CALEN

  By the time Calen turned back from checking that Emma was following, Mirri had already slung herself over the low-backed chair next to Viran's perch at the window. The lacquered wooden seats were distinctly made for dragonborn in a way that was obvious when the furniture hadn't been hacked to splinters.

  The backs of the chairs were propped up on a firm central post that left the sitting surface of the seat mostly uninterrupted so that a tail could hang comfortably off the back on either side, and cut short enough for Mirri to hang her wings over the rear of the chair rather than sitting back against them, a convenience that Calen got a glare for noticing.

  He quickly averted his gaze from the prickly priestess, but kept one eye on her knife hand while he took in the rest of the space.

  The desk was perpendicular to the door, and Viran was seated at the far end of it, in a thankfully lengthy kilt in addition to his leather vest, which was now thrown over an actual tunic. The rain was still coming down, but it was a light drizzle that Calen heard more than saw as it pattered on the balcony outside.

  Green brick walls and wooden shelves alike held a riotous assortment of tapestries, leather-bound books, and even a hanging scroll on the wall sporting an artful arrangement of runes that Calen obviously couldn't read. There were no gemstones on display, unless they were hidden on another face of the strange clay figurine someone had perched on a shelf on the other side of the room, and the thick curtains were drawn back to let the midafternoon skies leak light in despite the clouds.

  The Warden was the most golden thing in the room. Her otherwise-unadorned but obviously silk robes were a close second, and Dovin's paler yellowish scales, revealed as he swung the door shut behind Emma, took third.

  The Warden's staff, a bluish-tinged metallic monstrosity shaped like a shepherd's crook, sat dull and lifeless against the wall behind the behemoth. The massive gold-scaled dragonborn was writing something down, and barely glanced up as they entered.

  Maybe the sack was in a desk drawer somewhere, ready to be revealed as an offer at an opportune moment. The silver of the Venatrix's shield was propped up front and center, leaned against the desk right in front of the chairs, an obvious centerpiece in the coming conversation.

  Calen's shoulders relaxed just a hair more at the sight.

  If the Warden wanted to do the work of talking Em out of claiming the slab of metal, she was welcome to be the bad guy in the room about it as long as they didn't get thrown in a dungeon afterwards.

  Not that Calen could stop her, if that was how things were going to go.

  Calen took the second chair from the door, so that Emma could be as far from Viran as possible. The big guy wasn't doing anything threatening, just peering between his hands and a bowl of water perched on the windowsill, but this would be easier if nobody was panicking.

  The stick the Warden was using to mark the soft clay in front of her didn't pause for a single moment when Calen braced his heel against the floor to scrape his chair across the stone, closer to Emma. He pointedly did not look at the way Mirri tensed and relaxed her knife hand on her lap, or meet Viran's brief gaze.

  The interminable moment stretched on until he dragged the mana out of his brain stem, one thread at a time.

  Then the Warden laid down her stylus, and spoke from behind her desk.

  "I am Warden Isha, and we have all had a longer morning than usual," Isha clasped her claws together, leaning just the slightest bit forward. "I suppose you two have some pressing questions for me, so we'll get those out of the way right after introductions. You are?"

  "Calen." He bit out, keeping things short and ignoring the tinny part of his brain that was screaming 'predator' over and over again now that Isha's gaze was pointed at him.

  "Emma," His sister squeaked, lifting her lightly shaking hands out of her lap. "Mahira said you could help with these, and Calen's head."

  Which was begging, and blindly trusting the strangers who had all the power while they were in the lion's den, not a real question.

  The Warden gave a slight smile, assuming those wrinkles at the edges of a dragonborn's jaw meant the same thing they did to humans.

  "We'll have plenty of time to take a look, if that's knowledge you're willing to trust me with once you understand the weight of it," Isha said, breezing by the offer to continue the introductions. "You've met my daughter Mirri. This is Viran, my nephew."

  Viran looked up from his bowl at his name, and splayed his spadelike claws while he twisted his wrist into a very slow, exaggerated wave. Calen tried to drag the mana out of his head, and found it already empty. The big guy really was just that moving that slowly right now.

  "Dovin is my second, which means he handles the day-to-day unless something particularly interesting crops up," Isha's grin deepened just a bit as she continued. "Or two *someones*."

  The other golden giant in the room was still behind Calen's head, but the amused snort came from the same alcove behind the door as before.

  Calen leaned deeper into the seat, trying to find a comfortable way to rest his elbow so he could put his chin in his palm. It wasn't going well. His other hand idly danced the brass disk from the floor between his knuckles. The size was right for that at least, even if the weight was off when he flipped it.

  Emma's heels came together as she straightened her back and leveled her shoulders.

  "I guess my most pressing question is what makes us interesting, and what that shield has to do with it." Calen started them off, beating her to the punch just as her mouth began to open.

  Which was amusing, for some reason. Or the gentle huff of air from Isha's nostrils meant something else.

  Like impatience.

  "So far? Everything I know about you two is interesting," The Warden intoned with a glance at her notes. "You're Arrivals who are holding power like Young Immortals, while claiming to come from a manaless world, both things we have so far thought impossible. That oddity may explain why you're so spread out this year, but Mercy knows why you're so numerous for now."

  "Mirri said we seemed like Mercy's favorites this year," Emma chimed in with her own question, thankfully playing it safe and properly pursuing their actual goals here. "Does this... always happen? How many people usually... Arrive?"

  "Every year, but it's not always walking talking people. On calm years, we can get plants, or even animals suitable to survival in some respect," Isha confirmed. "When we get sapient species? Between twenty thousand and two hundred thousand members of whichever species the gods have pulled out from under annihilation. Often in groups of two to ten thousand, but Arrivals from Earth are breaking the mold there once again. Sariel has told me groups numbering between six and twenty-two have been located so far, with no other pattern we can discern, and no total count yet. Were you two alone, or...?"

  The Warden trailed off expectantly, putting the burden of responding on them. Gathering her own information.

  Or checking their story against something she already knew.

  "Nobody landed with us, or got eaten. That I know of." Calen corrected himself quickly.

  The tower had been fairly blood-soaked. There was no telling what had happened before they arrived. Or 'Arrived,' if Calen was reading Isha's inflections correctly.

  Emma was nodding along too.

  "The three of us were the only people we saw." She confirmed.

  "Your chaperone." Isha managed to be technically accurate in a way that still sent prickles up Calen's spine.

  'Chaperone' implied a degree of responsibility that hadn't quite been adhered to. And a degree of authority that didn't exist, because they were both technically adults.

  "Neighbor," Calen corrected her. "He didn't have any actual authority over us. Or responsibility, so he left with the knights while the Warlord was busy with Em."

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  Emma somehow straightened further at the bitter note that crept into his voice, but her eyes were focused past Calen even as he turned to explain what had happened in more detail.

  "Wait, he's not here? You said we were all going the same place." Emma didn't sound like she was *trying* to accuse Mirri of anything, but Calen still winced at her tone.

  *He* knew that because he knew her. These strangers...

  Mirri's hand flexed almost imperceptibly, so Calen swallowed his curses and put himself on the altar.

  "Em, he was walking on his own. None of the knights were willing to help with your fight," Calen snorted. "Believe me, I tried asking. And bothering them. Extensively."

  A little reminder that Mirri had needed help too seemed to balance the scales enough that nobody drew blades, or balled their fists. Dovin seemed content to watch the show from his 'perch' by the door behind Emma.

  "He was the one who shot the Horde scout, and killed the juvenile hydra, yes?" The Warden interrupted Calen's train of thought while Emma slumped.

  That particular betrayal was going to take some rebuilding later, hopefully with something a little more solid than blind trust this time. The grumpy old man might have been helping them, but it had been far from selfless ambition. 'Reluctant duty' fit the bill more closely in Calen's eyes.

  A duty that had ended when they were all captured, apparently.

  "Yeah. I didn't see it, but he had the gun, and nobody else was inside." Calen admitted, buying Em time to process.

  Isha's eyes narrowed almost imperceptibly, Viran looked up, Mirri's tail wrapped itself around the chair leg below her, and then the room went still as Calen realized he had made a mistake.

  "*The* gun? As in one, singular firearm?" Dovin asked over Calen's shoulder.

  Isha's second in command was no longer leaned up against the wall, judging by the distance his voice came from. Which Calen had plenty of time to measure, as the words stretched longer and longer in his perception.

  All of that extra time didn't buy him a single way out of the hole he had just dug himself into. He was still stuck in the exact same place, passing information about Earth's technology to total strangers connected to a power structure.

  And while Isha looked content to wait him out, Mirri might not be, and they had the threat of Em being right there.

  Having only one priority left was going to backfire hard, if he made this too difficult.

  Calen let the breath out, and dragged the mana out of his head as he made his decision.

  "Yes." He gambled, going silent afterwards.

  If he was giving up any more information, they were finding out how far these people would go for the it in the process. In front of Em, where she could see it, before they got to anything *really* important. She was the one who could say the really dangerous stuff to the mages.

  Hot breath in his ear and a clawed hand coming to rest on his shoulder informed him that the house was winning this round.

  "We're going to need you to do a little better than that," Dovin breathed. "Range, speed of loading, complexity to forge."

  "How he hid it," Mirri added. "Where he hid it. I didn't see him carrying a rifle. If the Horde—"

  She cut herself off when Isha raised a hand.

  "Sulfur munitions are a tool that local human tribes use to significant effect against my people. Anything you're willing to share about the advancements they're about to receive is something we'll learn about anyway," The Warden's gaze was unwaveringly fixed down on Calen. "I would prefer to learn here, bloodlessly, from a new ally."

  Which made complete sense, but unfortunately for her, Calen still needed to know how far he could push a refusal, and he wanted to test it with knowledge he was okay giving up.

  Calen's mouth was half-open to ask what would happen if he refused when Emma kicked him in the shin.

  "Stop being a jerk to the only people who are willing to help us over a handgun that's hundreds of years old." She trampled over his exclamation of pain and made things worse all at once.

  "Handgun?" Mirri got involved again, and didn't seem to realize she was rubbing at her bandaged shoulder. "As in a manaless gun the size of one's hand?"

  The lady who could steer firebolts with her mind seemed a whole lot more nervous than the rest of the dragonborn in the room, but no one else had been shot today, as far as Calen knew, so he gave it to her.

  "Revolver," Calen hissed out, shaking out the leg Em had just pummeled and brushing off the minor betrayal. "It's called a revolver. Six shots before it has to reload, about as fast as you can pull the trigger. Manaless. No idea how hard it would be to make a copy, because I have no idea what forging looks like with magic involved."

  Calen also didn't know why only one of the armored humans had bothered with steel, or how nobody had bothered with a weapon that could fire more than once if they had access to gunpowder and a constant supply of literal monsters trying to eat them, but those were questions for later.

  The hand came off his shoulder around the time he mentioned the weapon was manaless.

  "What metal were the projectiles? Iron? Bronze? Lead? Steel? How many shots did it take for that lump I saw on the floor?" Dovin asked.

  "Copper, maybe with a lead core. I dunno, he wasn't exactly passing the ammo around," Calen hedged. "Three shots for the dragonborn, more for the Hydra, but they didn't work until it was on fire."

  Mirri looked like she was going to say more, but a satisfied huff from Dovin saw her settling back in her seat.

  With her arms crossed, instead of hovering a hand near a weapon.

  "The first one bounced off his scales. It just squished. The other two... the other two hit the throat." Emma was back to speaking, volunteering information Calen hadn't had.

  It seemed to be the right thing to say, judging by the way the Warden leaned back in thought.

  "Thank you," Isha sounded willing to ignore his hesitation if Calen ignored all the implied threats that had gotten him talking in the end. "Is there anything else you're willing to share?"

  "Depends on how well the next few days go, and how much you tell us about this world and what comes next for us," Calen spoke before Emma could volunteer anything else for free, and pointed at the shield, still conspicuously leaned up against Isha's desk. "Again, starting with that thing, and why it's important enough to get a seat at the table."

  He was absolutely ready to skip to the 'bribe Emma for the rights to the important magical artifact' portion of the discussion. Whatever honor-based system of property rights was giving them leverage was only going to keep these people docile for so long if they really wanted the weapon.

  It took every ounce of his self-control not to scramble back when Isha drew herself up, but the Warden was only standing, to pace around her desk towards her own silver staff as she spoke.

  "*That* belonged to one of my oldest remaining friends, until she died about two weeks ago, assassinating the former Lord of the Wastes," The Warden said, briefly reaching an arm over her desk to tap at the top of the slab of metal. "Venatrix Mahira took it up as the rest of the team made their exit, and spent the last moments of her life ensuring your sister could reach it, before a direct representative of Sanctum bestowed the rest of her Seraph Steel upon you two."

  She made it sound like a ceremony, instead of a desperate scramble in the mud.

  "So let me guess, it comes with responsibilities we can't uphold, and you're about to make us an offer?" Calen tried to steer them in the right direction. Cooperation was good for everyone. Especially people with no actual power and no idea what was happening.

  "Very good. Yes," Isha confirmed, then squelched one of Calen's hopes for the next few minutes. "Simply turning you loose carrying Seraph Steel without proper training and support would get you killed almost as quickly as sending you to the Long Roads with a sack of gold and some well-wishes for your time."

  "Because Calen's head might explode, and my hands... have something wrong with them?" Emma asked. "And you can help fix it?"

  Isha was definitely smiling as her staff tapped the floor. She had circled around the desk to continue speaking, passing behind Viran's chair and stepping over the big guy's tail without bothering him.

  "Yes, I suspect any danger your channels pose to you is eminently fixable," Isha said. "There is nothing wrong with the choices you've made except the amount of training you currently have, and I have the resources to fix that, if neither of you has any objections to sticking around to receive tutoring."

  That was... almost perfect. She just hadn't named a price yet.

  "And you want the Seraph Steel in exchange." Calen prodded, looking for confirmation.

  He didn't get it. Instead, something strange happened.

  Mirri's face did the twitching, instead of her wrist.

  "Mercy no, that would be a terrible waste of potential at a time where every drop is needed." The Warden finished dashing Calen's hopes of a happy resolution, then launched into an explanation.

  "Venatrix Mahira is dead, so barring astounding success from Sariel, there will be a new Lord of the Wastes by the end of the year. You threw a toy at him today, and he'll want your sister dead within the decade to secure his mythos as a victor today," Isha dropped the information casually, as if it were a foregone conclusion that Emma was going to be murdered by a cannibal warlord. "Meanwhile, millions upon millions of humans from Earth are about to create a refugee crisis that will stretch Sanctum's resources thin."

  The Warden's tone was still mild and polite, despite the grim picture she was painting. Every revelation piled a dozen more questions onto Calen's plate, and he wasn't sure he liked where this was going.

  No, he was absolutely sure he didn't like where this was going.

  "So what do you want? In exchange for fixing us." Emma asked, skipping past the dizzying array of potential threats that Isha seemed to be setting herself up to solve for them to jump straight into the lion's maw.

  "Helping you is the bare minimum I would do for any Arrival. We can talk about what you want out of the arrangement next. For now, we need to see what you're capable of, but—" Isha's smugly magnanimous expression stretched wider as she leaned on the staff set in the crook of her elbow, reaching out a hand to grasp Mirri's shoulder. "—if you choose to take up that steel when Sariel returns, then I will train you like my own daughter. Anything less would be a dereliction of duty."

  Mirri's chin had a haughty lift to it, the same one she had shown off leaning against her spear in the north tower, with Isha in the same stance behind her now. Calen had a pretty good idea of who was copying who, there, but he was a little more worried about the way Emma's face had just lit up.

  Like she couldn't see that there had to be a trap buried somewhere in that pie-in-the-sky offer.

  "Can you help us find our parents too?" Emma barged ahead, heedless of Calen's opinion. "If they... if they made it here?"

  "Of course," Isha practically purred. "I can't promise immediate results, the whims of the gods are fickle, but we have Wards sweeping the woods already. How far away were they, and in what direction?"

  Em started babbling about units of measurement and asking for a writing utensil, and Calen's white-knuckled grip on the brass disk in his palm finally tightened enough to hurt.

  Mirri's claws were calmly splayed over her lap, nowhere near her weapon as Isha wandered back around behind the desk to engage with Emma's questions.

  Calen had been focused on the wrong angle until it was too late. All it had taken to wrap Em around those scary golden claws was offering everything they said they wanted.

  Everything except a way out, and a reason why all this benefited Isha.

  minimum viable populations. Wider ranging species who expend relatively high efforts on singular or low numbers of offspring, such as elephants, humans, and whales often require higher minimums to sustain the species.

  population bottleneck, with their numbers dropping to as low as 1,000-100,000 surviving individuals, eliminating 95% of their genetic diversity as they teetered on the brink of extinction over the 117,000 year span.