Vescrutia: Legacy

An hour passed, and they were near the gates of the Glomora. The entire journey, Towa kept a watchful peripheral view of Khel, the nagging feeling that there was more going on than what he shared. The silence thus far was...forced, it felt.

Towa fell into step behind him, the small vial containing the egg’s fluid cool against his skin. A grim trophy and their only clue to the nature of this plague. He watched Khel’s back, the way his friend favored his left leg, the slight tremor in his spear hand. The misgiving in Towa’s gut grew from a spark to a slow burn. This wasn’t righteous anger. This was pain.

“Khel, stop.”

Khel froze but didn’t turn. “We need to get back, Towa. Your father—“

“Forget my father. What’s wrong with you?” Towa strode forward, his patience worn thin by exhaustion and the lingering effects of adrenaline. He put a hand on Khel’s shoulder to turn him.

Khel flinched violently, crying out as the movement pulled at his side. It was a sharp, broken sound unlike any Khel had made before. His hand, no longer able to maintain its pressure, slipped away from his wound.

Towa’s eyes followed the movement, and his breath hitched.

A dark, viscous stain, the size of a dinner plate, had soaked through Khel’s leather tunic. It wasn’t the honest red of blood. It was the same blackened, sickly blue as the eggs, glistening wetly in the faint light filtering from the cave mouth. Veins of the same color branched out from the epicenter of the stain, pulsing faintly beneath the fabric like trapped, dying worms.

“By the suns…” Towa whispered, his weariness vaporizing in a flash of cold dread. He looked from the horrific wound to Khel’s face. A chalky pallor had bleached the warmth from Khel’s skin, and his lips had taken on a bluish tinge. The concern that had etched his face earlier was gone, replaced by a dawning, terrifying understanding.

“When?” Towa’s voice was barely audible. “When did this happen?”

“The… the Sun Stalker,” Khel gasped, leaning heavily on Ghemelion. The spear seemed to hum with a low, worried energy. “When it lashed out… I thought it just grazed me. A scratch.” He gave a weak, shuddering laugh. “Didn’t even bleed red.”

Towa felt a profound, sickening guilt wash over him. He had been so focused on the larger threat, on the nest, that he had entirely dismissed Khel's being. The strange behavior, the hiding, it wasn’t anger. It was fear.

“Why didn’t you say anything?!” Towa demanded, his voice cracking with a mix of fury and anguish.

“And what would you have done?” Khel countered, his breath coming in ragged pants. “Paused your grand purification? Besides...we did what needed to be done.”

Towa stared at the vial in his hand. The sample. The only piece of the puzzle they had left. It wasn’t just evidence to convince his father anymore. It might be the only thing that could provide a cure.

“Alright,” Towa said, his voice hardening with a new, desperate resolve. He tore a strip of cloth from his own cloak and moved to Khel’s side. “We're just about at the gates, we need to hurry-”

He gently lifted Khel’s tunic. The sight beneath was worse. The skin was discolored and swollen, the flesh itself seeming to writhe with a life that was not Khel’s own. A chilling cold emanated from the wound, a stark contrast to the cavern's oppressive heat.

Khel swayed, his eyes losing focus. “Towa… I’m cold.”

“Stay with me, Khel,” Towa commanded, wrapping the cloth tightly around his friend’s torso. “ We’ll get you to the Healers.” He slung Khel’s hulking body onto his back, using the last of his strength to carry him

Every step sent a jolt of agony through Khel, and with every pained gasp, Towa felt his own guilt twist deeper. The concern for the plains and the argument with his father seemed like distant, trivial matters now. All that existed was the burning need to get Khel help.

A few moments later, the bustling bazaar was cut through like a dagger by Towa as he beelined for the infirmary. Khel’s breathing had become labored with each breath, another attempt to fight to keep consciousness. Towa’s mind was racing; so much had happened in such a short time, but the one thing that kept gnawing at him was why Khel was so adversely reacting to a wound not even nearly as brutal as the one he sustained when he faced the creature. Though it took longer than usual, Towa's wound was far more severe, yet he did not experience the symptoms hindering Khel. Could it be attributed to him being a primal? The speculation felt hollow, as if something deeper and more sinister were at play.

As the beating rays of the sun fell upon him, Towa felt his once-fleeting strength returning, along with a fearsome sprint that saw him at the infirmary in mere moments. He burst through the entrance, nearly colliding with the guards standing watch, their eyes wide and startled at the sight of him panting and disheveled.

“Lord Towa, what seems to be the—Master Khel!” The guard to the left shouted, his voice laced with alarm.

“Get the medical team out now!” Towa snarled his voice a melding of sorrow, guilt, and fury, however, misplaced. As he stood there with his heart pounding in his chest, the guards swallowed their hitched breaths and sprang into action, rushing to summon the healers.

A few heaving moments later, a slew of Aseerian healers, known as Xilphans, emerged. The air thrummed with the familiar energy of their craft. The moment they arrived, they signed several avas, moving with urgency, and the light began to twist, congealing before shaping into a containment field. A bed of warm light manifested as solid light within the field, a shimmering refuge for Khel. Solar Sanative was a technique by which solar light was transformed to encourage passive healing, often stabilizing critical conditions.

“Please, Lord Towa, set him down here,” one of them urged, her tone kind yet insistent.

Begrudgingly, he did so; part of him felt it nearly impossible to part from Khel as if the mere act of letting go would sever their bond, a bond that had proven itself through countless battles and shared laughter. But as the head of the medical unit, Xia arrived, she placed a comforting hand on Towa’s shoulder. Her eyes scanned Khel's body, noting the grievous wound on his side that oozed darkness, a taint that seemed unnatural, almost cursed.

“We will take care of him, my lord,” she said, her voice smooth and steady, though Towa caught the fleeting fear in her expression, a fear she quickly masked.

His gaze wavered, but he abided, placing Khel down on the light bed. Seeing his chest rising and falling, struggling to breathe, was more than Towa felt he could bear. He trusted Xia’s healing magic, her ability rivaling the most potent of the Sun’s rays, yet the shadow lurking within Khel’s wound troubled him.

“Towa, you should report this to your father...I hear the Guildmaster has also arrived from her latest expedition. I’m sure they both will want to hear about...this..." Xia urged him, her urgency guiding him back to reality.

As she waved her hand, the light bed lifted, Khel cradled in healing luminescence, and Towa felt an overwhelming urge to stay by his side, his fingers gripping the air where Khel had been.

“Xia...I...” Towa's voice cracked, the weight of fear threatening to crush him.

“He will live, Towa; I will not let him fall...now go. You have a duty yet to fulfill.” Her tone was firm, tempered with an assurance that he desperately needed.

Towa nodded, forcing himself to reclaim his composure. He knew she held the knowledge to heal, to stitch the rift that threatened to consume Khel whole. The knot of anguish in his chest began to loosen, yet the worry still coursed through him like an unwelcome visitor.

As Xia escorted the other healers and Khel into the infirmary, Towa stepped back, the bustling sounds of the bazaar around him fading into a dull roar. His feet moved forward, detached from the mind that was still tethered to Khel's frail form. With each step, he felt the weight of responsibility settles on his shoulders like a cloak made of iron. He had to inform his father, had to ensure they understood the severity of what had occurred—not just Khel's condition, but the darkness that had escaped into their world.

The shadows from his encounter with the creature loomed heavy in his thoughts—an echo of danger that suggested something far greater was at play. The primal instinct within urged him forward, propelling him into the dawning troubles of the day. Despite the sun blazing above, a chill settled into the pit of his stomach, an unshakable omen that danger had only just begun to unfurl its wings.

The weight of each step was a mountain, the polished golden sandstone of the path a cruel mirror reflecting a sun that no longer felt like a blessing. It was an accuser, its warmth a searing reminder of Khel’s chilling decline. Around Towa, the vibrant life of the Solstone Palace’s outer courts—the squawking of merchants, the chatter of hagglers—faded into a dull, meaningless hum. He could have flown here, arriving in moments with a burst of Aseerian vigor, but he had walked. He needed the time to let the grief and fury settle from a churning storm into a focused point, a spear aimed at the heart of the complacency that was rotting his world from within.

Part of that spear was for his father, Sol Khan Zarek. His dismissal of Towa’s concerns, his laxity, had led to this. His chosen, his Khel, now lay shivering in the grip of a wound that defied their sun-blessed healing. The other part of the spear was aimed inward. If he had just taken a moment, a single breath outside his frustration after that first confrontation, he would have seen it. He would have seen the subtle limp in Khel’s gait, the way he favored his side. He might have been able to help. The thought was a fresh twist of the knife in his gut.

He passed mosaics depicting the triumphs of the Aseerians—glorious battles against crag-demons and shadow-wyrms, as well as the founding of their sun-drenched city. They were meant to inspire pride, but today they felt like relics of a simpler time —a lie they told themselves to ward off the encroaching darkness.

He didn't need to be announced. The two sentinels at the grand, sun-emblazoned doors to the audience chamber saw him coming. They saw the dried flecks of Khel’s blood on his tunic, the storm in his eyes, and they stepped aside, bowing their heads in grim understanding.

The chamber was vast and airy, its high ceilings supported by pillars of pure, light-infused crystal that refracted the daylight into a thousand rainbows. At its center, standing before the Sunstone Throne, were two figures. One was his father, his posture as unyielding as a mountain. The other was a woman whose presence was equally powerful, though in a different way. She was shorter, powerfully built, clad in shimmering silver armor that spoke of a life lived on the world's jagged edges. Her mane was like a braided cloud,Guildmaster Imani, leader of the Orion Consortium. His mother. Her sharp, intelligent eyes, the color of a stormy sea, locked onto him the moment he entered.

“Towa,” his father’s voice was a low rumble, like the shifting of tectonic plates. He’d been in the middle of a sentence, but all attention was now on his son.

Imani cut straight to the heart of it, her voice direct but not unkind. “You look like you’ve wrestled a crag-demon and lost. Something has happened?”

"Mother...you've returned." Towa’s voice was tight, his heart hammering against his ribs. He fought to steady himself, remembering he was not here to fight a war with his parents, but to end one before it began.

"Indeed," she said, her gaze softening slightly. "The expedition to observe the outer lands of the plain in preparation for the Great Migration has been completed... but never mind that. What ails you, my son?" She spoke with a tone that offered solace and invited the unvarnished truth.

Towa's eyes flickered from her to his father, the fury beginning to simmer again. "Lately, I have been plagued by nightmares, terrible omens of a menacing black encroaching upon the Sunlit Plains. During my studies, I came across a Sunstalker...unlike anything I had ever faced before." He paused, the memory making his skin crawl. "It... could force... no, more like invite itself into my mind, tried to alter my thoughts. During the fight, it wounded me...yet the wound did not heal at the normal speed...it was delayed and even managed to leave a bit of a scar."

His father’s voice was flat, devoid of the alarm Towa felt. "I informed our sun that the Astral Year leads to new evolutions all the time. That I am sure it is nothing to trouble himself or the guild about."

The carefully constructed dam of Towa’s composure burst. "What the hell is the point of being a Beholder if my concerns are just cast aside?!" he roared, his voice echoing in the vast chamber. "You ignored me, and now Khel is...He's..."

Zarek went to respond, his expression hardening, but Imani held up a hand, silencing him. She had never seen Towa so riled up; he was slow to anger, patient, a listener by nature. That his eyes could contain such rage, his voice be so laden with pain, could only mean he was telling the truth.

"What has happened to Khel, Towa?" she asked gently, her stormy eyes fixed on him.

The anger receded, replaced by a wave of crushing grief. "After father would hear no more from me, I confided my frustration to Khel. Together, we decided to investigate the Mangled Canyons again, knowing the danger that Sunstalker represented."

“You went to face such a creature without the Sun at your back?” Zarek’s voice rose, laced with disbelief.

Imani stepped forward. “That was foolhardy to say, the least, Towa. The Aseer, for all our vigor, are not immortal.”

"I know it was reckless," Towa shot back, his hands clenched into fists. "But...if you saw what I saw, you would understand why I could not hesitate to act."

"And what is it that you saw?" Zarek demanded, his voice the low rumble of thunder.

"The Sunstalker...had evolved," Towa said, the words tasting like ash. "Its flesh dripped a darkness that flowed like ink and ichor. Its eyes were like voids of black and blue, the madness of the night given flesh."

Both Imani and Zarek shot each other a look—a flicker of shared, hidden knowledge that made Towa’s blood run cold.

"It tried to...twist Khel, but he was able to break free. We fought it; Khel faced it, to buy me time to gather my energy. I managed to destroy it..." Towa’s voice faltered. "But then I noticed... the beast had laid...eggs..."

"Eggs?!" Imani’s voice was sharp, all solace gone, replaced by pure shock. Zarek’s fist tightened at his side.

"But Sunstalkers..." Imani started, the words catching in her throat.

"Don't lie to them, I know," Towa finished for her, his voice flat.

"We must send the eradicators at once..." Zarek commanded, already turning as if to summon a captain.

"That won't be necessary."

Imani turned back to him. "Towa...You didn't..."

"They were moments away from hatching!" Towa barked, the fury returning in a protective wave. "We had wasted enough time. I did what needed to be done or the plains would be crawling with those...things! I burned it all..."

" And how many more species of the plains might've met their end by your rashness!" Zarek thundered back.

"I acted where you stalled!" Towa screamed, stepping forward until he was only feet from his father. "Had you sent help when I first warned you, Khel would not be fighting for his damn life!" The words hung in the air, heavy and terrible. The anger finally broke, and his voice cracked with anguish. "He...was wounded... it festers like the ebon ichor of the creature that attacked him. He's in Xia's care back at the infirmary...barely clinging to life."

"By the Suns...Towa," Imani whispered, her own pain mirroring his.

Towa looked from his mother’s horrified face to his father’s stony one. "You two know something," he said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous demand. "I have earned the right to know. What is happening to our home?!"

Zarek’s gaze fell. "Towa...some things are best left unsaid...some truths are too dark for the light to pierce..."

The words were a physical blow. "How do you expect me to one day share the burden of being Khan, if you won't even trust me enough to tell me the truth, father?" Towa’s eyes carried a deep mourning now, a sorrow that seemed to pierce even Zarek's sternness like a shard of glass. "Is...is your faith in me so small?"

A heavy silence descended. Then, Imani moved. She placed a hand on Zarek's shoulder, a simple gesture that seemed to drain the tension instantly from his robust frame. He let out a breath he didn’t seem to know he was holding.

"No, Zarek," she said softly, but with unshakeable resolve. "He deserves to know. Perhaps we have erred in keeping it from him, if even the Eternal whispers to him what is to come..."

She looked at her son, her eyes filled with a grim determination. "Come then, Towa. Let us speak further. It is time you know the truth."

She beckoned him toward the smaller council chairs near the throne. Zarek gave a single, stiff nod, then turned and walked from the audience chamber, needing time to gather the thoughts that had been so violently scattered. He left his wife and son in the echoing silence, under the light of a thousand rainbows, to speak of the coming darkness.

Towa followed his mother to a set of cushioned divans near the chamber’s edge, far from the imposing emptiness of the throne. The crystal pillars hummed with a soft, ambient light, a stark contrast to the darkness that now filled his mind. He sank onto the offered seat, the adrenaline of his confrontation with Zarek draining away, leaving behind a hollow ache.

Imani sat opposite him, her posture relaxed but her gaze as sharp as ever. She didn't press, allowing the silence to settle between them like a shroud.

“Your father is not a fool, Towa,” she began, her voice a low, steady murmur. “Nor is he a coward. What you see as complacency… is fear. A fear so old and deep it has become a part of this palace’s foundation.”

Towa looked up, his brows furrowed. “Fear? He is the Sol Khan. He commands the sun’s might in ways no other can. What could he possibly fear?”

“A memory,” Imani said, her eyes distant, reflecting the light of the crystals but seeing something else entirely. “What you fought in the canyon… it is not a new evolution. It is a recurrence. A corruption.” She leaned forward slightly, her voice dropping. “An ancient enemy we call the Saiko.”

The name landed with a chilling thud in the pit of Towa’s stomach. “The Saiko. Also known as Mindflayers, they were microscopic invaders that possessed an uncanny ability to usurp a host's mind, merging their genetic code to create terrifying beings that combined the host's traits with the Saiko's mind-controlling power. These creatures were called Variants, a term you might have heard before."

“The Mosacis speak of our glory, of the foes we have felled to protect the plains,” Imani corrected gently. “They do not tell of the costs. The Saiko is not a simple creature to be fought and killed; it is a plague. It seeps into our world during periods of cosmic adjustment, like a sickness in the fabric of reality itself. It does not create; it twists. It turns the beast into the monstrosity you saw. It turns the very earth sour. And it turns our people… into something else.”

Towa’s blood ran cold. He thought of Khel, of the dark ichor, of the wound that would not heal. "The Saiko grant their Variants the ability to...rob the Aseer of our light...and when an Aseer's light is stolen...what is left becomes something so twisted, so befouled, we dare not even speak its name. Hence...why your father will not talk about it, nor any of the other Elders."

Imani adjusted her position. The grim recounting was a tough pill to swallow.

“Father… he knows this? He’s known all along?” Towa’s voice was barely a whisper.

"Do you know what it means to be Sol Khan? It is more than just a title; it is an inheritance of not just a mantle, but the very memories of those who came before you. Aether that anchors the fears of the terrors the first Khan had witnessed. Your father is the only one of us alive who truly knows the horrors the Saiko unleashed; their existence is the very reason the Orion Consoritum exists. We say it is to maintain the natural balance of Vescrutia ecosystems, and that is true, yet if we remain essential to the Saiko, making sure they never return."

The image of his unyielding father suddenly fractured in Towa’s mind. The stern Khan was replaced by the image of a terrified boy, watching a horror he could never unsee. The fury Towa had felt toward him curdled into a heavy, sorrowful pity.

"How did we manage to defeat such a thing?"

Towa asked.

"Through the sacrifice of the first Khan, she gave her life to burn away the darkness. The pain that your father carries with him to this day. They thought that was the last of it, but it seems we may have been wrong."

Imani explained.

“The wound…” Towa said, his voice cracking as he returned to the most immediate pain. “Khel…”

“The Saiko's essence does not just rot the flesh, Towa. It is said it preys on the spirit,” Imani explained, her hand resting on the hilt of a knife at her belt. “It looks for doubt, for fear, for frustration… and it uses that to anchor itself. That is why it could ‘invite’ itself into your mind. That is why Khel’s wound festers. He is not just fighting an infection; he is fighting a battle for his soul.”

Towa buried his face in his hands, the guilt returning with suffocating force. He had been the one frustrated, the one angry. He had brought that darkness with him, and Khel had stood between him and it.

Imani reached across, placing a firm, calloused hand on his shoulder. It was not a gesture of soft comfort, but of solidarity. Of strength.

“This is not your fault, Towa. You are a Beholder—the Eternals whispers to you for a reason. You were the first to sense the coming darkness because perhaps you are meant to help us stand against it. Your place amongst the patrols of the Great Migration is more important now than ever before. We were wrong to keep this from you. We sought to protect your youth, your light… but in doing so, we left you unprepared. That error ends now.”

She squeezed his shoulder, her stormy eyes locking onto his again, now filled with grim resolve.

“Your father will grieve. He will rage against fate. And then, he will be the Khan we need him to be. But until then, we must act. The Migration begins tomorrow. Go, spend time clearing your head. And tomorrow you shall stand by our side as a guardian of Vescrutia creature, as we have always done, as we always will. Be brave, my little cub.”

She pulled her son in tight and hugged him, for a single moment, Towa let the weight of it all fall into his mother's arms. She pulled away from him, nodding affirmingly to Towa before he departed for his room. The next few days would prove pivotal for them all, especially Khel. And yet, despite having his mother on his side, Towa could not shake the feeling that things were about to go from bad to worse.

He walked not to his own chambers, but to the Beit El-Shifa, the House of Healing. His mother's words echoed in his mind, each one a heavy stone settling in his gut.

A battle for his soul.

The room was bathed in the glow of a dozen floating light-orbs, yet it felt dim. Khel lay on a cot, his robust frame diminished. His skin, usually the colour of rich earth, was slick with a feverish sweat and unnaturally pale. Xia, with kindness etched into the lines around her eyes, was murmuring an ancient chant, her hands held inches above Khel’s chest, weaving threads of light into a bandage of pure energy. But it was like pouring water onto a hot stone; the light hissed and evaporated almost as soon as it touched the wound.

Towa crept closer. He could see it now, the injury that had haunted his thoughts. It was no simple gash. From the jagged tear in Khel’s tunic, black, vein-like tendrils crept across his skin, pulsing with a faint, blue malevolence. They looked like roots of a dying tree, sucking the life from the soil around them.

“Lord Towa,” she whispered, her voice strained. “We are doing all we can. But the wound… it will not close. It is as if the flesh itself has forgotten how to mend.”

Towa’s eyes went to the bandage on Khel’s chest. A dark, ugly seep had already bled through the clean linen. He stepped closer, his voice barely audible. “Is he in pain?”

It was Zarek who answered, his voice rough and layered with a weariness Towa had never heard before. “He is beyond that now.” He finally looked up, and his eyes were not the fiery gold of a Khan, but the dull, haunted grey of ash. “What he feels is not of the body.”

Towa stood opposite his father, the narrow cot the only thing separating them. The vast, empty space of the throne room had been a chasm. This small, intimate distance felt infinitely more vast.

“Mother told me,” Towa said, the statement hanging in the air. “About the Saiko.”

Zarek’s jaw tightened, a flicker of the old anger sparking in his eyes before it was extinguished by exhaustion. “She should not have. That is a burden for the Khan to bear alone.”

“And look where bearing it alone has brought us,” Towa countered, his voice quiet but firm. “Khel is… is he…going to?”

“He is fighting, like the Aseerian warrior he is,” Zarek said, turning his gaze back to the cot. “But the corruption is insidious. It doesn’t just poison the blood. It whispers to the spirit. It finds the cracks. The fears. The regrets.” He gestured a hand, palm up, towards Khel’s wound. “And it pours itself into them until there is nothing left of the man who was. Until all that is left...is the will of the one who guides the Saiko...”

"The one who guides-"

As if on cue, Khel stirred, causing Towa to cease his inquiry midway through. Khel's eyes fluttered open, but they were unfocused, milky. A low moan escaped his lips.

“Towa…” he whispered, his voice a dry rasp. “The sky… It’s falling. It’s made of night-stained glass…” His head thrashed weakly on the pillow. “Don’t let it hear you… they listen… in the silence…in absence of light...”

Xia rushed forward to dab his brow, but Zarek held up a hand, stopping her. He leaned close to Khel, his expression one of profound sorrow. “Hold fast, son of the plains. Remember the sun on your face. Remember the call of the sky, tell it that it can't have you...”

“So cold…” Khel whimpered, a single tear tracing a path through the grime on his cheek. “The light… can’t find the light…”

Towa felt a hot spike of guilt and fury. He looked at Zarek, his fear and desperation rising.

“You command the sun’s might,” Towa pleaded, his voice cracking. “Burn it out of him! You are the Sol Khan!”

“Are you mad, boy? To use my light now would be like taking a torch to a parchment,” Zarek rasped, his eyes screwed shut. “I might burn away the corruption, but I would incinerate his soul along with it! The first Khan’s sacrifice was a firestorm that cleansed the world over once. I cannot unleash such power on a single man without annihilating him.”

"I know you do not care for my love of him, my decision to make him my chosen...But...I cannot lose him, no more than I truly chose to fall in love with him."

Towa's eyes shimmered with a resolve, a heart-warming sentiment that even Zarek's will could not oppose.

"I...might not understand why it is that way...but Towa. You are my son, my only child. There is nothing you could do that would make me love you less. My... ignorance kept me from seeing how much you care for him. I wish nothing more than for you to be happy."

Zarek said, offering his son a quaint smile. Towa stared at his father, the quiet smile a balm on his raw nerves, a bridge across the chasm of unspoken resentments that had defined their relationship for so long.

"The weight of a Khan is a great one; to be one long-lived is a rarity. Some go mad from the burden,"

Zarek rose from the stool, his towering frame seeming to regain some of its lost authority. He looked from Khel’s tortured form to Towa’s desperate face. The pity in Towa's heart was now mingled with a terrifying understanding. This wasn't complacency. This was the stature of a man who knew the cost of failure intimately.

“Your mother is right,” Zarek said, his voice gaining a sliver of its old steel. “My fear has made me hesitant. It has made me a poor keeper of this memory. But no more.” He placed a heavy, trembling hand on Towa’s shoulder. It felt less like a King’s command and more like a drowning man grasping for a rock.

“The Migration cannot be a simple patrol now. It has become a hunt. You have the sight, Towa. The Eternals whisper to you. When we ride out tomorrow, you will not be a scout in the vanguard. You will ride beside me.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. “You will be my eyes. You will look for the sour earth, the twisted growth, the shadow where no shadow should be. You will help me find this corruption at its source.”

He looked back at Khel, his face a mask of grim resolve. “And I will find a way to save this boy even if I have to walk into the memory of my ancestor’s fire to do it. Let us make it through the Migration, then I will tell you everything I know.”

Towa nodded in agreement as Zarek departed. He would linger about for a while longer, taking a long look at Khel, his resolve solidifying. He would not lose him, to Towa, Khel was the light of the sun itself; without him, all he would have would be darkness.