Episode 3.5 | The Everlight Protocol

Rudvark Steeltalon was in a foul mood. “It took you long enough. Did you kiss your kid goodbye? Read a bedtime story? Tuck him in?” His pewter eyes blazed through a shroud of smoke, which snaked from a wooden pipe carved into the head of a direwolf. 

“He is not my child.” Hael crossed his arms, leaning against a shelve. It was hard to look severe between baskets of potatoes and bottles of cheap Eldenholly wine, but his scowl managed to pull it off. 

“Yet you behave as a father.”

“He reminds me of myself,” Hael admitted, waving his hand as he spelled it out. “Young and bright-eyed. Passionate about the Esin. Sensitive to the advice and criticisms of others. Unsure of himself. Always questioning everything.” That last part came out with an exasperated groan. “That is all.”

“Or a jealous lover of a kind–”

“Rudy!”

Steeltalon rolled his burly shoulders in a shrug, nodding. “We should bring him with us then. Given his inquisitive nature and knowledge of Esin history, he would be far more useful on Icariel than here.”

Hael stiffened, jaw working. “Absolutely not. No one touches him, Rudvark. Not a hair on his head. We leave him here.” The words were brusque and barbed.

“To be punished by his own people? I hate to tell you this, but that’s terrible parenting…”

“I am not his father.” Hael sighed. He reached over and stroked Erde’s metal feathers. It was entirely self-soothing, but still, she purred in delight. “We are not having this discussion again.”

“That’s not up to you—”

A wave of the hand silenced Steeltalon. Hael pushed away from the shelves, his face steeled against the old man’s insistences. “Then let me list rational reasons: his relationship with his father and the emperor alone would make it more trouble than it is worth. Everyone knows who Orynn Oryn is. There is not a place in this galaxy we could take him that would not draw attention. It would put a target on his back—and ours.” But what Hael didn’t say was: I am afraid that he would never forgive me for lying to him, using him, planning to leave him under the guise of ‘friend.’

“All I hear are your concerns for him. Don’t forget, Astraeus, that this mission concerns us. You have waited 819 years for this day, and we have waited alongside you.” Steeltalon reached out and grasped Hael’s shoulder, chuckling to himself and puffing his pipe. “You care for him. That is the Tenebris way. But the Dread Knights are of Icariel, and we only care about what we can use.”

“Then continue to use me.” Hael stepped forward. “Is that not enough?”

“It is, Astraeus. For now.” Steeltalon held out a hand and wiggled his fingers. “Go on, give it to me. Let’s get this over with.”

Hael fished the data frag out of his pocket and dropped it into the old man’s worn palm. “I was able to clone Evencrest’s tablet before the comms went down this morning. Security codes refresh every half hour, on the dot, and there are additional measures in place.”

Steeltalon inserted the data frag into a port in his arm. A silvery ring of light glowing in his eyes, indicating that he was viewing the files. “Such as?”

“After each series of security codes, internal systems do a sweep to ensure there are no dual access points into the system. Once you use a code, it will be able to sense this frag as a clone.”

Steeltalon cursed, tapping his pipe off the beam before stashing it away in his black and carbon-armored tunic. “That isn’t much time for everyone to get in and out, but we’ll find a way to make it work. This can access the entire Oribital Mirror Terminal?”

“Within Cystirin, yes. Every city is different, but if it were an issue…Griffin and Vettle…” 

“They would know by now.” Steeltalon nodded, removing the frag from his arm and slipping it into one of his hidden pockets. His eyes dimmed back to their normal hue, but they sparked with rebellious mischief. Wild and willing to take a risk. That’s exactly who Hael needed when they were about to blow up the Orbital Mirrors. Even if he wasn’t a fan of the aftermath—death, destruction, fear—Hael couldn’t deny that a little madness in the ranks was necessary to carry out a mission such as this. 

“For R-39,” Steeltalon said, voice rough as a growl. He grasped Hael’s left shoulder and pulled him close. Hael mirrored him in the movement. Then lower, he whispered, “For Icariel. For Tenebris.” Their brows touched, a sacred meeting and parting exchange of trust and vulnerability. It was the way of the people in both their worlds, forever linked, past and present. Erde purred in approval beside them, gold and green and glowing in the newly risen moonlight.

And it was when Hael was alone in the cellar that he allowed the memory to drift to the surface. His father had not died in a field, but in the city. In the very heart of Aurora Noctis, and at the side of the Lady of Eternal Night. And Hael had been there, peering out behind the grand doors of the Cathedral of Eternal Night. He watched as the Oriel Towers fell. 

As pale shadows—crying, screaming, fighting—were turned to smoke by waves of magic. As blades gleamed in the moonlight, humming with sigils and dripping with blood. And when the Orbital Mirrors shattered above the city, when the Lady of Eternal Night rushed out to offer herself as penance, that’s when his father came to him. He pressed the vial into Hael’s small palm, drawing him into a tight hug. He smelled of ash and blood and magic, but that isn’t what filled Hael with dread. It was the fear in his father’s eyes.

“Listen to me, Hael”, his father had whispered, pulling away just enough to look at him. He curled Hael’s fingers around the vial, holding their hands steady.

“This is your duty now. Take this vial, hide in the Vitae Sanctum. Shut down the Aethre. Take it completely offline. Then sleep. Until it is safe, stay out of sight.” His father rested his temple to Hael’s, tears streaking down his sooty face. “Promise me, when you emerge, you will activate the Everlight Protocol. That is the only way to avenge Tenebris, and to redeem Our Lady. Protect her with your life, Hael, for there is so little light left in this world…”

In the blink of an eye, his father was dead. The Lady of Eternal Night, obliterated. And Hael…

Things did not work out as his father had planned.

It’s time, Erde reminded, rustling her feathers and peering up at him, to make them remember. 

When the memory faded, drawn back into the oblivion of time that existed in his heart, Hael opened his eyes. He stared out at the calm waters of the Hund Sea lulling against the shore, the ache between his lungs slowly ebbing away. In the beginning, Hael lived only for the promise he made his father and for his belief in the Lady of Eternal Night. Then it was for the past he grieved, longest for, and wished to reclaim. And as the years went by, it was to protect and nurture the clans of Icariel, and to punish Arboros for their crimes and arrogance. 

Now, it was to send a wakeup call to R-39, who largely ignored the issue of the dying suns. Arboros believed in its technology and magic, and every ICC planet believed in Arboros. But with the past happily forgotten, it will get them killed in the end. Hael knew it with every cell in his body. The Dread Knights knew it too, which is why they got in bed with him. The world as they all knew it was ending, and after tonight, they would all remember the struggles of the past they killed to forget.

Hael and the Dread Knights would make sure of it.