It felt like I was meant to be disappointed because I missed my chance to speak with Aurelius that night. After all, Sylvia and I had essentially been glued to each other’s sides for the entire duration of the rest of the Ball. All thoughts about Orders, and Precursors, and the future fell to the wayside as we enjoyed ourselves in each other’s company the way we hadn’t in months and months. For her, this was a new experience she was enjoying, and I could tell from her laughter that she was very much enjoying herself indeed.

  And yet, I was the farthest thing from being actually disappointed.

  As for me, this was familiar and yet different. This Sylvia was much the same, and yet much freer with her emotions, much more comfortable with expressing herself. She felt like a more mature version of the oft-shy, mischievous woman I had grown to love all those months ago.

  It had been the right decision to allow Sylvia the space to heal and grow from her injury, without my presence to bog her down.

  She’d only grown stronger from it.

  Alas, all things come to an end, especially Balls. By the time Hravik was announcing the end of it, I discovered that Aurelius had already vacated his throne, along with his two accompanying Preceptors. I was too late to catch the man tonight, but now that I knew what he was, I wasn’t going to drop this. The possibility of talking to someone else from Earth…God. I was having difficulty in parsing just what that meant to me. If I had to, I would miss class again to track him down.

  Turns out…

  I wasn’t going to need to.

  After I left the Ball, I walked Sylvia back to Draymoor for the evening, promising to meet back up with her soon. From there, I’d transformed and winged my way high into the sky, appearing as nothing more than a black splotch against the void of the night sky as I flew home. As I approached the lighthouse, the first indication that something was off was that I saw the downstairs lights still on in the attached house. Normally, by this time of night, everyone had either settled in to sleep or they were working on something private in their own rooms. Rachel tended to sleep every night, Aveline definitely did, while it was a coin toss to whether or not Azarus and I would.

  But there were definitely people moving around in there, shadowed by the light cast by my apparently burning fireplace.

  I…was wary, struck by an instinct I couldn’t name.

  Something was off, but what? Bait hadn’t been dispelled, and Azarus had to be home by now. My home, and Aveline, were as protected as I could reasonably expect.

  I touched down with a thump on the grass before my home, and I heard a low murmur just inside the walls die out. Before I could open the door, it opened quickly, letting Bait slip out and close it behind him.

  “What did you do?!” He hissed at me, my own faintly glowing emerald eyes narrowed at me in suspicion.

  I drew up defensively. “What do you mean, what did I do? What’s going on?”

  “The damn Primector is here, that’s what!” Bait threw up his hands in frustration. “He said he had something to talk to you about, but he wasn’t willing to tell me! Azarus and I have been awkwardly stalling him while we waited for you!”

  That caused me to blink rapidly. I frowned after a moment. “Is Aveline…?”

  Bait shook his head. “She’s fine, Rachel is reading to her up in her room. I don’t think she even knows the old man is here. Do you know…?”

  I eyed my clone for a moment. “You…can’t feel it, can you?” I shook my head at him. “He’s a Precursor. Don’t ask me how I know…I just do.”

  Bait stopped in his tracks to gape at me. “You’re…sure? What’s going-no, screw it. I’ll find out in a second.” Before I could stop him, he dispelled himself. I braced myself for the data transfer for the day, and with long practice, parsed a whole day of History class, followed by minding Aveline. Nothing special, apart from my newly returned Core Ring’s internal cursing about Aurelius, followed by his appreciation of how I’d handled Sylvia.

  And then half an hour’s worth of awkward small talk with a tight-lipped Aurelius.

  I frowned, set my shoulders, and opened the door, stepping into my own home. In moments, I had entered the sitting room to the left of the entrance, to find a scene I’d just been granted knowledge of.

  Aurelius was alone, unaccompanied by his two minders, as he sat in my chair down here. The dark skinned old man was placidly sipping on a cup of tea, apparently from the limited stocks I had of my favorite blend, and drinking from my cup. My Core Ring pointed out defensively that he’d just been trying to be courteous to a major head of state, and didn’t know what I did.

  I still called him an idiot.

  Across from Aurelius, Azarus was standing and leaning against the wall as he eyed the Primector with suspicion. When I stepped into the room, though, I could tell that I was recognized as the actual Nathan Hart by both men. My best friend pushed off the wall, approached me, and leaned in close. “Do ya know…?” He whispered.

  I nodded at him, never breaking the gaze I had locked with Aurelius when I entered the room. “I do,” I said in a normal volume. I patted Azarus on the shoulder. “I’ve got this. You go to bed.”

  Azarus snorted at me. “Screw that. After rubbin’ shoulders with that many nobles, I’m gonna go pound out somethin’ in the forge.” He said, walking away. He paused just before he left the room, though, looking over his shoulder. “Tell me later.”

  I nodded quietly, and then it was just me…

  And the other Precursor in the room.

  I finished walking inside and sat down in the chair just across from the Primector’s. Rachel’s, in fact. I folded my hands in my lap and decided to throw politeness out the window for once. “Primector. I don’t appreciate you showing up at my house while I’m not really here, while others are.”

  Aurelius merely smiled calmly at my barely veiled hostility. “Ah, you must be referring to the little Netherim girl upstai-”

  “Stop talking,” I interrupted him, my voice slipping into the growl of my transformed state. “That is not your concern.”

  Silence fell between the two of us, then, and Aurelius lost the peaceful smile on his face for the first time I’d seen tonight. In its place rose a look of what seemed to be genuine contrition. He rose from my chair and bowed at the waist to me. “I deeply apologize, Nathaniel Hart. It appears as if we’ve gotten off on the entirely wrong foot. It was not my intention to antagonize or intimidate your household. I merely wished to approach you in the seat of your own power, as an assurance of my good intentions. If you would like, I shall depart for the evening. Perhaps on another day, when tempers have cooled, we could continue this conversation.”

  I took a deep breath and released the unintentional mental finger I’d put onto Vis Maledicta Exactoris. I raised a hand to stop him and shook my head. “No. We have things we need to discuss. Just…keep in mind your business is with me. If I want my family brought into this matter, I will do it.”

  Aurelius straightened up and studied my face for a moment. He nodded slowly and then sat back down in my chair behind him. “Very well, then. I thank you for your magnanimity.”

  A surprisingly awkward silence descended then, as the near confrontation was successfully averted.

  I heaved a sigh, then, breaking it. As important as this was, it had been a long day, with a number of emotional ups and downs. Frankly, I wanted to sleep, as rare as that sensation was these days.

  I decided to hurry matters along.

  “You’re a Precursor,” I said bluntly, cutting to the heart of the matter.

  To my surprise, Aurelius smiled sadly at me. “I was a Precursor,” He corrected me. “I…renounced that position many, many centuries ago. And yet, even after all these years, the shadow of the scintillant flame still haunts my being. The resonance that you feel in my presence is a mere shadow upon my soul, a veritable stain that no amount of time can erase.”

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  It was possible to stop being a Precursor? That…didn’t make sense to me. The defining trait of being a Precursor, from what I’d learned, was that we were all from Earth. Old or Lost Terra to the people of Vereden.

  What, was it like giving up citizenship or something?

  “You…renounced being a Precursor?” I asked slowly, sitting up straighter. “That’s something you can do? I had no idea that was possible.”

  “It’s possible, yes,” Aurelius nodded, and then sighed himself. He gazed down into the cup of tea in his hands. “You…would need to strike a deal with the System in order to do so, however. But we are getting ahead of ourselves, Sir Hart.”

  “Nathan is fine,” I said, eyeing him.

  I received a nod and a smile in response. “Nathan it is, then. Tell me, Nathan. In your wanderings, what have you learned about the nature of the Precursors?”

  “What, you don’t already know?”

  “I do not, no,” Aurelius shook his head. “As you might suspect, one of the reasons I originally came here to Blutstein was to meet with you. Possible word of our shared origin came to me some months ago, accompanied by news of your triumph over the Calamity. It’s the flames, you see. Many people cannot recognize them for what they are, but I can. My own manifestation was different from yours, but they cannot be borne by any but a Precursor. It would have been…difficult for me to justify a visit to Kawamara, but not Herztal. The faith is stronger here. But with your return…please, humor me. What have you learned?”

  So, I told him. I had no reason to withhold what I had painstakingly learned about my nature. I spoke about Alveron’s plea, both Netherim bunkers I’d been in, and the confrontation with Rhazal. About Traver’s disdain, and most importantly…

  Shurenga’s realization.

  The entire explanation took nearly a third of an hour. There was a lot of ground to cover, after all. When I was finished, Aurelius sighed and nodded. “All true,” He said soberly. “We are the dagger poised at the heart of a group of Netherim thieves. I have to commend you, Nathan. Many of these truths are things it took me centuries of dedicated study and research to discover. Truly, you have moved quickly.”

  “I suppose I just live in interesting times,” I said soberly, gazing down into the glass of liquor I’d fetched halfway through my explanation.

  It was kind of emotionally exhausting just speaking about it.

  “More than you know…” Aurelius whispered, to my confusion. He shook his head, then, and frowned. “And your close relationship to the Great Spirits…be careful, Nathan. They are your allies now, but never forget they are not mortal. Not human. Spiritkind have different priorities than we do, and you have not lived long enough to see the worst of them.”

  “Noted,” I said shortly. “Now. I’ve given you answers, and I think it’s time for a little reciprocity. Who are you, and how are you still alive? I doubt Aurelius is your real name. I know who the Precursor before me was, and I doubt you’re Zheng Wei.”

  “Aurelius is the only name I’ve used since long before your ancestors walked upon Earth,” ‘Aurelius’ admitted soberly. “But you’re correct. I am not Zheng Wei, though he was…” He paused. “A…very close friend of mine, a very long time ago. By the time Zheng Wei had arrived on these shores, I had long surrendered the spark of the Precursors, three centuries prior. With it went my powers and status as one, allowing his arrival. You…should know this, Nathan. It was our belief, after long study of our kind, that there is only one spark. One flame, passed down from Precursor to Precursor, that grants the abilities it does. It’s weakened over time, but it is singular. But I get away from myself. My…birth name was Tenemba. Tenemba-”

  “Kanté!” I said excitedly, snapping my fingers as the memory came to me. “That was it! Tenemba Kanté, the Precursor right before Zheng Wei on the list.” I paused and coughed into my fist awkwardly at the raised eyebrow I received in response. “Ah, sounds…African, I suppose.”

  “You suppose correctly,” Aurelius, or rather 'Tenemba' said, with slight amusement in his tone. “But I do not identify with that name any longer. I was Tenemba for a mere three decades, while I have been Aurelius of the Gyreite Church for eight centuries.” He paused, then. “Tell me, I am curious. What is…Terra like, in your era? What year, by the reckoning of your people, did you come from?”

  Uh…

  “Question,” I said slowly. “If you were here three hundred years before Zheng Wei, and he arrived on Vereden roughly…five hundred years ago, and you’ve said you’re over eight hundred years old…then…” At this curious, prompting nod, I smiled helplessly. “You’re from somewhere in Africa around the year twelve hundred AD.”

  How the hell was I supposed to describe modern-day Earth to a man from then?

  Aurelius rubbed his chin in thought. “Twelve hundreds AD? I’m unfamiliar with that exact year, but I believe I remember hearing something about this dating system. Anno Domini, yes? I had many long conversations with Zheng Wei about the state of Earth as he knew it. If I recall, this system is something used by the Europeans, beginning with the death of the Nazarene prophet, yes? If so, that is, perhaps, correct. I was born in the Empire of Mali as the son of a scholar during the rule of Mansa Sakoura, in the year of six ninety one, as we knew it. I was a feckless youth, unappreciative of the lengths my Father and Mother went to secure my future. I was, I believe…perhaps twenty-four when I was spirited away to these lands? It’s hard to recall, truly.”

  I took note of that. I had been twenty-four when I was dropped in that forest clearing, to be assaulted by Herztalian refugees and Elven raiders. My birthday had passed since then, without me even acknowledging it. I’d just been…too preoccupied to care.

  But it was interesting that the age was the same.

  “Tell me, then. If you use this date, are you European, Nathan?”

  “Ah, no,” I sighed. “It’s complicated. Suffice to say that I was born in a sort of…European splinter nation across the ocean. But that’s not important, really. What is important is what you can tell me about Precursors, the System, and how the hell you knew about the Netherim?”

  Aurelius’s curious smile diminished. “Ah, yes. There…was a reason I specifically searched for you, Nathan. I will address your concerns. In regard to Precursors, there is little else I can tell you. We are singular beings, bent to act as assassins at the behest of the Gyre. Any further mysteries as to our purpose, I could not tell you. I abandoned the search for outer truth, and why our birthplace is so linked to this curious land many centuries ago. In its place, I resolved to search for inner truth, with faith as my guiding path. I was…afraid of what I would find, truly, which is what led to me relinquishing the spark, leading to yours and Zheng Wei’s appearance. As for the Netherim, it is simple. What caused that fear was my brief tenure as what is now known as a ‘Classer’. I, too, once sought strength from the System in the first few years of my time here. And I, too, found ancient records within the archives of the Fatum Primarium, the seat of the Gyreite faith. In it, I found a brief record which detailed the location of a strange door, in the far frozen north beyond the farthest mountains. To my young, glory-hungry self, it seemed the perfect target for my companions and me to launch a reputation.”

  “Wait, yeah…” I said, furrowing my brow. “I remember now. That’s…one of the few surviving bunkers. Other than that…”

  There was only the bunker beneath that one mountain in Velancia.

  The area where that one strange snake Spirit had tried to tempt me to, just after Rhazal had risen in Elderwyck. Nehushtan, I think it called itself.

  “Indeed,” Aurelius said soberly. He hunched over in his chair, clasping his hands and staring down at them without looking up. “I…financed an expedition to that frozen waste. I ventured there with my closest companions, and we found it. A strange, circular steel door, frozen in place upon a mountainside. It was…impenetrable, with no way inside.”

  “Until you laid your hand on it,” I said, a creeping sense of dread crawling up my spine at the way the old man was acting.

  “Yes,” Aurelius said quietly. “And that spelled our doom.”

  I let out a heavy breath.

  So. That was another of the bunkers that had been cursed.

  “What happened?”

  Aurelius was quiet long enough that I almost thought he wouldn’t answer me. Which, to be fair, I would have accepted. I’d already experienced the results of one god’s curse. I knew how hard it was to talk about.

  But he did.

  “A great, seething mist of sizzling disease poured forth,” Aurelius whispered. “Putrescence given form and purpose. It rolled over us all with a directed, malicious glee. I watched in horror as the very flesh melted from the bones of those I had grown to love, and I could do nothing. But I survived, because of what my Precursor gifts were. I was a Healer, you see, and my healing worked strongest when used on myself. It was all I could do to burn away the sickness that sought to consume me on the slopes of that frozen wasteland. Even then…it was close. I had to sustain the fire for…I truthfully have no idea how long. It could have been weeks, for all I knew. When I woke from my healing trance, I was alone, surrounded by the scourged bones of my companions. Mad with grief, and reluctant for their sacrifice to be in vain, I searched the small bunker that lay beyond the door for anything. I found little. I believe the trap which assaulted us had melted near everything in there to…little more than sheets of paper-thin steel. But, what I did find referred to the owners of the bunker…”

  “As the Netherim,” I said with a grimace.

  That was a far more…direct curse than the one Lucretia had layered on her former bunker. It didn’t seem like her style, so maybe it had been laid by a different one of the gods.

  “I…do not recommend venturing there, Nathan,” Aurelius said, looking up. If his eyes were a little redder than they’d been, I didn’t comment on it. “The curse affected the land deeply, and now the very Aether in the air is toxic to mortal life. The area is known now as the ‘Blighted Stretch’ by the local tribes, and they would kill you before allowing any to approach it. There isn’t a reason to, either. There is nothing left within that tomb. After that…I stumbled down south to Roricia and pledged myself to the Church, as repentance for my hubris. As part of my initiation as a young Preceptor, I surrendered my Precursor gifts as well as my birth name. It was only many years later that I even slightly forgave myself, and only at the urging of Zheng Wei. He…stabilized me, as he did the Church.”

  I let silence fall between us then, as the old, old man appeared to visibly grieve everyone he had lost, long ago. Only when it seemed that he had regained his composure did I continue. “And the System? Can you…tell me anything about that?”

  Aurelius breathed in deeply and then sighed just as deeply. “That is…why I am here, Nathan. It is good that we have met, but I’m unsure if I would have come if there wasn’t greater need. My…goal is to inform you of a secret. A truth that has been kept from all but the highest echelons of the world governments, for fear of the turmoil it would bring. Something…I believe you can help to right.”

  He sat up straight, then, and directly met my eyes.

  “The System is failing.”