“I…” Det started, rolling his shoulders beneath the sudden attention. “I just did what anybody would do in the same situation.”

  “You weren’t anybody to us,” Nancine said. “And you were there. So, thank you.”

  “No problem,” Det said, more than ready to move on from the topic. Learning how to accept genuine gratitude was something he’d never quite done, even after all his years. There was something about the naked appreciation on the woman’s face that made him uncomfortable, like he didn’t really deserve it.

  She didn’t know how many times he’d considered running in the opposite direction. She didn’t know how prepared he was to grab her and exit that emergence, leaving her daughter and Ruffal to die. No, it didn’t matter he would’ve done it without knowing they were there; he’d considered it.

  “Look at you,” Calisco said, punching him gently in the arm as she spoke. “Did you go and get the hero class while I wasn’t looking.”

  “Shut up,” Det said quietly out of the side of his mouth.

  “Awwww, little Det is blushing,” Calisco said.

  “I’m notaaaaaaaaaah!” Det’s body went rigid as liquid ice blossomed below his knee, then spread both down and up. Within seconds, his foot and hip went numb, his entire body tilting dangerously to the side before the sensation faded. Reflexes had the same leg bending and shifting to catch him, before he realized that was the broken one.

  Det braced for the pain that… didn’t come. Where before, it’d felt like a rail-spike driven straight through his shin, now, it was barely more than a tingle.

  “There,” Jeckles said from where he crouched in front of Det. “Should be all better now.”

  “Could warn a guy first,” Det grumbled at the same time he steadied himself.

  Jeckles raised an eyebrow at the comment.

  “And… thank you,” Det said. “Really. That’s much better.”

  “You E-Ranks break so easily,” Jeckles said. “Until your bodies learn how to be tougher, stop jumping in front of things trying to kill you.”

  “I didn’t jump in front of it,” Calisco said from Det’s side, one of her hands going to her abdomen.

  “Sure looked like it to me,” Jeckles said, and Calisco opened her mouth for one of her usual retorts.

  “Jeckles,” General Vans said, though he was looking at Nancine and the children. “Will give you a more thorough examination now, while we wait for more Mistguard to arrive and secure the pillar. Please be honest about any pains or discomfort you feel.”

  “Can we… can we go home, mom?” Meliza asked. “I just want to go home.”

  “We…” Nancine started, different emotions flashing across her face, and she looked up at the General. “Can we go home?”

  The general gave a slow, sad shake of his head. “While I don’t expect Captain Simmons to find any more Wordless on his patrol, we can’t rule out there being another secondary emergence. I insist you stay close to us, for your own safety. Once our ship arrives, you’ll come with us to Avalon.”

  Nancine’s tongue went over her lips before she spoke again, clearly conflicted about her question. “Will we be able to come back later?”

  At the question, General Vans stayed where he’d been kneeling on one knee the whole time, his heavy tower shield standing upright exactly where he’d left it. Big as the man was—damn near seven feet tall and built like a brick shithouse—his long shadow reached the woman even from that position. Still, he crouched a bit lower, curving his back so he didn’t loom quite as much.

  “I’m sorry,” he said softly. “Once our ship arrives, some of my fellow Mistguard will bring you to your home to collect any important belongings you may need, then you’ll be coming with us to Mount Avalon. You will… likely never leave. The Wordless are our nation’s greatest secret, and its greatest shame. We guard it like nothing else.”

  “We can’t leave?” Nancine said, voice suddenly hoarse. “We’ll be prisoners? We’ve done nothing wrong!”

  “No, you haven’t,” General Vans said, voice soft, but with an undertone of iron to it. “You’ve done nothing wrong. Instead, you’ve survived against all odds. Suffered things and horrors most could hardly imagine. Most… who haven’t lived on Avalon.

  “You will not be prisoners,” he continued. “Mount Avalon is far more than just a training facility for the Mistguard. It is one of the largest pillars within the Mistsea, with a population and thriving industries to match. It is a pillar of opportunity for those invited, because nobody not approved by the Mistguard is allowed to settle there. You will be three of a minority who will call the place home.”

  “We have a home,” Nancine argued.

  “You had a home,” Vans said, the man unflinching against her outburst. “Ironsalt is, for all intents and purposes, no more. It will be quarantined, like the other pillars that have fallen to emergences. No Mistships—other than Mistguard—will be allowed within a dozen miles of this place. Any, and I mean any who try to bypass this rule will be met with lethal force.

  “In place of this tragedy, the Mistguard will build a new training and monitoring outpost.”

  “Why though?” Nancine said. “You’ve killed the ants. It’s safe now.”

  General Vans shook his head. “Even if we had killed every ant on the pillar, it will never be safe. The emergence will produce more. Endlessly. We can—at best—temporarily halt their advance, but deep within the bowels of the dungeon, more Wordless will be constructed. When their numbers are filled, they will once again burst forth from the emergence, killing anything in their path.”

  “The ants will come back?” Nancine said, horror dawning on her face.

  “Unless the Mistguard are here to stop them, yes,” General Vans said.

  “Why can’t you just destroy whatever is making those monsters?” Nancine asked, and Det had exactly the same question.

  “Because the construction facilities, even for E-Rank Wordless, are nearly indestructible,” General Vans said. “Worse, if we’re able to so much as scratch them, they self-repair at an incredible rate. We simply don’t have the resources to destroy one, let alone keep it destroyed.

  “No, it’s more economical—cold as that sounds—to deal with the Wordless produced. As long as we keep destroying the Bosses within the dungeons, production ceases for a while. For whatever reason, they are key to the emergence building toward a burst.”

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “Why are you telling me all this?” Nancine said. “If it’s so secret you’re forcing us from our homes, and imprisoning us on Avalaon—No, don’t you try to argue that—and killing anybody who gets too close to the pillar, why are you telling somebody like me? I’m not Mistguard or ReSouled.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” General Vans said. “As a survivor, you are one of us now. Part of a family who knows what you’ve gone through. Nobody will ever ask you to fight again, you or your daughter, but your lives are tied to Avalon. There, you can have a fresh beginning, with our full support.”

  “And if we don’t want that? If we refuse?” Nancine said.

  At the question, the general’s face hardened in a sad way, like a weight settled on his shoulders. Before he answered, he straightened his back, then once again stood up to his full height. Towering over Nancine and the two children, his shadow completely enveloped them, while some of that thicker-than-air energy leaked from the edges of his eyes and rose into the air.

  “The Wordless are the nation’s greatest secret,” Vans said, voice grave. “It will be protected at all costs.”

  Beneath the gaze of the mountainous man, Nancine hugged her daughter tighter, while Ruffal pulled his knees up to his chest, then buried his face in them.

  “You… you’d kill us,” Nacine said breathlessly. “After saving us, you’d kill us.”

  “I would first invite you to join us on Mount Avalon. You have the choice of starting a new life there. It’s up to you whether or not you take that opportunity.”

  “An opportunity to condemn my daughter to living her entire life—and maybe the lives of her children and grandchildren—there. We could never leave!”

  “Nancine,” Det said, holding up a hand to the general before he could respond. “Didn’t you hear what the general said?”

  “That he’d kill us, yes, I heard that.”

  “Before that,” Det said gently, crouching down beside the ink-wolf still standing with its fur once again in one of Meliza’s small hands. Something about seeing Nancine and Meliza curled up like that reminded him too much of Yumi and Nat. As much as he didn’t want any more attention, he also didn’t want to see anybody else dying. Especially not over what might be a small misunderstanding. “He said you would likely never leave. Look, I don’t know him very well yet, but he seems very particular about his word choices. And, he hasn’t lied to you about what your choices are, as blunt as they are.”

  “The young cadet is correct,” General Vans said. “You are not likely to leave, but it is not impossible. There are those trusted by the Mistguard, who are not ReSouled, who work with us to protect the Nivelhime Kingdom from the threat of the emergences. Some choose to fight. Some to trade in merchandise or secrets. Others become Mistship pilots, crew, or engineers. All of these people know the secret, and know how important it is to keep.

  “You, or your daughter, could eventually become one of these people, and be free to travel as you wish.”

  “I could never be a mistship engineer…” Nancine said.

  “Maybe not,” Det said, meeting the woman’s eyes, then looking down at the daughter in her arms. “Let me ask you this, Nancine, even if you could stay on Ironsalt, would you ever leave? Or, are you just as trapped here, by your own choice? And, if Meliza grew up here, what would her future hold? What would her options be if none of this had ever happened?” He gestured only vaguely at the town around them.

  “She…” Nancine said. “She’d work in the mine, like her father. Or, like me, marry somebody who worked in the mine. Hardly anybody has the chance to leave…”

  “See?” Det said gently. “I know this isn’t how any of us wanted things to happen, and I definitely wouldn’t call this good, but maybe it can also be an opportunity? I know if I was in your shoes, and it was just me and my daughter, I’d feel the same way you do now.

  “Is it fair to tear her away from everything she’s known?” Det asked, at the same time he gently pulled some of the hanging hair from out in front of Meliza’s eyes. Eyes that were locked on the ink-wolf, like it was keeping her safe. “Especially after she’s been through so much,” he continued. “Tomorrow, though, if I was still here, still living with… this and the memories of what was, I’d start thinking about the future.

  “How could I give her a better life? Not just now, or next week, but in ten years, when she’s a woman all her own. Watching them grow and leave…” Det stumbled a bit on the words, his own emotions at the daughter he hadn’t seen in twenty years tangling his tongue. “Watching them grow and leave, it’s hard,” he went on. “But not as hard, I think, as watching them grow and stay, because we don’t know any other way.”

  “You’re barely older than Ruffal,” Nancine said, voice quiet but eyes locked on Det like she was really listening to him. “What would you know about raising a child?”

  “ReSouled, remember?” Det said. “My little girl was just about to turn thirteen before I… before I woke up here. That was twenty years ago, and I have nightmares imagining she wasn’t able to move on from me vanishing. Or dying. Or, whatever happened to me. I can only hope she was able to get past that trauma, and become the wonderful woman I knew she would be. With her mother’s help, of course.

  “And, even if meant they had to leave behind the home we’d built together.”

  Leave the home…? Is that why it didn’t work? Because I was drawing a home I remember from twenty years ago, instead of what it looks like now? Are they even there anymore?

  The realization sent a wave of cold through Det like one of Jeckles’ healing abilities, but Nancine speaking again—and putting her hand on his arm—pulled his attention out of his own spiraling thoughts.

  “You sound like you were a good father,” Nancine said, giving his arm a squeeze.

  “If I was, I wouldn’t be here,” he responded quietly, and she nodded like she understood, even if she didn’t agree.

  “Thank you, again. First you saved me and my daughter in the ant-hole, then you might’ve just saved us again here,” Nancine said. “General, was it?” she looked up at Vans. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Of course,” General Vans said. “As I mentioned before, as a survivor, you are family now.”

  “Why are these things, these Wordless, I think you called them, why are they such a big secret? Why don’t you warn everybody about the threat?”

  “The short answer is their safety,” General Vans said. “The Wordless are, in a way, a resource. One the average citizen has no chance of harvesting, no matter how hard they try. If they knew it existed, the greedy would try to exploit it. Then they would die. So the greedy and enterprising would try to trick, pay, or force others to exploit it. Those people would also die. You see where I’m going with this?”

  Nancine nodded, then shook her head. “But, what about us, here? If we’d known this could happen, we could’ve…”

  “Lived in fear your entire lives, for something that was unlikely to ever happen,” General Vans said, something about the sunlight peeking over his shoulder stealing some of his ominous air. “I know this might be hard to believe right now, with this tragedy so fresh in your mind, but consider how long Ironsalt has been an active community. Centuries. With not a single whisper of the Wordless or their emergences.

  “Approximately seven percent of pillars have been overrun by the Wordless. They, like Ironsalt, are either lost to regular citizens, or outright destroyed. Another nine percent of Nivelhime’s pillars have Wordless dungeons that are secretly contained. On those, we have Mistguard stationed around the clock to kill the dungeon Bosses to prevent bursts like what happened here.

  “For the other eighty-four percent of the kingdom, we watch. As we have for centuries upon centuries, since the first Wordless emerged, and the first ReSouled came to Elestar. So, Nancine, if you knew it could happen, you would either forever live in fear of it, or become so desensitized to the threat, it would be like you didn’t know about it anyway. Or, I guess, you might be one of the greedy ones.”

  “I still can’t believe you’re telling me this all so freely,” Nancine said, shaking her head.

  “You lived it,” General Vans said. “And you understandably have questions. Normally, this would all be told you during integration on Avalon, but we have time while we wait for more Mistguard to arrive.”

  “I still don’t see why it needs to be such a big secret. Not everybody is as bad as you make us out to be.”

  “It doesn’t have to be everybody,” General Vans said. “And, before you pass judgement on the tradition I follow, listen to what they say on Avalon. There were those who thought like you did, before. People who shared your desire to try and protect everybody else your way. Listen to those stories, then make your own judgement on which path is the best. You might be surprised to find yourself agreeing with me sooner than you think.”

  “What about you?” Nancine said, turning to Det. “You agree with him?”

  “Uhhhh,” Det said, looking from the woman to the general. “He’s kind of my superior officer, or something, so I think I have to agree with him, even if this is my first time hearing any of this.”

  “You didn’t know?”

  Det shook his head.

  “New cadets—those who don’t stumble upon an emergence themselves—learn most of this during their second year,” General Vans said. “The two here, I guess you could say they’re now part of the accelerated program.”

  “Why does that make me nervous?” Det asked.