"I think you will set yourself afire before you realise that even you cannot conquer the sun [...] (I do not believe we shall ever see how old age looks on you. You are breaking my heart.)"

―e.h.

"So, we turn around?" Zeke asked.

Hadrian looked to Raina. She sighed through her nose and swiped at the grime on her face, drawing his eye to the bullet embedded in the metal of her vambrace.

"Alright, I know what to do," she said. She touched Hadrian's shoulder gently. "You clear the rooms with me. Zeke's got our six."

"We're not leaving?" Zeke whispered.

"No."

Hadrian pursed his lips, already going through his list of excuses for when he got out and the humans didn't.

Raina tapped her sword against the side of her boot and started walking.

Magic whispered along the shell of Hadrian's ear, tempting him to swipe at it. Not anywhere near dangerous yet, but it played off the emotions of the prisoners below, making him nervy.

He knew the rooms Raina painstakingly examined were empty. He pretended to make sure that the rooms to the right were empty, while she took the left side. They looked like they used to be work rooms, with tables and chairs and closets.

It was taking too long. Whatever the trap was, they were in more danger the longer they stayed. Hadrian yanked a pair of nails from the wall as he made up his mind, shoving them in his pocket.

He and Raina met in the middle, where Hadrian tapped the tip of his index on her elbow, just enough to catch her attention.

"They're on the lower levels."

"How do you know?"

His head gave a little pound of irritation. "Later."

"What?"

"I will tell you later. Right now, we need to get in and out as soon as possible," he enunciated carefully. Raina's brow furrowed as she scowled.

"Don't talk to me like I'm an idiot." She glanced to Zeke, who turned around. He shrugged.

"I mean, he's here for a reason," he said, rather uselessly.

Raina glowered at him, her angular features taking a wrathful cast, much like Lin. "Fine."

Hadrian nodded. His muscles tensed as she stormed past both him and Zeke towards the staircase. If Zeke wanted to say something to him, Hadrian didn't want to hear it. He sped after Raina with stiff strides, a bit quieter than he meant to.

Raina gasped and jumped the last five steps.

The before-last levels were almost completely open in a cargo bay. More likely than not, it was used for large containers before the floods.

People, groups of them by the dozen, were crouched along the floor. The thick smell of waste and sweat filled the air like a fog, sending Zeke reeling back behind Raina and Hadrian.

"Help me," Raina said.

Hadrian eyed the array of humans. Not a single guard among them.

He worked his jaw and followed Raina down, watching as she brought her sword down on the chains keeping people tied to loops on the floor.

There were 32 people still breathing. 39 dead.

Magic curled around his wrist, lapping at the center of his palm. Help them. Free them.

He scratched the urge away and knelt beside a duo of little girls. He didn't look either of them in the eye as he picked up the chain connecting them to the floor. The padlock seemed simple enough.

The girls' breathing was quiet, both of them scooted as far from him as possible while he held their chain. He stuck his hand into his pocket and pulled out the nails.

As he shoved them into the keyhole, they elongated to fit the tumblers, clicking it open with a flick of his wrist.

"Follow them," he said, pointing to Raina and the small following she'd accumulated.

One of the girls grabbed his wrist before he could move on.

"Our sister Farah is below," her thick accent warped her consonants, "along with two hunters. She is not a good fighter."

His brows furrowed. The girls in front of him weren't witches. Magic didn't interact with them at all. But as he splayed his mind downwards, three people stood out. A witch and two hunters. The hunters were toying with her.

"How did you know?" Hadrian sighed and looked at the girls.

The other girl smiled. "You look like the King."

For a split second, he thought they meant Wilson. As far as he knew, he looked nothing like the man. And if he did, he'd probably try to cut the trait out of his face.

Then he realized they meant his mother.

Relief flooded his chest. She might not be dead, then. She might be alive, still fighting. Still trailing hope like a long flag.

"Follow the humans. I'll get your sister."

"Resurge," they whispered to him.

He huffed out a tiny laugh. "Resurgemus."

He straightened and walked back to the stairs. Raina looked up as he passed, irritation flickering across her face. "Where're you going?"

"There's a kid on the lower levels," he didn't stop walking.

"Zeke, go with him!"

"I got it!" Hadrian called back, not bothering to look over his shoulder as he swung down the stairs. Zeke didn't follow.

Without the humans watching his every move, Hadrian could finally breathe. Magic coursed freely over him, sensing the fight in his blood. The three magic users drew him like a moth to flame. Nothing else existed, he barely cared for the walls between them.

He kicked a door down, his boot barely touching the metal before magic spiraled down his leg and shot the steel door inward, taking the frame with it. He didn't slow down until he saw them.

Farah was aflame.

Fire was one of the easier things to summon, taking nothing more than a simple oxygen-nitrogen manipulation to create a sustained line of flames. But Farah had a wall of it, eating frenetically at the small amount of air she had. Magic flooded around her, whipping over her skin.

Hadrian tore it away from her with a flick of his wrist. He drew the flames outwards, washing over the two hunters the girl was keeping at bay.

Farah lowered her hands and gaped at him, the black fading from her eyes as the threads of magic were yanked from her grasp.

The hunters groaned on the floor, but it wouldn't take long before they got up.

He'd let them.

Farah was probably no older than fourteen if he had to hedge a bet. Spindly as they come and battered, her blonde hair singed from her own magic. Her legs shuddered and failed beneath her without magic to hold her up.

The first hunter to stand up had sandy hair and a bulky figure. His attention drew to Hadrian immediately.

With magic swirling around him like a hurricane, Hadrian was a sun in the darkness.

Hadrian hummed and looked the hunter up and down.

"I'll give you a chance," he said. His eyes itched, but he didn't let the magic consume him. "Swords down."

The steel floor oxidized and peeled beneath the force of his power. He'd have to release it soon.

Predictably, the hunter charged.

The Bowie knife lifted from Hadrian's belt and flicked through the air. The hunter's arm blurred in the air as he blocked with his own sword, sigils bracing him for the impact. Hadrian's body followed, jamming his knee into the hunter's gut beneath his guard.

Something popped deep within the man, drawing a raw shout from his lungs. Hadrian gripped the hunter between his thighs and summoned the knife back in an arc. The blade sank deep into the hunter's temple, shattering the bone.

Hadrian pushed the hunter's body away as it dropped, stumbling backwards with his heart pounding in his ears.

A sword slid across his back, just narrowly skimming across his ribs instead of between them. Magic lanced down the cut, holding it together.

His grip faltered for a moment and his vision bled crimson. When he tightened his hold again, probably a half-second later, the boat was tilting. His back was healed almost completely and his mind frayed at the edges.

And the hunter was dead.

His stocky form was pinned to the wall, impaled on needles of the steel wall that had been peeled downwards.

The witch was curled where she had fallen, eyes wide.

Hadrian released the magic slowly, like water seeping through his fingers. Farah seemed to relax as she regained control of her power.

"You okay?"

She nodded, sniffing. Then she gave a little laugh. "You're strong."

He flexed his fingers. "Yeah. Sorry about that, you were going over the edge."

"I meant to."

"You'd die."

Farah sucked her lip into her mouth.

"You meant to die," Hadrian said. His mouth opened again before he could stop himself. "That's not what you fell for, though."

Her eyes were sharp, cutting as she leapt to her feet. He winced. "You don't know that."

Hadrian nodded. He looked down at his hands. They shuddered in the air, blood streaking down his fingers. His head felt raw and weak, scraped out from the inside. It wasn't magic that made him feel like that.

"Sorry. Just mean that --"

The metal of the ship popped and cracked, sending shockwaves through the floor. They shared a glance.

"Was that you?" she asked.

"No."

He spread out through the web of magic again.

"Shit," Farah said. He didn't really feel like admonishing her because it was a fairly understated reaction. He clicked his tongue.

"I need you to do something for me," he said. Her attention snapped to him. "Go through the water and find Ilse. The hunters have just conducted a raid on the westmost coven, if she doesn't know already. She needs to brace for more hunters and move the eastern covens."

He reached behind himself and swiped some of his blood onto his palm, then put in on Farah's. She closed her fist around it.

Hadrian nodded. "Resurgemus."

"I think we already have," she answered, instead of repeating it back to him. Hadrian didn't smile at her before he left.

Raina's yells drew his attention first. Then the water trickling down the stairs. He sped up.

Water splashed around his boots. Seawater. Bodies covered the floor, the few survivors shouting as the thin layer of water washed over their feet, magic burning their skin. Raina was in the middle of the stairs, gripping the rail with white knuckles as Zeke tried to pull her up.

A fissure had opened on the flank of the room, spraying toxic water over the cargo bay. Hadrian spotted Raina's sword on the floor. There was about a centimeter and a half of water. He could plausibly make it.

There were four prisoners still alive. He could get them out.

Hadrian pulled his shirt up to cover his nose as though the smell hurt him and jumped in.

The magic rushed over him. His skin was oversensitive from nearly succumbing to magic with Farah, making little bolts of pain run over him.

Raina took two strikes to break the chain with her sword, so Hadrian would realistically require three. That put a damper on his timeline, as the water was rising quicker than he'd expected. He set a small amount of his attention towards the fissure, keeping it steady as best he could.

The first person was an older woman, with straggly brown hair and terrified blue eyes. Three strikes and she was running across the bodies of her dead comrades. Raina broke free from Zeke's grip to grab the woman as soon as she was close enough.

"Hadrian! Get back here!" Zeke shouted above the rush of water.

Though his boots were long since soaked, Hadrian didn't flinch. It was a little cold, the magic rubbed his raw skin a little, but he wasn't human. He was a witch. He could take it.

The second person was dead by the time he was close enough. A young man, maybe a few years his senior.

He nearly fell into the water on his way to the last one. He didn't even look him in the face as he brought the sword down, magic ripping at the metal before he even got there. It snapped in two strikes.

To his surprise, the man grabbed him first.

"Wait - there's still -" Hadrian struggled, but the man lifted him in muscled arms and ran.

The water was ankle-deep. Hadrian's weak hold onto the fissure slipped, and it broke into a more steady stream, the structure of the ship groaning beneath the pressure.

The man was halfway up the stairs, hot on Raina's heels, before Hadrian managed to push away.

The fourth person was dead. A girl, around Hadrian's age. He hissed and smacked his palm on the railing. "I was close."

"You were dying." The man grabbed his shoulders.

It wasn't actually a man. He was more of a boy, with big brown eyes and a chiseled face to match the rest of his body. His skin was a shade or so darker than Hadrian's own tan. Hadrian hissed and looked away, frowning at the array of corpses below.

The boy coughed and tugged him away, already choking on the fumes. Hadrian didn't bother pretending to have trouble breathing.

"Come on," he said.

Hadrian remembered that they still thought he was human.

He was a spy. He would always choose his own over humanity. But Farah might have been able to hold her own. He could have gotten all 32 of the survivors out. So many innocent humans didn't have to die.

He almost snorted, disguising it as a sniffle as the man led him up the maze of stairs.

Innocent humans. Two words that didn't go together in his mind. That shouldn't go together.

They reached the deck, and Zeke was on him in a heartbeat.

"What were you thinking?"

Hadrian wanted to shove him aside and then take a nap. But no, real life had to have consequences. Ones that he couldn't just magic away.

"Strip, come on, before it gets worse."

Right. He'd forgotten about that. Everyone else was shedding clothes as fast as they could, scurrying to the edge of the ship to lower themselves down to the Citadel's boat. Even the man who'd grabbed him was stripping out of his shirt and trousers.

It was too dark to really see anything, but magic didn't let him forget it.

He sighed and pulled off his boots. Had he worn a packer? A little shift of his legs told him that he had. Hopefully nobody would be staring at his legs, either. He bent over to pull his trousers down.

"Holy shit, did you get stabbed?" Zeke's fingers trailed along his back, too close to his binder for comfort. His sweater sagged to cover it as he straightened.

"Just a scratch," Hadrian said. He pushed Zeke away firmly. Magic hadn't healed him entirely. His face was still bruised up and sore from Wilson punching him, and the line of scabs across his back still stung.

Zeke muttered something under his breath, running his hands through his hair. "Oh, man. Lin is going to kill me. I shouldn't have brought you, I'm sorry. This was - "

"He saved my life," the man said.

Zeke blinked. "Who are you?"

"Cortez," he said. He smiled at Hadrian. "And thank you. I'd be dead without you."

Hadrian hummed, trying not to let his eyes trail down to the fact that Cortez was very close to naked. He wore nothing but short undergarments. His brown skin laced with black veins as magic poisoned him. At a glance, Hadrian could tell it wasn't lethal. Perhaps a bit uncomfortable.

Hadrian's face burned and he looked away. "Yeah. It was..."

A thing. He didn't want to say nothing, but saying a thing to the very handsome man who had practically carried him out of a dangerous spot was not something Hadrian wanted to do.

Or deal with. There were lots of things Hadrian didn't want to deal with, as it had been a very long day, his troubles starting with Lin. He didn't want to deal with her any more than Zeke did.

--

"Vox clamantis in deserto" (from Latin. "the voice of one crying out in the desert")

A reference to the prophet Isaia; has the meaning of "he speaks but nobody listens to him".