. Restricted. Safe.

Illume could be controlled by their dampeners; the starlight flux could not. And the fear it would elicit—the cruel curiosity of the Science Division that Hael was intimately familiar with—would have ruined his mission before it truly began.

Luckily, Hael knew blacksmiths with the ability to imbue weapons with certain elemental flux for times like these. A convenience he had taken for granted and will sorely miss. Frost and blue light snaked from the edges of his blade, as if it could sense the thermal monsters all around them. And it craved a little heat. 

“Let us be done with this,” Hael instructed, unclasping his cape and throwing it out of the way. He locked eyes with the Knight Scholar across from him. Oryn pressed against the wall, green cloak scorched and smoking, hands clasped in front of him as if praying to disappear from the scene. The cyberware that ran from knuckles to elbows glinted with flux expulsion; his protective barrier sparked and snapped as it built energy, as it wove a plasmic sheath around him.

Radiation flooded his veins, traveled in a figure eight pathway through his heart to the rest of his body. Hael watched it bow and break within the Knight Scholar, like arcs of sunlight lashing out and retreating. A universe of magic rising and collapsing. All in a breath, radiation hummed and shimmered. With his unusual abilities, Hael could see it inside of him. Could track the flow of flux as it fueled Oryn’s Flux Arcana, wearing him down.

“Oryn.”

The Knight Scholar stiffened and bit down on his trembling lip. He lifted his head, shaking it to loosen the hold of exhaustion. “I’m ready when you are sir,” he said, breathless and smiling. His hammering heart drowned out the snarls of the salamanders inching closer.

 “Construct a one-way barrier. Expand it to this entire alley. Oberon and Silas, you take the rooftops. I will deal with the menace blocking our exit. Three, two—”

The fire salamander launched into the air, maw of obsidian teeth and magma. As if emboldened by their terrorist in arms, the other fire salamanders reared back, issuing shrieks that shattered streetlamps and shook the ground. Their bellies flickered with deadly promise, blue flames pouring out of their orifices. 

Oryn clapped his hands together, drawing the molecules around him in a protective web. He dropped down, slapping a hand on the ground. The barrier exploded outward in an iridescent dome, a flexible bubble stitched together by blazing sigils. It extended around the four of them, muffling all senses beyond its border. Though a frown now twisted his lips, Oryn’s golden eyes flashed and sharpened with concentration.

Hael lunged forward with his sword, breaking out of the barrier and swinging it in a wide arc as he spun around on his heel. Using the twist of his waist to fuel momentum, the tip of his blade caught the base of the fire salamander’s back. Its hind legs and tail froze in a flash, shattering when they hit the ground. The fire salamander screamed and skittered into the barrier, leaving a trail of molten goo across the cobbles. Maimed, but not dead.

Silas shifted with the wind and materialized on the roof to the right, brown eyes gleaming with unbridled amusement. Each step he took hovered just above the shingles, as if the Knight Mage walked on air alone. A sudden gale burst from behind him, rushing over the rooftop and roaring over the edge like a waterfall. Some fire salamanders clung to the shingles. Humming, he spun and kicked low, hard, bunting them into the barrier. He stood on the edge of the roof, leaning over just enough to give them a dismissive wave of goodbye.

Oberon swung his hydris-blessed axes, stunning the fire salamanders with a swift crack to their little heads. A surprisingly gentle approach for the violent Knight Guardian, who was notorious for breaking the rules for a little bloodshed and using his hydris flux to play with his victims.

Of course, the lack of clouds and nearby water had something to do with it, but any excuse would do. One fire salamander remained, staring up at the stout, muscular man wielding dual axes. It seemed to size him up, weighing the worth of a battle. It must have declined the match because, with a half-hearted hiss, it stepped off the roof and fell into the barrier.

“Coward,” Oberon barked, tucking his axes into his leather belt.

The barrier shrank down to a ball of crystal, hardening and frosting over. Oryn sealed it with an anchor–a flux-infused medallion that functioned as a lock–and tucked it into his bag with care. Then he exhaled, all the breath rushing out of him until he collapsed against the wall, where he squatted with his face in his hands. His shoulders shook.

Erde cawed from the rooftop above, lording over them all, a stream of praises silently soaring through the air and clogging Hael’s own thoughts. Remind me to adjust our link settings, Erde. He retrieved his cape and shook it out. “Pull yourself together, Oryn.”

“We broke him,” Silas surmised, toeing the Knight Scholar with his boot. He crouched, head tilted to the side, and poked Oryn’s head with an invisible finger of wind. Much like how a child prods a dead animal with a stick. Hael latched onto that light contact, tensing against all reason. “There, there, Thalas. No need to be ashamed. You wouldn’t be the first to cry after a skirmish.” He pushed the Knight Scholars’ head back to inspect the damage.

Only to find Oryn with his hands clasped over his mouth, laughing.

 “I…I take it back! The fire salamanders are not as cute as they advertise.”

Silas sat back, his fisted coughs sounding suspiciously like sniggering. And then Oberon howled, pulling the Knight Scholar to his feet. He pounded his back with reassuring slaps and dusting him off. Oryn’s eyes bulged and he struggled to extricate himself, but he smiled warmly at his comrades.

Hael eased back, releasing breath. He wiped off his blade, the sigils fading into the metal now reflecting a subtle smile. Pride. Contentment. Relief. He allowed himself to bask in the rush of emotions, to savor this sliver of joy shared between his knights. Knights who still knew of loyalty, of laughter, of doing the right things. Even if they could hardly agree on anything else.

“A mistake anyone could have made.” Oberon shrugged. He stroked his beard and held up two fingers, pinching the air. “I thought they were a little cute.”

“Unsurprising.” Silas rolled his eyes. “You’d love anything willing to burn you alive.”

“Perhaps it needs love to be a little less violent,” Oryn added thoughtfully.

“But of course,” Silas laughed drily, waving his hands in the air and rolling his eyes. “Nothing screams ‘love me’ and ‘adorable’ like arson and murder.”

“But they’re normally not violent—”

“Until a hapless busybody let them out of their cage.” Silas raised his brow, giving Oryn and Oberon a pointed look.

Oryn started. “It wasn’t me.”

“This time, you mean. It wasn’t you this time.”

“It weren’t him last time, either,” Oberon ruffled Oryn’s hair. Then hitched a proud thumb at himself. “That time it was me.”

A light-hearted fight broke out between the three of them. Oberon hooked an arm around Oryn’s shoulders, taunting Silas with a flash of tongue and a vulgar comment. He bent down and muttered something that made the twenty-year-old Knight Scholar blush, then tugged him away from Silas in mock horror. 

“You are foul, brute.”

“I thought he was quite creative.”

“Thank you, Thalas.”

“Astraeus, this mongrel is tainting the ears of the Knight Master’s son.”

Hael rolled his eyes, still polishing the edge of his sword until it shimmered in the dying glow of sunlight.

Shouldn’t you reprimand them?  Erde prompted. Reign them in before someone gets sucker punched. Again.

If they cannot handle each other, they have no business being in my unit.

Hael paused, chest growing tight. His unit. No, not his unit. Not after today. Yet, part of his mind snagged on the realization, couldn’t quite believe it. It was as if he’d forgotten it amid the monotony of missions or it was lost among the centuries of memories, which by now were a mix of perfectly assembled truths and lies.

Over the years, the faces changed, but the feelings remained the same: anxiety, resignation, betrayal, loneliness, regret, hope. He hoped the knights of this unit survived the night. Hoped the truth would free them enough to alter their destinies.

All will be well, Hael, Erde soothed. We’re doing the right thing. She fluttered down, perching on one of the headless sculptures.. This is the only way now.

I wish there was another way, Hael admitted, watching his unit of knights chase each other down the road. Both suns danced on the horizons now, one to the east and one to the west. Their shadows stretched long across the cobbles, giving them the appearance of umbral titans.  But there is not. We need to do this. This sky will break sooner or later. But better sooner than later. All we can do is see this through. Trust that they will make the right choice. For once.

I think people will surprise you, Erde thought, gazing down at his unit. If you give them the chance to prove themselves.

That is…yet to be seen.

Don’t confuse the citizens of Arboros for Emperor Vulcraith. They did not destroy your home, Hael.

No, they did not, Hael slid his sword back into its sheath, snapping it harder than intended.

Then what, in your heart, is their crime? Why are you so angry still?

No one remembers, Erde. Not the Emperor, the Oracles of Aisil, or the Dread Knights. They have all forgotten it. Only the Knight Scholars remember slivers of those days. Hael’s cloak hugged his back, wrapping around him in the balmy breeze, as his boots clicked quietly against the cobbles. The key lulled against his skin, cold and heavy as his heart. But even they have forgotten most of it.

 His unit faded in the distance, their bickerings bouncing between brick buildings. Wedrils scattered, flowers danced, and the sky, which had been unbearable hours before, was now a decadent crimson dotted with stars. A distortion of coloring caused by the plasmic veil.

You are not angry with them.

Hael’s steps faltered. Only a single shadow lagged, clinging to the blood red beams of light streaking the streets. Its steps were slow and aimless, as if waiting for the right path to branch out before it. As if any old path would do. As if divining its fate by the strands of bloodlight tangling with its steps. Then its face turned back, hands cupped over a foolish mouth that dared to taunt him.

“Hurry, sir! Last one to The Silver Chalice pays Oberon’s tab!”