Seraphiel stares at him blankly.

  "I learned about it—my tutor taught me." He smiles callowly.

  They finish their meal in silence.

  Returning to the clandestine lab, Madarame arrives at an oracle orb. He rubs it. "Let's see, haven't used this in a while." This orb showed uses of the arts in a certain radiance. Madarame liked to monitor it and keep a close eye on those with power that shouldn't have it.

  He "put them down" if he felt it was too dangerous for them to possess.

  He put the orb down, having seen something strange. He turned to Seraphiel.

  "Two hundred miles west of here, in the forests of Deor, a group of cloaked men are aiming to perform a barred ritual, poorly contained. I'll be watching from here, but please go along and make do with them.

  We both would like to see what you're capable of."

  Stepping outside, Seraphiel breathes in the air. He sees the curvature of the earth. He hears the murmuring of Madarame in the lab. He feels the pores in his skin.

  Click. Click. Click.

  "Don't. Look. Up."

  The Tengu is clicking rapidly like an alarm.

  Seraphiel can feel eyes peering down at him from the heavens. He does not dare look back.

  Flying to the forest and surveying in the blink of an eye, he perches atop a tree.

  His feet replace with talons—crooked, bony, and sharp. Incredibly sharp.

  Five men, cloaked, stand in a circle illuminated by candlelight. In front of them lies a creature's head, resembling a huge skinned rat with teeth like a razor's edge.

  "Rodion," the Tengu clicks.

  The men raise their hands, chanting. Madarame watches from his orb, thumb to his lip.

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  Seraphiel swoops from the tree, flying with a foot aimed at one man's back, his talon ripping out the man's spine in one fell swoop. The other four turn in agitation. One man stops and watches.

  Seraphiel shoots the hairs from his wings like a machine gun, splintering the three who charge, leaving holes through them as the hairs fly off like shrapnel, tearing through trees.

  The last man keeps his hood on. An emblem—a rat eating its own tail, akin to the ouroboros—rests upon him.

  He jumps up, blows deeply, his chest protruding abnormally. He exhales a flame hotter than the sun. It turns blood to vapor in an instant. Seraphiel covers himself with his wings; the hairs are so dry and dead they ignite instantly.

  He sheds these wings. They drop behind him. He hunches over as more appear in a millisecond.

  The hooded figure creates a triangle with his fingers. He closes one eye and places Seraphiel between them. Fire falls from the sky, aiming to entrap him like a salt circle of flame.

  Seraphiel is about to look up until he hears—

  CLICK.

  "Don't."

  He instead jumps clear. He tears off one of the bony appendages of his wing, shooting the hairs at the man. The man slides out of the way, creating a line of flames as he moves, igniting the hair mid-air.

  Seraphiel dashes forward, head hunched. He grips the bony weapon like a spear and launches it. It connects, piercing the man's shoulder and pinning him to the ground.

  Seraphiel spins and slashes the man's throat with his talons.

  Fire spurts instead of blood. It burns Seraphiel's skin as he flies back, spinning rapidly.

  The man turns the bone spear to ash, his wounds cauterising themselves. He takes a stance.

  "Cerb—"

  He vanishes as sunlight makes contact with him.

  All that remains is the creature's head and his cloak. The blood has evaporated. The bodies are gone.

  Seraphiel clicks. Some strange battle cry, perhaps.

  Madarame appears, holding the orb in one hand.

  "Wow," is all he has the power to say.

  "That little noise at the end there… that really was something."

  Madarame kneels, holding the rat emblem and looking toward the creature—a Rodion, a mythical being with the head of a rat and the body of a snake. It's said to have escaped the heavens when the Alien visited Verez. He puts a finger to his lip.

  A cult dedicated to this creature? A proficient user of flame? Here in Rea?

  So many questions plague his mind. What did the ritual aim to do? Summon the Verezian alien? No—that's just a myth.

  He pockets the emblem as they return to the chateau.

  Seraphiel's eye darts ahead. He sees far into the distance: a hand descending from the sky, snatching a lone child from the wilderness before retreating upward.

  He hears the child wail.

  He smells the fear.

  He tastes the blood.

  He feels the ribs overlap.

  Click. Click.

  "Look away."

  Seraphiel is witnessing something he should not see—prying into mysteries of beings he is not worthy to comprehend. To write down the sounds that followed from the heavens would plague the reader with such evil that mere awareness of it would cause a blood-drunk madness.

  Seraphiel fell to his knees in the forest as Madarame watched in terror.

  Click. Click. Click. Click. Caw.