YUVEN

Kings raise and see themselves as gods through perception. Perception is power. It isn't gold. It isn't an army. It's perception. Perception and a dose of herding people like the sheep they like to be. Yuven rubbed his tongue against his fang. Because Gods forbid people are able to move and not act like dumbstruck squirrels or children needing their hand held, only to ignore the advice given to them. From King's to those they step on. They bleed like all the rest. They're not Gods. Gods don't exist. They bleed... even the 'Gods' bled. The whole damned reason the Great Crimson Dusk was halted. Irony. He tapped his foot against the rug beneath him as he sat at his borrowed desk, no closer to an answer to Neven's problem, no closer to an explanation or a hint of what the cult would do next except their predictable prerogative of king's blood. And that doesn't tell me enough that I'd like to know... this cult thinks they can control Derelicts, point them like a weapon... they will lose control of them eventually... and we'll have another Crimson Dusk on the wings and none of the numbers to stop it... the world will be consumed and left to rot. It was bold of anyone to think Adara Sazaka could prevent the end of the hells damned world by herself... considering not even four Anima could stop Derelicts from existing. No... at the very least, I'm not going to sit down and die with my tail between my legs accepting my fate. I've done that enough. He slammed his current hefty read on Hanekan lineages closed, pushing it to the edge of the desk to lean back into his chair, rubbing the bridge of his nose. What is their end goal though... that's the question. But people play into their hands without care.

All he had left to him was the expansive void in his heart, a frayed, starry tangle in his reach and stabbing into each chamber, to remind him of his folly and foolishness. The old taste of rust never let him forget — never quite escaped the back of his tongue, and with nothing else left to do but walk, Yuven got out of his desk, headed to the door and left Kalla's private library to confront the problems head on. With Fenrer and Adara out there in the wilds of Haneka, he had work to do and he refused to give the cult time to do theirs. I will not have another Irimount. A stuffy rested in his hands, a shadow within a crib, but he let it go and stomped his way through the fortress of Sivaport and King Reyn's seat of power. Housecarls took his warning seriously from the way some hovered at corners and dipped their heads to him to avoid his ire. Unlike the scaled, wyvern armor of the Sentinels, these ones had the good sense to not test his dwindled patience.

But a peacock doesn't change its fluffed out feathers.

Yuven paced through the stone corridors. Gulls cooed on the battlements while the harbor bells sang their songs to echo across the gulf. In the inner courtyard, the lighthouse rose, a limestone trunk of a giant tree with a magick beacon within a protective casing. He slowed his steps through the jasmine garden beds, finding King Reyn on a bench against the lighthouse, alone himself save for a housecarl closest to him, who tensed up with his arrival, but made no move to deem him a threat. Wind roared over the walls, but he made his way to Fenrer's 'family friend' and chewed on diplomacy for what it was worth. But I will never bow. You may have stopped me from delivering a lesson to the Naveeran chair-warmer, saved my best friend from drowning... but you will have to do more than that to earn my respect. Yuven stopped when Reyn raised his head to him.

"Warden Traye." Reyn lifted himself off the bench, and Yuven twitched at the movement. "What can I do for you?"

"Don't make such an offer of me, I will take you up on it," Yuven said and drew his fangs over his lower lips. "I'd say I'd hope the presence of the Warden's weren't troublesome for you — but then I remember we're your only hope and your knights won't be able to protect you from things such as Derelicts and dark magicks." Feathers pressed against his ears, he huffed. "I have a couple of questions for you after my studying of every Hanekan conflict — especially the civil war. Considering you usurped the throne and drew plenty of blood yourself to get here, it's important that I know what places may need an extra eye. Places that may attract Derelicts, or even better, places which were used for dark magicks. Any relations to said conflicts I studied would be an extra bonus, but if you expect me to give you a pat on the head for any of those, it's the most basic thing someone in your position of power should know. Or, maybe things that for that very reason, would be kept from you." Especially if you want to survive this. "And certainly things that you wouldn't breathe a word to Fenrer about."

King Reyn took a moment to get up, adjusting the chains across his black, studded armor. "I have something you might want to see then."

"Oh? Consider my curiosity piqued." Yuven followed him back to the entrance, though when the housecarl moved to follow, Reyn shook his head at them before leading him deeper into the bowels of the castle. The familiarity didn't escape him. Different situations, but both with a king. "You know, that does lead into another question. Do you know where the Hanekan elementia crystal is?"

"Somewhere deep within the gulf," King Reyn replied as they crossed the multiple thresholds of light and dark. "In a cavern with no easy access to it, protected by multitudes of woven glyph barriers and some natural defenses. You'll need to do... some extended swimming to reach it — only watercore magickae have any viable way to it... and I'm the only one who knows the entrance."

"Keep it that way." Yuven scrunched his nose at the dampness growing heavier with each step before Reyn unlatched a lantern from the wall, shaking it to reactivate the rune within. It came to life in a blaze, and he lowered it to a spot on the floor. It tapped with a hard clunk against the stone, and Yuven stiffened when the floor separated. Brick by brick, it revealed an ominous descent of stone, built deep into a cavern. Ice licked at his skin, but he forced himself to follow the king, whose lantern fed others they passed until they were well within the darkness with two sources of light — the one Reyn held and his own crescent blade. "Unless this was some ploy to reveal an ulterior motive, I will remind you..." He pointed at himself. "Illusionist."

"You said you wanted information, Warden Traye. I'm giving you information." Reyn stopped at the last step, tapping the lantern against the wall before sending the metal stave forward to bounce the rest of the embers into candelabras. Each one revealed rusted metal bars. Half-broken walls. Dewy cobwebs. Metal grates collapsed onto the wet floor. In the distance, the sound of dripping water broke the silence between them.

"Lovely dungeons." Yuven folded his arms and sent his heel into a broken piece of metal. "If you wanted to show me these, I'd have to point out I'm not an Aurus so if there's any waylaid spirits or at worst, a wraith, I am as much in the dark as you are if it is here, and though I am obligated to take care of it, I will not be happy as it is not related to why I'm here.."

"The dungeons aren't what I wanted to show you." Reyn stepped forward, the stave of the lantern clicking against the ground it connected with. He stopped beside a water grate, lowering the lantern to it. Its shadows cast across the reflection of water on the craggy stones. "What I wanted to show you is a little deeper." The king moved forward, but his hands gripped the carrying lantern tightern. Yuven twitched an ear at the unsettled air pressing on his feathers as Reyn tapped the dead-end. Stones groaned against each other to reveal the hidden staircase as it floated downwards before clunking to a stop. It took another moment, a breath from Reyn, to descend. Yuven twitched, and readied himself for a fight.

I will not be chained again.

On the final step, Reyn gave another tap of the ground to scatter the embers in the lantern. Each one floated into a nearby brazier, casting a sickly glow on the rounded corridor. Hand tight on his crescent blade, Yuven humoured the king, but kept himself ready to leap. Reyn came to a stop in front of a thick, metal door with cracked runes. As he stared at it, Yuven took his chance to examine his surroundings, though when he tried to push his sight through space, he frowned at the interfering darkness on the other side of the door. His fingers dug into the hilt, and he scowled at the king. "What's the meaning of this?"

"I think it's better if you see it for yourself." Reyn sent a tiny, bouncing ball of lightning into the hinges. It spun. Faster until it became a whir of power, faded away, a single strike down the center.

Runelocks divided, and Yuven scrunched his nose further when the door inched open with its stench of a breath, sickly and rotted. Molded and decayed. His blood screamed, but he held himself strong when Reyn sent one last ember upwards. It bounced across the dome. Splashes of red slipped down the rocks, dried into the corners. Draining divots wound themselves into the floor and led into small metal grates. In the center, burnt candles and two wooden posts, side by side and between them, stone drenched in old blood. Fresh runes drew themselves at the cardinal points — stoppers of power.

It stunk with death.

"What in the Infernal Hells is this?" Yuven demanded.

Reyn held the staff of the lantern close. "I can't rightly say... but this is where the previous king of Haneka performed executions... but only of a particular type." He lowered the staff to the two wooden posts in the center. "Very few were aware of this place... many remain as such, though it's common knowledge that not only did my father murder Naveerans here... he killed Hanekans too." Reyn leaned against the lantern. "I had a couple of people draw counteractive runes to whatever magick was here."

Yuven paced the entire circumference of the large dome. "Wise... but where did all the blood drain to?" He waited for an answer, then turned to Reyn at the lack of one. "Your Grace?" He released the hiss built up in his throat. "Do you know where the blood drained to?"

Reyn gave a small shake of his head. "Any attempts to follow the sewer from an opening nearby... were blocked off. So... we closed off those cisterns to avoid any complications. Nothing goes in there... but nothing comes out."

"By what?" Yuven scowled when he held his silence and stomped to him. "What blocked them? What?"

Reyn rubbed his fingers on the metal of the staff. "It looked like petrified flesh."

"Did you close off the rest?"

"Yes."

"Every entrance to the dungeon cisterns?"

"Yes."

Yuven straightened himself out. "You're sitting on a blood bomb. Any speck of dark magick here will make this place explode. Magically, but also maybe literally. And will tear a hole for a Derelict Infestation and from the smell of this place... would attract a Goliath to eat you with your castle."

"Then we better find where the cult is here before something happens to me," Reyn said. "The cisterns are out of the city proper... they're underneath Pyren's statue which has its own woven wards. We rerouted the waterways to drain at specific points of the city, if there's any hint of corruption... the people in charge of that would notice right away."

"I can do you one better, Your Grace." Yuven prodded him. "You come to Euros. This cult is after king's blood. Of which, you have due to the fact you are one of the few people in the world who can wield lightning. All this blood, of both Naveerans and Hanekans on this soil? It's blasting powder. King's blood?" He snapped his fingers. "That's your fuse. We may be standing on a dormant bomb... but you?" Yuven scowled. "You're the light."

Reyn gripped the staff tighter. "I won't abandon my people, Traye. What happened down here... whatever is within those cisterns? It's my responsibility. Just like the lighthouse up above." He raised the lantern a bit to indicate it. "Haneka is my responsibility. Say I leave, what then? If I approach this pragmatically, though I know I don't need to, I'd just be leaving a vacuum. But, my reasoning is not that. My people have suffered enough," he replied. "My people suffered enough from the actions of the last king. If my people go down, no... I'm the one steering this ship, I'm going down with it. If there's anyone I want you and yours to save, Traye, it's my people first. I am not about to argue your instructions for me to stay safe."

Yuven folded his arms. "You are a sight more braver than your usual monarch... but you're also ridiculous for it. You have nothing to gain from staying."

"And I have my people to lose if I don't."

How can you be so foolish to think yourself above this? Yuven bared his fangs, but choked on his own words. "You are so willing to go down with this ship of yours, King Reyn. You bore witness to the attack on Azahama. Are you willing to accept that if the Storm Wardens fail — if I fail here... you will share the same fate as Sovereign Hirishi and it is not a pleasant way to go. That is a lot of faith most people don't have in our Order."

"I don't have a choice, do I? Either the Storm Wardens win, or we die."

Numb pinpricks swept into his limbs. "I'm going to send a Warden Aurus down here — not Fenrer," Yuven said. "To see if there's anything we need to worry about past the blockage you made. If not... I wouldn't say that's good news." He turned his back on the horrific sight, but was unable to flee the stench. "One more thing, have you corresponded with the Naveeran monarchy recently?"

"Recently? Somewhat. It was just about the trade route. Explanations of the Northern Sea and the currents."

"Tell me if you have any further correspondence with them. I'd like to know the contents." Yuven walked out of the death pit. "Especially if dark magick is mentioned."

Out of the red light and into the comfort of the unknown darkness, he ascended back into the castle to flee Irimount.