Jason and his familiars stood in a doorway that opened onto a bnk void, serving as a private dock to the deep astral. Any ic visitors had to approach Jason’s astral kingdom from elsewhere, as this was for his use alo had once led to the ic Throne, but Jason had relinquished that link.

  As they watched, a nebulous e and blue eye opened in the dark. Motes of light, poured from it in a torrent, dang sparks of blue, silver and gold. They swam through the void like a school of lumi deep sea fish, lighting up the dark. Despite the appearahey were not living things but shards of the fual substahat made up physical reality. First stolen from Earth’s transformation zohen ed by vampires, Jason had subsequently sieved it from their bodies and taken it for himself.

  “It is insuffit to plete your prime avatar,” Shade observed.

  “Yeah,” Jason agreed in a dissatisfied tone. “I don’t like my options fetting the rest of what I need, either. Having Rufus raid the fas oh for ay core stockpiles would make things very hard frandmother, diplomatically. The messengers are made of the stuff I need, but they’re all indoated sves. Killing them in a war is ohing, but I’m not going to have the team round them up and drag them into my domain for me to e.”

  “There are more vampires oh,” said. “The has strong people now. They could grab vampires for you to eat.”

  “They could,” Jason mused. “There’s an argument that they’re victims as well, but they’re toone for any ce at redemption. But I don’t want the doing something that predatory. I know I’m not great leader material, but I am responsible for them. Part of leadership is about setting a culture, and I want them to be better than me.”

  “You ’t protect them from ever dirtying their hands,” said.

  “No,” Jason agreed, “but only if they have to. I don’t absolutely his from them, so I’m not going to send them off to kidnap things that think and feel, just so I squeeze the life out of them and e it.”

  “I agree that would be best avoided,” Shade said.

  “I have a suggestion,” Gordon said. The sweet tones of his voice emitted from all twelve of the spheres he had at gold rank, making him sound like a choir of angels. It masked what Jasoo be the familiar’s nervousness at speaking. He was o being uood by everyone.

  “Please, share,” Jason enced.

  “You gave something to the goddess of death once, as part of a bargain.”

  Jason’s eyes went wide.

  “That’s brilliant, Gordon,” Jason said. Gordon’s orbs dimmed bashfully.

  “What am I missing?” asked. He was in his blood e form, looking like Jason but sculpted from wet, blood-red cy.

  “I made a bargain with Death,” Jason said. “To swear off resurre, for myself or anyone else at my hands.”

  “I remember,” said. “Really stupid choice. I ’t believe you gave aower like that.”

  “We needed a miracle,” Jason said, “a one. I don’t bring it up to relitigate that decision, though. The point is that I had the power to resurrect at the time. I’d drained enough reality material from messeo build myself a new body if I died. I gave it up to the goddess when I made the deal, but now that I won’t use it to e back to life, she may be willing to return it.”

  “Do you think that likely?” Shade asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jason said. “I probably got in her good graces by shutting Uh down so hard. ’t hurt to ask.”

  ***

  Fiorel liked portal duty. A nice quiet room where nothing ever happened, and the best part: the chair reed. For someone who enjoyed napping, it was the most coveted posting iy of Rexion’s militia.

  She had only been a girl when the old city fell, and had grown up in Rexion. She’d been in the crowd, sitting on her father’s shoulders when they had the big ceremony to heir new home. Her memories of those days were the hazy recolles of a child. Fear and hopelessness as the Builder cult, the messengers and then the undead came underground, oer the other. Abandoning their home. Hiding in some strange pce her mother said was inside a man’s soul — that part still didn’t make seo her — and finally arriving in their new home.

  People had been scared. They had gohrough so much; lost so much. Seen people and experienced events that were powerful, fusing and bizarre. It was hard to tell saviours from enemies, especially when one became the other. It had beehing after the , and when they arrived iy, what no one expected ead safety. For some, it took years to accept. Some never did, ever wary for some unspecified cataclysm.

  The city was no less strahan anything else they had been through. So empty, with how few Brighthearts were left. The buildings that turned into fog, reshaped themselves and turned into different buildings. It still happened occasionally, but it was all the time when Fiorel was still a child.

  More people from the surface arrived, but these were her foes nor saviours. They came not for war but for trade. The new growing chambers produced so much food, and the people on the surface were apparently very hungry. She heard stories of them fag their own messengers, who destroyed their surface growing chambers, called farms. They needed food and had much to offer iurn. Most valuable was what the Church of Fertility could provide: children. In only a few years, the streets had been teeming with them, too many to raise as anything but a unity.

  The portal chamber had always been there, ever sihe beginning. There were all kinds of stories about it. That it led to the pce they had all sheltered in after fleeing the old city. That it was the inside of a person’s soul. Fiorel’s memories of being inside were patchy, just a few images aions. Mostly fear and loss.

  The portal was only ever used occasionally, by cil Leader Lorenn or visitors from the surface. Then, a few years ago, it closed. When that happehe militia started putting ora people. There was talk of some invisible prote having gone away. While many didn’t believe it, Fiorel did. Her aura senses were a little strohan most Brighthearts and she had felt the ge. Something that had always been there, without her ever notig, was suddenly gone.

  That had been Fiorel’s impetus for joining the militia, but the results were not what she expected. For ohing, she turned out to have little talent for bat. She was traio draw out her elemental powers, but she was never any good with them in the bat drills. She found her niche in the militia’s logistid administration divisions, cyg through a variety of duties in both.

  hreat ever came. cil leader Lorenn had been diligent in safeguarding the city without the vanished aura and its mysterious, unspecified prote. Through years of iation, the surfatrao Rexion were now administered by the city, alongside some anisation from the surface. Fiorel had been assigned up there a couple of times, finding the open sky uling, but also fasating.

  Although she was no scker, Fiorel’s favourite duty remained watg the portal chamber. It was a room that looked to be made of sand-coloured brid no decorations. At one end, by the door, was a desk with a very fortable chair. At the other was the portal itself: a white stone archway. It was closed by the time Fiorel signed on, but she had a memory of it from childhood. Swirling colours of blue, silver and gold. Pretty, but unnerving.

  Now, Fiorel’s work roster left her periodically assigo watched that very portal. It stayed closed, nothing ever happening. Napping wasn’t strictly allowed, but more than one superior officer had quietly mentiohat alternating good naps with good books was an acceptable way to pass the time. The rge reing chair behind the desk was not as fortable as it was by act.

  Fiorel hadn’t been on duty when the portal had opened again a little over a week ago. There had been a big hubbub at first, a group of bat militia repg the one administrator in watg the portal. That hadn’t sted long. cil leader Lorenn had goo the portal with a few of the city’s elite veterans, returning quickly and removing the troops on her return. The role of watg the portal fell once more to administration and Fiorel ced ba the roster.

  It had beeing for the first couple of days, despite the inactivity. She’d been briefed on all the people who might e out, and the ones who would iably visit from the surface. A device was set up in the er so the sky work tablets would work through the portal. It looked like a mp.

  After being assigned, she sat behind the desk, imagining all the exg things she might witness. The list of people who were likely to e through iher dire were apparently all famous up on the surface. Some of the names in that briefing list she’d heard in stories told by the older militia members. Stories she’d always thought were fanciful, but now she would get to see these people and judge for herself.

  Two days into staring at the portal while almost nothing happehe y had worn off. No one had arrived to go in, and one person had e out. When a priest of the Healer named Carlos Quilido emerged, she was bursting with questions. After one look at his stormy face, her questions died on her lips. He shoved a bundle of letters into her hands a back without a word. If not for the briefings, she wouldn’t have even known his name.

  The only real differeer the portal opened was the silver, blue and gold light filling the oy arch. The colours weren’t especially bright, but they did swirl around a lot, making it harder to nap. Not impossible, however, and Fiorel was roused from sleep by a gentle knog oable.

  “Denny?” she asked blearily. “Is it shift ge?”

  “I have no idea. And my friends call me Jason.”

  Her eyes swam into focus as she sat up and looked at the man casually half-sitting oable. He was a human, with a human face. It had hair on it. She wondered what a human was doing there.

  Her sleepy brain finally caught up with what was happening and she almost fell bolting out of her chair.

  “You’re him,” she said. “You are him, right? Sorry, Mr Asano, sir. That is yht?”

  She hoped the whimpering sound was only happening inside her head. This was the person they had talked about first and st in the briefing. The one who, should he emerge from the portal, meant she had to send a message to her superior and the cil Leader’s office. It was supposedly his soul oher side of the portal that people could somehow live inside of.

  “Um, I o go tell people you’re here, sir. If that’s alright.”

  “I’ll make you a deal,” he said. “You call me Jason instead of sir, and you do whatever you like.”

  “Uh, yes, sir. Jason. Sorry.”

  He let out a chuckle. It was friendly, f sound. With everything that had been said about him, she was expeg some intimidating patri figure. Instead, he looked like any human she’d see at the shaft market where most of the surface people shopped.

  “Sir… sain. Jason. Is it true that your soul is oher side of that portal?”

  “That’s plicated, as you might imagine. But yes. How old are you? Early twenties? Old enough to have lived through all the trouble. You would have been a little girl when you and your people took shelter in there. I don’t imagine you remember much, or clearly.”

  “No, sir.”

  He smiled and shook his head.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Fiorel, sir.”

  “It’s probably time you go tell someone I’m here, Fiorel.”

  Her eyes went wide.

  “Yes, sir!”

  After she bolted out of the room, Shade emerged from Jason’s shadow.

  “Why did you ask her name when you already k?” the familiar asked.

  “I don’t want to rub it in their faces that this pce is my domain. This is their home. And it creeps people out when they know you be — and probably are — watg them at every moment.”

  “I don’t uand why people have a problem with that.”

  “That’s because watg people from the shadows is kind of your thing.”

  ***

  cil Leader Lorenn’s office was modest. She was seated not behind her desk but on one of a pair of couches, with Jason sat opposite.

  “Again, cil Leader, I’d like to express my apologies for withdrawing the prote of my aura without warning, but I was always watg. I saw your efforts to protect your people, both militarily and diplomatically. You are a good leader.”

  “I uand your reasons, Mr Asano. I might have had trouble believing them, had we not been through that transformation zoogether. And while your aura may have gohe infrastructure never showed the slightest indication of failure.”

  “Fortunately, I didn’t have to take things that far for my ruse to work. Even if my identity had been eliminated, my power would have remained.”

  Lorenn nodded.

  “I won’t pretend to uand the nature of the battles you fight, Mr Asano. What I will do is apologise, in turn.”

  “For what?”

  “After the transformation zone, I was tired. Afraid to hope and quick to doubt.”

  “That’s nothing to apologise for, cil Leader. My tributions are meagre things pared to what you and your people suffered, yet I hahem with not a scrap of yrad equanimity. You have nothing but my admiration.”

  “Thank you, although you had little time to see past the fa?ade. We all have our scars.”

  “Don’t we just.”

  “My point, Mr Asano, is that you were off and away before I even began to grapple with what you had left us. This pce is a wonder. People I have met from the surface say that cloud vehicles such as yours are rare and precious things. Aire city of such stru is unheard of, even amongst the marvels of the surface world.”

  “The surface world has no she of wonders.”

  “I don’t doubt it, but this city stands amongst the best of them. The requests to e and study it have proven that.”

  “Have you accepted any of those requests?”

  “No. This is our city, but your power. I would not do so without your sent.”

  Jason nodded.

  “There is a person who I have somewhat actally dodged for most of two decades, now. They are a diamond ranker and created my cloud fsk. I thiing them study this pce would be fair pensation, so long as they don’t interfere with your people. Emir Bahadir will have their tact details.”

  “Very well. But you keep defleg from my topic, Mr Asano. After the transformation zone, I was bone weary. For so long, I had been putting one foot in front of the other, waiting for the disaster. Always on watch for the problem. Once I finally accepted that we have found safety, I looked bad realised just how much we owe you. It’s obvious, but I was too caught up to see it until you were gone. You are the saviour of the Brighthearts.”

  “Many people were a part of this. Including you.”

  “Not everyone carried my people in their soul, or fought a god.”

  “If you need someoo build a statue of, cil Leader, then choose Gareth Xandier. He fought that god too, and it’ll look better anyway.”

  “We did.”

  “Oh.”

  “Mr Asano, you sheltered us when we were lost. Not just kept our people safe but weled them into your very soul. Then you recimed our home and rebuilt it out of miracles. The ground we walk and the homes we live in are expressions of your power. This is the kind of story myths are made of.”

  Jason leaned bato the coud sighed.

  “The fade,” he said. “Myths are just old stories. Let me be that. If yoing to talk about what happened here, don’t make it about me. That doesn’t help aalk about the people who came from the surface to help. That’s useful. Something that build bridges. Let me be a footnote.”

  “Why shy away from fame? From what I tell, you aren’t short of it on the surface.”

  “Maybe a while back. Iain pces. But there are always ories. New heroes. It’s been time enough that I be just some guy. As much as any gold ranker be. If I do something a little special, that’s expected of gold rankers. I won’t stand out like before.”

  “I’m not sure that a you believes that.”

  “Call it a hope.”

  “You don’t want glory?”

  “I’ve had glory. It’s ay thing. The time it e with my friends and my family are among my greatest regrets.”

  “I feel like you deserve more.”

  “Fame isn’t a prize, cil Leader. It’s a price. Surely you know that.”

  Lorenn nodded ptively.

  “Yes, I suppose I do. But surely there is something we do for you.”

  “Open a good sandwich shop.”