The Demon Queen Wants To Live.

Valtheris, the Archon of the Koralis Academy, made his usual rounds in silence.

He moved through the halls. There were many places to check, and at this hour, most of the students were still at their classes. The few who walked the corridors looked at him, and did not see him. His Rune bent the light around him, so that every gaze that found him slid past, and only saw whatever stood behind instead. It was a difficult use of his power, one that drained no small amount of Essence and demanded no small amount of skill. But he had lived a long life, and a long life had left him with much of both.

His morning had begun with paperwork. They usually did. Chief among it had been a damage report from the student quarters, concerning a door with a hole burned through it and a ceiling to match. Apparently, it had taken days for an Inker to notice. The report had named a student. Valtheris had read the name and sighed. He slid the page to the bottom of the stack. He was an old man. Things got misplaced.

He passed the Basic Survival class, and lingered at its chamber only long enough to confirm that everything was in order. Then he moved past. Next came the Covenant History and Philosophy class, and outside its door, Valtheris lingered a while longer.

An Inker stood at the front of the classroom. She was tall, with long grey hair that flowed loose past her shoulders, and a face the years had treated no more kindly than his own. When she spoke, her voice was grave, and something behind her eyes sparkled as she did. Every word left her with the full weight of scripture. To her, every word was.

Inker Cira was giving an address to four rows of students, and it was an address Valtheris could have recited from memory.

"-and thus, with the plunging of a white blade, did Her Radiance the Divine usher in a new dawn. But it was not a victory that came without price. Her Radiance took upon herself the burden of the old world, so that all men and women might begin anew." The woman wiped away a tear that had trickled down her cheek. And Valtheris knew that the tear was real. "And thus it behooves every one of us to recognize that we have been saved, and that we must now make ourselves worthy of the saving-"

And the Inker went on. She spoke of the many great deeds of the Divine and her followers after the first Great Hunt -after the slaying of the Calamitous Dragon Azael. She spoke of the birth of nations and the fall of them, of the trials and the penances. Of the betrayal of Hassa. She spoke of all of it, and through all of it, her tone never changed.

Inker Cira was a fine teacher. Her voice carried in exactly the way that made children lean forward to listen. Her bearing was exactly the kind that ensured no student entertained thoughts of doing anything else. Had the choice been his, the woman would never have set foot in this Academy at all.

For she spoke of events nearly a thousand years past as though she had stood beneath that sky herself. She spoke of the Divine's pain as though she herself bore it. Valtheris had been like that, once. Now…now he believed that the great Scriptures were more often figurative than literal. Though he would certainly never breathe a word of that to a living soul. He did not doubt that the great Azael had existed. Azareth certainly did.

And even where the events were true, they were surely not the whole truth. They were certainly not the only truth that had survived the years. One need only look at Lysanthia and think on her name to know that much.

The Archon shook his head once, and moved on.

The corridor widened ahead of him, opening toward the hallway that directly fed into the mess hall. From it came the sound of angry muttering. Then a thump, dull and fleshy, like a shoulder meeting a wall. Valtheris raised an eyebrow, and turned the corner.

"And just where do you think you're taking all of that, boy?"

A girl's voice. Valtheris recognized it at once. Siera Lin. A Sigil, ranked twelfth among all the Sigils of this Academy. The pale-purple mark on her left arm pulsed as she raised it above her head, and there, suspended in a sphere of pale-purple energy, floated several trays from the mess hall. Full trays. Full enough that most of it would surely have spilled, had the purple power not held every bowl and cup exactly in its place.

Flanking her stood another boy and girl, both of whom Valtheris also recognized. Lines, the pair of them. And in front of the three of them stood Corin.

The boy had one arm stretched up toward the floating trays. He did not have nearly the height to reach them.

"Give those back," he said.

"Or what, kid?" Siera snapped her fingers, and the trays drifted higher, until they nearly kissed the ceiling. "Go on. Let's see what a little Spark can do. Come on. Do something."

"Now now, Sie, he's about to cry," said the girl beside her.

This was not the first time Valtheris had seen a scene exactly like this one. It was not the hundredth. Lena Eckhart's influence might have been the strongest at this Academy, but it had never been the only one.

"I need to get those-" Corin swallowed. "For-"

"For your little troop of freaks camped outside the Crest chamber?" Siera asked. "I hear they've made a right mess of the place. Ever since those two Consecrated stepped inside, none of the other Crests can even get in. Word is they snuck in, and now they're stuck. Bet the two of them are never coming out either-"

"How dare you!"

Corin yelled it. His voice came out harder and more indignant than Valtheris had ever imagined that boy's voice could come out. Valtheris knew this child. A child who had been given the Ink, and had received it poorly. A Hollow. Valtheris had seen it in the boy's bearing as much as he had seen it in his faded mark. There was nothing hollow about Corin now.

The boy took one step forward.

The two Lines moved to plant themselves in front of their Sigil before Siera sighed and waved them off. "Guys, what's this little pipsqueak going to do to me? Guess he's not a Hollow like the rumors say, but he's still just a puny Spark. And his little Sigil friend isn't here to save him either. Though maybe the smell of him might do some-"

The Archon stepped forward.

It would cost him. Many in the faculty already watched him more closely than they watched their own students. Many he had not chosen, but had been forced upon him. Those men and women might have been forced into the Academy by the Marquis, but they did not report solely to the Marquis alone. Still, he would do it. Questions were a cheap price to pay. And Siera was flagrantly misusing her divine blessing for something petty. That would be cause enough.

Better that than to let this continue. Corin's face had gone red, and young men with faces like that never made the smart choice.

"Are Sigils in the habit of picking on Sparks now?"

The voice came from the other side of the hallway. A boy stood a dozen feet away, having just come around the far corner. He had jet-black hair, dark eyes, and every bearing of a young lordling. Valtheris knew him, as he knew every student. From the way every spine in the corridor straightened, he was not the only one.

Leonus Milheart. A Crest, and the third ranked Crest at this Academy.

Siera looked surprised for exactly one moment. Then she smiled, and lightly tipped her head. "Oh? Haven't seen you in a while, Leo. We were just dealing with the rabble here."

The boy stepped closer. Corin flinched back. Even the two Lines behind Siera seemed to shrink half a step of their own.

"Do Sigils bully Sparks now?" Leonus asked.

Siera blinked. Beneath his bent light, Valtheris confessed that he blinked too.

"Well, not just any old Spark," Siera said, gesturing at Corin. At the tiny nubs of bone at his temples. "And besides, this one's with them."

Leonus glanced at her, then he looked at Corin. "Where were you taking all of this food?"

"He said he was taking it to his friends," the Line boy offered, "but you know how these demonbloods are. Probably thieving it to go sell down in the city-"

"I didn't ask you," Leonus sighed. He looked back to Corin. "Well?"

Corin's jaw worked. "For my friends," he said. "I'm taking it to them."

Leonus shrugged. He turned to Siera. "The ones outside the chambers, I assume. Well? Give it back to him, then."

"What?" Siera stared at him. "What the hell? You're just going to believe him?"

"Yeah," Leonus said. "Well?"

The three of them looked genuinely lost. Corin looked more lost than all three of them together. And beneath his light, Valtheris quietly counted himself among their number. Leonus was known as one of the humans most outspoken against the demonbloods. If Valtheris had been made to wager on how this scene would end, he would have lost a lot of coin.

Siera hesitated. Leonus tilted his head. "What," he said, "do Sigils not listen to Crests now?"

Siera looked at Corin. She sighed and the purple sphere sank. Corin caught the trays against his chest, staggered beneath them, and kept his feet.

"Whatever," Siera said. "This is lame anyway."

She turned on her heel and walked. Her two shadows followed.

When they had gone, Leonus looked down at the boy. "Don't be stupid. One tray at a time." And then he too was walking away.

Corin looked down at the trays in his arms, then up at the boy's receding back. "T-thank you," he called.

"Didn't do it for you, Spark," Leonus said, and then he was around the corner, and gone.

Corin stood there for a moment. He nodded slowly, to no one at all. Then he began to walk.

The Archon followed behind him, thinking. It didn't make any sense for the Academy he knew. There were moderates enough among the humans of this Academy. There were even sympathizers -students and Inkers both who believed the demonbloods ill-used. Had one of those stepped around that corner, it would have made sense. Leonus stepping around it made none. The boy had been Lena Eckhart's staunchest supporter.

Ah, Valtheris thought. Could it be?

Perhaps a certain letter had gone out from a certain manor in the middle of the night. Or a word, from the daughter of the man who ruled this city. He had not seen any great understanding in that Crest's gaze. The boy had barely looked at Corin at all.

It was not the change Valtheris had spent years hoping for. It was also more than he had ever truly believed possible.

---

He trailed the boy through the halls. As it happened, they were bound for the same place.

Corin stopped often as he walked. Mostly to talk to other students. With demonbloods mostly, but not only. More than one human student gave the boy a nod in passing, and Valtheris was quite certain that a month ago, most of them would not have given him the hour of the day.

It is not only the demonbloods who are doing more than stand, Lysanthia, the Archon thought.

They began the long descent toward the Crest resonance chamber. Valtheris had come down this passage often, these past days. As often as he could manage, with the eyes upon him. It had been four days since his last visit.

There was less noise than there had been last time. Four days ago, there had been four enthusiastic children and one particularly aggrieved bird. He came now, and found nearly a dozen students more. And there was almost no sound at all.

The hollow before the chamber door had been turned into- Valtheris wasn't entirely sure what to call it, really.

Pillows and blankets had been dragged down from the dormitories and arranged against each other in small fortifications big enough to sleep in. Someone had strung a lantern from a bracket that had never held one. And there were the signs.

Valtheris had heard about the signs. Half the complaints on his desk this week had concerned them. The other half concerned whatever had been made of this passageway to the most esteemed room in the entire Academy.

The largest of the many signs was propped next to the door itself. There was no writing on the wooden sign itself. Not with any ink. Instead, words had been burnt into the wood. THIS HALLWAY IS TAKEN. BUZZ OFF. OR FUC-

Valtheris pointedly dragged his gaze away. For if he saw the whole of the sign, he would be bound to have it taken down. His gaze moved to a second sheet, one pinned just beneath the sign. There were names, and then there were times, a great many of them. It took Valtheris a second to recognize what he was seeing. It was a rotation. Presumably a rotation of all the people who were supposed to wait here, and when.

He looked over the students gathered, and every one of them was a demonblood, save one. There was the girl with hair the color of frost, seated closest to the door. There was a boy with faint nubs at his temples, asleep across two pillows. Other demonbloods playing cards on the floor. That had been the subject of one of the complaints. You were not allowed to gamble within the Academy. Valtheris thought he had given the order to confiscate the cards. It seemed these children had spares. He shook his head and turned his gaze away.

Seated against a pillar with her arms crossed was Alisa Wulfram. Valtheris regarded her. It was a strange thing. The daughter of an Earl, mingling freely among demonbloods. Though, he supposed, perhaps it was not so strange. Not for this girl.

At the head of this little band, Ren looked up and spotted Corin.

"Hey. Took you long enough." She rose and crossed to him, lifting the top two trays off his stack. Her eyes moved over him. "Anyone give you any trouble?"

"No," Corin said. "Nothing like that."

The boy's voice sounded perfectly composed to Valtheris, but something about it must have given him away, because Ren's eyes narrowed. The girl shrugged and set the trays down. Corin set down the rest. The demonbloods stirred and reached for the food. Many of them glanced at the white door first, before they ate.

There was a loud chirp. The Archon paused as Solara waddled out from a nest of blankets toward the food. She had been buried under the blankets, and so he had only just noticed her.

He had heard the reports of this too. The bird had doubled in size. Less than a week and she had doubled in size. Valtheris had studied beasts for the better part of his long life, and he was sure he had never heard of any avian growing so fast.

Ren set out a bowl for her, laid with strips of plain meat.

Solara looked down at the bowl and turned back to Ren. She let out a chirp that sounded distinctly angry. Ren sighed, leaned in, and whispered something to the bird. Solara looked at the bowl again. Then, reluctantly, she pecked. She pecked slowly, and between every two or three pecks, she jerked her head to the door and then back again. Ren herself seemed surprised that the bird had listened to whatever she had said.

It seems that even she is waiting. Though, I suppose she is waiting most of all.

There had been a time when even the demonbloods of this Academy feared to gather in groups such as this one, lest they look larger than the world permitted them to be. These children did not seem to care at all who saw them, judging from the signs and the reports sitting on Valtheris' desk.

He looked at that door, and he hoped. He was watching a fledgling change happen before his very eyes. He found he did not want it to end so soon. This had been something he had hoped for, when he had first seen the two with his own eyes. He had hoped that three Sovereigns, and two of them on a half-demon, might finally bring about some change. And he had put his finger on the scale wherever he could to make it so. Still, actually seeing it was-

There was a squawk. The Archon paused, and looked down. Solara had gone still over her bowl. Her head had turned and she was staring…in his direction.

Valtheris went very still. He glanced at the students. Not one of them had so much as looked up. His Essence was still flowing, and he could feel his power still working. Perhaps it was just his imagination. Just because the bird was staring in his direction did not mean she was staring at him after all.

Solara let out a chirp, and began to waddle toward him. "What's wrong, Sol?" Corin asked. Solara just kept her waddling for two more steps. Then she tucked her wings, and started to roll. Toward him.

The Archon turned and departed, with as much dignity as an old man could muster while fleeing from a rolling bird.

---

Valtheris made his way to one of the training yards, and there, at last, he let go of the disguise entirely. There was little point to it now. He had only wished to look upon a certain hallway without eyes watching him do it. He folded his hands behind his back, and began to walk the yard's edge.

Inker Calus was running his Line Cycling class at this hour. A dozen students sat in even rows upon the grass, eyes closed, and the Inker moved along their lines, murmuring instructions. He caught sight of the Archon and tipped his head. Several students cracked an eye open, saw him, and scrambled halfway into bows before Valtheris raised a hand and idly waved them back down. His mind was elsewhere.

Five days.

It had been five days since the two of them stepped into that chamber. Longer than anyone Valtheris had ever heard of. And time in there already passed faster than it did outside. It was almost enough to make an old man lose hope. Perhaps that was why the children outside the chamber had been so quiet. Hope was a thing with edges. Held long enough, it began to cut.

But they stayed outside still, and they would continue to stay. The reason was simple, and just about everyone at the Academy knew it. So long as the door to the Crest chamber remained shut, the trial had not yet ended.

The door had not opened. And that meant they were still alive.

And Valtheris supposed that with Lysanthia's powers perhaps five days and the greater time inside might be possible. Though, they must still have been running out of supplies. Surely.

Valtheris shook himself and kept walking. Then he stumbled forward a step as the force came. It came so suddenly that for one moment Valtheris -dulled by age- did not know what was happening at all. In the next, his Essence flooded him, pushing back enough of the weight to let him stand.

The weight of that force had settled over the yard. Every student was on the ground, their faces pressed to the grass. Inker Calus was on his knees. It would not just be them. Every person in the Academy would feel it. No, every soul in Koralis would feel it.

What is this? Who-? An attack? Valtheris reached inside his mark, and the Rune began to turn-

Then Valtheris realized what it was. This was not the power of a mark like his Rune, it was simply Essence, and an absurd amount of it. And then came the taste. For all Essence carried a taste, and this was the taste of a thing that could be everywhere at once. Valtheris knew that Essence. He had felt it only twice before.

He raised his head to the sky. High above the Academy hung a tear in the air itself. A single clean line, as though the world had been slit open along one stroke, and through the line showed only yellow. And before the tear, high above the highest tower, hung a figure. No more than a dot against all that sky.

The Archon had told Lysanthia and Ash that they had only days. He was surprised they had been given so many of them.

The figure came down. One moment she was high up in the sky, and in the next, another yellow tear opened up in front of Valtheris. To him, it was no surprise at all that she had noticed him and come directly before him. Distance was nothing to her.

For days, Valtheris had prayed for a white door to open. Standing in the flattened grass, he began, very quietly, to pray that it stayed shut.

He bowed before the woman stepped out of the portal. He bowed with a straightness that did not belong to his age at all, his eyes fixed on the ground between them. He heard plated boots, and a moment later, he saw them on the ground in front of him.

"Lady Exarch," the Archon said. "It is my honor to receive you."

There was no answer. There was no answer for so long that, at last, Valtheris dared to raise his eyes.

And he shivered. For though Valtheris had seen her only twice, every man and woman knew one thing about her. Nothing good had ever followed her smile.

The Exarch of Arianeth, Arianrhod, was smiling.