The problem with a baby Phoenix was not the noise. It was the pyromania.
Lucian, in his current state as a golden ball of fluff the size of a melon, had absolutely no control over his internal combustion engine. Every time he hiccuped, a small and perfect ring of smoke puffed from his beak. Every time he got excited, which was often, his downy feathers grew hot enough to singe fabric.
By midday he had burned three linen tablecloths, scorched a hole in the rug, and set the hem of Ignis's favorite robe on fire twice.
"He needs to grow up," Ignis stated, frantically patting out a smoldering patch on his sleeve while the chick looked on with innocent blinking eyes. "Now. Before he burns the house down. We survived a siege and a void monster. It would be embarrassing to die because a bird burped."
Valeria stood in the kitchen, staring at the crystal pitcher of Concentrated Spirit Essence that Kael had harvested that morning. It glowed with a deep and pulsating blue light, swirling with silver flecks of raw mana. It was a fortune in liquid form. A week ago she had rationed this substance by the drop. Now, thanks to the Titan World Tree, she had a gallon of it.
"The theory is sound," Valeria said, consulting the heavy leather-bound volume titled The Care and Feeding of Mythical Beasts she had pulled from the Library. "Phoenixes do not grow linearly like mammals. They grow by consuming mana-dense fuel. In the wild they eat volcanic ash and sunbeams. This Essence is basically liquid mana. If we supersaturate his system, we should be able to force a rapid maturation cycle."
She poured the blue liquid into a large ceramic mixing bowl. She walked to the pantry and retrieved a jar of Fire Bloom pollen she had harvested from the greenhouse before the glass shattered. She added a handful of the red dust to the blue liquid. The mixture hissed, turning a vibrant and violent purple.
"It smells like spicy lightning," Caspian noted, leaning over the bowl. His gills flared. "Are you sure this won't explode him?"
"It might," Valeria admitted honestly. "But he is a Phoenix. Explosions are his natural state."
She turned to Kael. "Bring him here."
Kael scooped up the chirping ball of fluff from the nest of blankets they had made near the hearth. Lucian peeped happily, nuzzling into Kael's warm chest. The Tiger's solar-infused body ran hot, making him the perfect heater for a fire-bird.
"He likes you," Valeria noted with a smile.
"He likes that I am a stove," Kael grunted, though his massive hands were incredibly gentle as he cupped the bird. "He has no dignity. He thinks I am furniture."
Kael placed Lucian on the table in front of the bowl. The chick looked at the purple liquid. He sniffed it. He tilted his head, his large amber eyes blinking rapidly. Then, with a happy chirp that sounded like a squeaky toy, he dunked his whole head into the bowl and began to drink.
He drank greedily. He drank the entire pitcher.
For a moment nothing happened. Lucian sat there, blinking, his stomach visibly distended, looking like a very round and very full golden ornament.
Then he burped. A smoke ring floated up, larger than the others.
"Get back," Ignis warned, pulling Valeria behind the heavy oak table.
Lucian began to glow. It wasn't the soft ambient light of the tree outside. It was the angry red light of a forge. His small body vibrated. The air in the kitchen grew hot, distorting the view like a mirage.
POOF.
A cloud of golden fire exploded outward. It wasn't destructive fire. It was expanding energy. It filled the kitchen with the smell of cinnamon, ozone, and burnt sugar.
When the smoke cleared the chick was gone. The bowl was cracked down the middle.
In its place, curled up on the charred table, was a boy.
He was naked, curled in the fetal position. He looked about fifteen years old. He was slender, with limbs that looked too long for his body, but the starvation and scars of his previous life were gone. His skin was unblemished and glowing with health. His hair was a vibrant fiery red that fell to his shoulders in messy waves.
And on his back were wings.
Not the stunted burned stumps he had before. These were magnificent wings, spanning six feet even when folded, covered in feathers that shifted from gold to crimson in the light. They were fully formed powerful appendages that twitched as he slept.
The boy stirred. He opened his eyes. They were amber, clear, and intelligent.
"Ow," Lucian groaned, rubbing his head. "My brain feels like it was stuffed with cotton. And I taste... blueberries?"
He sat up. He looked at his hands. He flexed his long piano-player fingers. He looked over his shoulder at his wings.
"I'm... back?" he whispered.
He looked up and saw Valeria peeking over the table.
"Commander?" Lucian asked, his voice cracking slightly. It was deeper than the child's voice but not yet a man's. "Why are you hiding?"
Valeria stood up. She grabbed a tablecloth that had survived the inferno and threw it over him.
"You exploded," Valeria said. "Welcome back, Lucian."
Lucian wrapped the cloth around himself like a toga. He stood up. He wobbled slightly, his center of gravity shifted by the massive wings. He flapped them once to steady himself. A gust of warm air swept through the kitchen, rattling the pans.
"I remember," Lucian said, his eyes widening as the memories downloaded. "I remember the mine. The bomb. I remember falling."
He looked at Silas, who was leaning against the doorframe chewing on a piece of dried meat.
"You saved me," Lucian said. "You jumped into the void."
Silas shrugged. "You dropped the ball. Someone had to catch it."
Lucian laughed. It was a bright musical sound that banished the tension in the room.
"I'm hungry," Lucian announced suddenly, clutching his stomach. "I feel like I could eat a horse. A whole horse. With the saddle."
"We have stew," Valeria said. "No horses. But we have a lot of stew."
The rest of the afternoon was a chaotic lesson in biology and physics. Lucian was physically an adolescent, but his coordination was lagging behind his growth spurt. He kept knocking things over with his wings. He tripped over his own feet. He was a teenager in the most awkward sense of the word.
The husbands took turns managing him while Valeria supervised the construction of the manor.
Ignis took the first shift. The Dragon Strategist decided that physical coordination was secondary to mental acuity. He sat Lucian down in the library with a slate and some math problems.
"If a ballista fires a bolt at forty-five degrees with a tension of two thousand pounds," Ignis began, tapping the slate with a piece of chalk, "calculate the arc of descent."
Lucian stared at the slate. He stared at the chalk. Then he picked up the chalk and ate it.
Ignis stared at him.
"Calcium deficiency," Ignis sighed, marking a zero on the slate. "His brain is still wiring itself. Spit that out, bird. It is bad for your digestion."
Lucian swallowed it. "It tastes like dust," he complained.
Next was Caspian. The Shark decided that Lucian needed toughening up. He took the boy to the water trough in the yard.
"Hydro-therapy," Caspian claimed. "Good for coordination. The water provides resistance."
He splashed water on Lucian.
Lucian shrieked. It was a high-pitched sound that shattered a nearby window pane. His wings flared with instinctive heat, instantly vaporizing the water into a cloud of scalding steam.
"Bad idea," Caspian coughed, waving away the steam as Lucian huddled in the corner with his feathers puffed up. "Fire birds do not like baths. Noted."
Finally, Silas took over. The Wolf didn't try to teach him math or force him into the water. He simply took Lucian to the porch. He sat down and watched the sunset.
Lucian sat next to him, wrapping his wings around himself for warmth.
"You died," Silas said quietly.
"Yes," Lucian replied.
"Was it scary?"
"No," Lucian said, resting his chin on his knees. "It was warm. Like waking up before the alarm goes off. But I missed you guys."
Silas nodded. He put an arm around the boy's shoulders.
"Good. Don't do it again. The pack is smaller without you."
Valeria watched them from the window of the newly framed study. The family was whole again. Lucian was no longer a victim. He was a survivor. A Phoenix who had actually risen from the ashes, stronger than before.
She looked at her checklist. The refugees were housed. The food supply was stable. The defense systems were being repaired. The mana barrier was holding.
But there was one loose end.
Her gaze drifted to the gate.
Lysandra was still there.
The Necromancer had not moved. She sat on a rock just outside the boundary of the silver grass, staring at the horizon. She looked frail, her skin grey against the vibrant life of the valley. She looked like a ghost haunting the edge of paradise. She hadn't eaten. She hadn't slept. She was waiting for the judgment.
Valeria sighed. She couldn't leave her there. It was cruel, and more importantly, it was a waste of a valuable asset.
"Time to pay the rent," Valeria whispered.
She grabbed a heavy wool cloak and headed for the door.
Kael met her in the hallway. He saw where she was going.
"You are going to her," Kael stated.
"She is dying, Kael," Valeria said. "And she knows things about the Deep Roads that we don't."
"She is a viper," Kael warned. "You warm a viper and it bites you."
Valeria adjusted her gloves. "Vipers only bite when they are threatened. When they are fed, they are just lazy lizards."
Kael snorted. "I will come with you. If she tries to cast a spell I will take her head off."
"Suit yourself," Valeria said.
They walked out into the twilight. The air was cool, but under the canopy of the World Tree it was never truly cold. The silver leaves rustled above them, whispering secrets to the wind.
Lysandra watched them approach. She didn't stand up. She didn't have the strength.
She looked up at Valeria with eyes that were sunken and dim.
"The truce is over, Duchess," Lysandra rasped. Her voice was like dry leaves scraping together. "The Phages are gone. The Hive Queen is dead. I have no army, no mana, and no leverage. I assume you are here to execute me? Or perhaps feed me to your Tiger? It would be poetic."
"I considered it," Valeria admitted. "You tried to kill us. You cursed the Duke. You are a monster, Lysandra."
"I am a pragmatist," Lysandra corrected. "I survived. In this world that is the only morality that matters."
She straightened her spine, trying to regain some of her former imperious stature.
"Do it, then. I am too tired to run."
Valeria looked at her. Through the Merchant's Monocle she saw the truth.
[Target: Lysandra.]
[Status: Mana Depletion. Rapid Cellular Decay.]
[Note: Subject is sustaining life functions via necrotic consumption of her own tissues. Without a mana source she will die in 72 hours.]
"You're dying," Valeria said.
Lysandra sneered. "We are all dying, girl. Some of us just do it slower."
"The World Tree stops the decay," Valeria said.
Lysandra froze. Her eyes darted to the massive silver canopy glowing in the twilight behind Valeria.
"I felt it," Lysandra whispered. "When I touched the bark. The pain... it stopped. The rot in my veins... it paused. It was like drinking cool water after a lifetime of swallowing sand."
"It's pure Life Mana," Valeria said. "It acts as a stasis field for biological degradation. If you stay under the canopy, you won't age. You won't die."
Lysandra stared at the tree with a hunger that was terrifying to witness. It was the look of a drowning woman seeing a raft.
"Why tell me this?" Lysandra asked suspiciously. "You should be happy to watch me rot."
"I am," Valeria said honestly. "But I have a problem. And you are the solution."
Valeria turned and pointed to the mountain behind Lysandra. Specifically to the collapsed tunnel entrance where they had entered the mines weeks ago.
"The Deep Roads," Valeria said. "We closed the Rift, but the tunnels are still there. The Dwarven city is still there. And who knows what else is down there? Monsters. Ancient tech. Things that shouldn't crawl up to the surface."
"So?"
"I can't guard a back door and a front door at the same time," Valeria said. "I need a Warden. Someone who knows the dark. Someone who can sense things crawling in the earth before they breach the surface."
She pulled a scroll from her sleeve.
"This is a Vassal Treaty," Valeria said. "I am offering you a job."
Lysandra looked at the scroll. "A job?"
"Warden of the Deep," Valeria read. "You will build a tower here, over the mine entrance. You will seal it. You will watch it. If anything comes up from the dark, you kill it. If you can't kill it, you scream."
"And in return?"
"In return," Valeria said, "you get land. You get protection under the banner of Oakhaven. And most importantly... you get residency within the Sanctuary Zone."
She gestured to the tree.
"You get to live, Lysandra. As long as you serve."
Lysandra looked at the scroll. She looked at the tree. She looked at Kael, who was watching her with open hostility, his hand on his sword.
"A guard dog," Lysandra murmured. "You want to turn the Widow of the North into a guard dog."
"Better a live dog than a dead lion," Valeria countered.
Lysandra laughed. It was a brittle and broken sound.
"You are cruel, Valeria. You force me to choose between my pride and my life."
She reached out with a trembling hand and took the scroll.
"I accept," Lysandra said. "But I have conditions. I want access to the Library's medical texts. If I am to live forever, I want to cure the rot, not just pause it."
"Granted," Valeria said. "Within reason."
Lysandra produced a quill from her satchel. She bit her thumb and signed the treaty in blood.
[System Notification: New Vassal Acquired.]
[Lady Lysandra has joined the faction: Oakhaven.]
[Territory Defense +500.]
"Welcome aboard," Valeria said.
Lysandra didn't reply. She dropped the scroll. She walked past Valeria, straight toward the World Tree. She sat down at the base of the trunk, leaning against the silver bark. She closed her eyes and let out a long sigh as the mana washed over her, smoothing the lines of pain from her face.
"She is dangerous," Kael rumbled as they walked back to the house. "She will betray us the moment she is strong enough."
"Maybe," Valeria said. "But right now, she is an addict. And I own the supply."
She looked back at the Necromancer sitting under the Tree of Life. It was a strange irony. Death guarding Life.
"Besides," Valeria added. "I'd rather have her inside the tent pissing out, than outside pissing in."
Kael snorted. "You have been spending too much time with the Duke. You are starting to sound like a politician."
"I am a politician," Valeria said, looking at the thriving valley. "I'm the Duchess of the end of the world. And tomorrow, we start building the castle."