"What do you mean you don't know what race she is?!" Damien said, marching towards where Gray was beginning to play with Pinkie, lifting her with telekinesis and twirling her through the air like a bird.

  The serpentine creature seemed to like it, seeing as she kept hissing and wriggling, moving herself like she already had experience in flying.

  [Exactly what I said: I don't know,] Gray replied. [This creature, random as she came into your life, has no known origin.] he chuckled. [She's kind of like you.]

  Damien frowned. "Why aren't you taking this seriously?"

  [Why should I?] Gray asked, for the first time taking his attention from the flying Pinkie. [I understand that knowing her descent is important, but right now, it's not. Look, even Keilan gets it.]

  Startled, Damien turned to find a silhouette leaning against the far wall to his left.

  "How'd I not notice you standing there?" Damien asked, a little bit unsettled.

  Keilan smiled and then pushed himself off the wall, bringing his hands down on his green overcoat. He shifted a strand of blond hair away from his face and regarded Damien.

  "Finding new ways to work on my stealth," he answered, and then the air seemed to ripple, and his brother came into the light. "You should do the same. You'll need it soon."

  "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "For the followers secretly tailing us, of course."

  "Wait, what?!"

  "Hold on," Keilan slowed down his approach, looking at Damien with a frown. "You didn't notice the people tailing you?"

  "I didn't see any followers," Damien replied. "Nor did I notice anyone. Gray?"

  [No, no one was tailing you, Damien, mainly because your awakening and where you came out from were unpredictable. Keilan, on the other hand, was very much expected,] Gray answered calmly, attention still on the flying Serpent.

  "Why do I get the feeling that you know who these people are?" Keilan said slowly.

  [Because I do,] Gray chuckled, glanced at them, and then went back to playing with the little Pinkie.

  "Who're they?"

  [Not saying.]

  "You promised, Gray. Remember?" Damien said. "No secrets."

  [No. I promised not to keep secrets from you about the enemies you couldn't handle. And this kind, while they might be exceedingly powerful, aren't something you shouldn't be able to deal with on your own... Eventually.]

  "I just spent half the entire day fending off the attacks of some unknown mental wielders and you're just going to keep quiet about it?" Keilan said, stepping forward once more, but this time with anger in his eyes.

  [You fought through, didn't you?] Gray shrugged. [Sometimes, having all the answers can be detrimental. Besides, you're not the only ones being followed. Your friend, Vanis, should have some info about them. At least, that's if he even knows he's being tailed.]

  Damien frowned, thinking. Who would want to tail them? At first, he'd thought it might have been the Verrille young lord keeping an eye on them, but Gray's last statement quashed that notion.

  Aside from the Proto space, Damien had tried and succeeded in staying away from problems or anything that could lead to it, so it couldn't be an enemy with a grudge.

  "Tell me this," he spoke after a while. "What do they want?"

  Gray looked him in the eye for a moment, and then smiled. [To kill you, of course. Or to capture you... One of the two.]

  "And with this info, you still don't want to tell us who they are. Why?"

  [Because they're sticking to the conventional rules of battle. Every realm tackles its own. I assume the Verrille Ascendant, The Mistress of Madness, is aware of this. If she chooses not to warn her children, then who am I?]

  Damien opened his mouth, said nothing, and then closed it. He sighed, shaking his head. This was a lost cause. They weren't going to get anything from Gray at this point.

  He looked at his brother. "Where were you? Maybe we can catch a glimpse of who these people are."

  Keilan glanced up at him, his face still on Gray. He waited for a moment, and then answered, shrugging. "I was with Tym."

  Damien stared at his brother for a while, silent. And then he nodded slowly. "Oh."

  "Oh?" Keilan said, with a smile slowly creeping up his face. "Are you jealous, Damien?"

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  "What are you talking about? Why would I be jealous that you were with some guy?"

  "You definitely are jealous!" His brother pointed at him. "I can see the eye scrunching you do whenever you're mad about something."

  "What eye scrunching?" Damien frowned.

  "There!" His brother pointed again. "You're doing it now. The thing where you narrow your left eye and tighten your lips."

  "I so do not do that!"

  "Yes, you do!"

  "Keilan, I'm pretty certain you're just saying this to piss me off. I don't do whatever eye scrunching whatever you're talking about."

  "Denial denial..." His brother tsked, which elicited a sigh from Damien.

  "Now, you're just purposefully being annoying," he shook his head. "Why don't you go spend some more time with your boyfriend or something?"

  "You do know he and I are not a thing, right?"

  "Sure doesn't look that way to me."

  Sighing, Keilan stepped closer. "I'm sorry I wasn't there when you woke up," he said. "I needed to get some fresh air. To take my mind off some things or to talk to someone."

  "So you chose Tym?"

  "No, I didn't. Damien, we've been together for more than a decade now— both of us constantly revolving around the other, with no space for another soul to come in. It has to stop."

  "Oh. I see..."

  His brother sighed again and then gestured to the floor. "Take a seat," he said, after which he did the same.

  There was silence for a few seconds, other than the chuckling and hissing as Gray slowly led Pinkie away from them.

  Damien waited for his brother to say whatever he wanted to say. He couldn't deny that he hadn't seen this coming. What Keilan had said was the truth; both of them had spent the last ten years mostly around each other, revolving around each other. Sure, they'd taken in some other people, but only for a short while. No one had ever been in their life on a permanent basis. No doubt, very few came close, like Elas and Merene, who, now that he really thought about it, were some vague personification of their late parents. The sovereigns of their previous vassal kingdoms, Fenore, Brunos, and even Danor, had also come close, but none of them had crossed that step into permanence.

  "That night when they died," Keilan began, "I was so usele—"

  "You weren't—"

  "Don't belittle me by cradling my ego, Damien."

  Damien sighed and then nodded. "Sorry."

  "When they died, I was so weak and useless. I couldn't even put up a fight against the common foundation realm grunts that had been sent against us. I was scared... scared and terrified, frozen by the visages of those slain staring at me. The soldiers were even worse. I saw the weapons in their hands and all I could think about was to flee, so much so that it almost got me killed, and you too." His brother took a deep breath. "Had... Had Dad not interfered then and there, we would have been corpses, no doubt. And it would have been my fault."

  "You know that's not true—"

  "Quiet, Damien. Let me finish." His brother said with an unsmiling face.

  "That night, I watched three of the people I love dearly die, all in one fell swoop. And I couldn't even lift a finger to help them. I simply stood there, paralyzed like some petrified statue. Had you not dragged me away, I would have been the death of of us both.

  "You dragged me into a proto space in which we had no business going into... All just to survive. For three months, Damien. Three Months! I had to be carried around because I could do nothing. I was weak and you paid heavily for it."

  Damien opened his mouth to protest but his brother forestalled him.

  "Don't deny it. I knew the nights when you thought I was asleep, and so broke down crying. I remember the nights when you went out to hunt for food and returned with blood dripping from your ribs and your skin hanging loosely, which you tried you hide because of the dark. I remember when you fought off a Lord realm monster at just the adept stage, simply to keep me alive. You could have certainly escaped if it had only been you, yet you stayed back, suffering grievous injuries more and more to protect a boy stricken mute with grief. I could have helped, certainly. But I was afraid. Afraid of death, afraid of being mauled. Afraid that my participation might be what would eventually lead to your death."

  Damien heard his brother breathe in, and then tucked away a strand of hair.

  "I was weak, Damien. And not only did it snuff something inside me, it also awakened something else. I vowed never to see a loved one slip from my grasp again. I vowed to bring devastation on those who would harm my family.

  "When the mad triplets attacked. When I found out that their main goal was your death... It tore through me and unleashed something I didn't know I had. A rage beyond even my comprehension." His brother sniffed. "I fulfilled my vow: bringing devastation to those who would do you harm... And then I went ahead and crippled myself.

  "Do you know that the battle on that Aveanii outpost almost made me call upon my ascended technique when that Spirit King turned his eyes on you? Yeah, it almost did.

  "I'd have rather died than see you dead. Luckily, we were saved. And now... Not a day later, I had to watch you do battle against another Spirit King. Alone! All I could do was watch as you bled through every orifice on your head. Had you been taken captive by that... That thing, I wouldn't have been able to do anything. Why? Because I was weak, paralyzed.

  "This soul injury... Despite how agonizing it is to feel my powers and not be able to touch them, I was okay with it as long as you survived. As long as you lived. But Damien, our battles are beginning to slip past the Spirit lord stage. In the span of one week, we have battled two Spirit Kings and escaped from twice that. Something needs to change."

  Damien stared at his brother, meeting those blue eyes which were once like the deepest ocean, but now were cold as ice.

  Keilan growled. "I can't be weak anymore. I can't wait for this Soul injury to heal itself. Who knows how long it would take?! I can't watch you die, Damien. Not after mom and dad, and... And Leira."

  Damien sighed, stumped for what to say. Keilan had never been one for comfort. Oh, he comforted Damien whenever he was down, but he rejected the same when it was done to him.

  "You do know I can protect myself, right?"

  "Ha!" A sharp laugh echoed through the room, drawing a pause from the serpentine creature playing in the distance. "Yes, you can protect yourself. There's no doubt about that. But with how terrible your luck seems to be at making friends, you need someone to watch your back. You might be able to handle a simple battle, but what happens when assassins start coming?"

  "I can still protect myself."

  Keilan raised an eyebrow. "And pray tell... how do you plan on doing that? 'cause from where I'm sitting, only one of us has an Ascended technique."

  Damien rolled his eyes. "Smug much?"

  His brother grinned.

  "It's just the truth, Dame. Until you become as old and powerful as me, you're stuck being my ward. I'll be the Nalon to your Vanis."

  "The what?"

  "Your warder," Keilan said like it should have been obvious to Damien.

  "Oh," Damien said, the beginning of a smile creeping up. "How do you plan on protecting me, Sir Keilan? 'Cause between the both of us, only one has access to their Soul well."

  "Nice one... Nice one, Dame," Keilan clapped. "You know... I'd accept this as a loss, but unfortunately for you, Gray chose today to come out and play."

  He turned to Gray.

  "Any ideas on how to remedy my situation?"