Skylar stared at her feet, her tears falling on the polished wood of the wagon's floor as she sobbed from the throbbing pain of the barbs in the jewelry she was wearing. Every time she tried to reach for her Indigo Child abilities the jewelry shocked her hard enough that she couldn't scream, the painful jolts just leaving her shaking and gasping.

I didn't even do anything, Skylar moaned to herself. It's not fair I'm being punished and Jack is just sitting in the cart staring at everything. I tried to protect those little people of color from his toxic masculinity and white privilege and I'm the one who got punished. It isn't fair.

Skylar looked up as the wagon slowed to a stop, blinking as the sunlight seemed to get brighter. The wagon had stopped in front of a large house, multistoried with the highest section over five stories tall. There was a lawn with a large fountain in the middle of it, and the path that the wagon had followed from the gates to the front steps of the large house was a large circle bisected by a narrower path that went past the fountain.

"Out, little ones," One of the little brown people said. She smiled at Jack as the young man climbed down and looked around.

"Dismount," The little brown woman in the fierce iron mask told Ryder. Ryder nodded slowly and got down out of the wagon. Skylar noticed that he moved slowly, stiffly, as if he was sore and tired.

Skylar sobbed as she crawled to the edge of the wagon and slowly got out. Matron Stelancia hopped out and tugged on the ring, hurting Skylar's neck and scalp.

It hurts to move. It even hurts to talk or breathe, Skylar thought to herself, but she struggled to her feet anyway, afraid that the little woman might shock her the way Stelancia had. Stelancia just stood and watched silently, the heavy iron ring held in both hands.

Skylar sobbed quietly, in pain and embarrassed, following the little brown woman to the top of the stairs to a set of heavy wooden double doors that had iron reinforcements on it that still gave the impression of heaviness despite the attempt to soften it with engraving.

Two men opened the doors by grabbing the heavy iron rings, revealing a large hallway that had artwork and trophies on the walls. The carpet had a black and white silhouette of a large armored figure bound in chains that made Skylar flinch when she saw it.

"Inside, little ones," The Matron said, waving her hands to urge Skylar, Ryder, and Jack to follow her down the wide hallway.

Skylar sobbed and stumbled, the barbs tearing and shredding the muscle they were embedded in, the jewelry lightly shocking her every time she tried instinctively to pull up her Indigo Child powers to protect herself.

Ryder stopped at the doorway, staring at the black white figure of the armor.

Second Unified Council War War Machine Armor. Binding chains for a Titan. Antenielle-Traxx armor design, markings from...

...from...

...House Ralvden, Arch-Duchy of Alben, prior to the Red City Submission, went through his mind as he stared at the armor.

"Come, Black Rider," The iron masked witch said softly, tugging with her prehensile hair. "It is an image of the past, nothing more."

Ryder nodded slowly, but still stepped carefully around it. He could taste the image's rage, feel traces of power still attached to it.

One of the swords he passed cried out for a wielder not yet born, wept in metallic tones for glory and honor it could taste in the sleepy dreams of an infant that knew only its mother's heartbeat.

Ryder shuddered and concentrated on mental shields he'd been taught, shutting out the clamor of the weapons and armor in the hallway.

Skylar flinched back as another set of double doors were opened to reveal a large oval room, pillars supporting the roof that was at least twenty feet up. Balconies were on the sides of the room, with flying buttresses on either side of them. The floor was a patterned mosaic that pulled at Skylar's eyes and made the barbs dig painfully in. At the far end was a large dais where three thrones rested.

Only one was occupied.

Skylar stumbled once as she stared at the woman in the throne. Tall, not too much older than Skylar. The woman's face was scarred, she wore a piece of metal on one shoulder, she was dressed in leather, with a large cruel looking bare blade sitting in her lap. The woman was tracing a finger over the blade, electricity crackling up her finger and hand as she stared at Skylar and the little people with cold calculating eyes.

Skylar completely missed the other three people in the throne room, her attention fixated only on the woman sitting in the throne.

The little brown woman moved up and curtseyed to the woman on the throne.

"Patron of House Ralvden, we of the Restlafut Consortium greet you and present you with the gift of three Xue'nghozi who were lost without guidance," Matron Dulgarzia intoned in a sing-song voice. She turned and pointed at Skylar, who flinched. "Matron Stelancia has bound a Xue'nghozi witch, a young female of great power," She pointed at the witch and Ryder. "The House of Steel and Blood have brought forth the Black Rider, a Xue'nghozi male rife with war-fire," Finally she turned and looked at Jack.

It was then that she realized that Jack was unaccompanied. That nobody was holding his hand, he had on no collar or leash, and was just standing behind everyone looking around the throne room with curiosity.

"And, um," Matron Dulgarzia stammered, staring at the young Titan in horror. He had nobody accompanying him, nobody making sure he'd even followed everyone. He stood in the throne room, staring at his surroundings, paying little attention to the formalities going on.

"Little Jak, a titan-blooded," Matron Dulgarzia managed to recover.

Jack smiled and waved at the young woman on the throne, who simply raised an eyebrow and smiled back.

"We present them to you, House Ralvden, as both gifts and in hopes that your house will succor them in ways that Consortium Restlafut can not," Matron Dulgarzia intoned, the ritualistic words helping smooth over her consternation at the fact Jack was just standing there, relaxed, looking around at everything as if he had never seen stonework before.

Skylar sobbed as Matron Dulgarzia spoke, the barbs digging into her. Matron Dulgarzia kept speaking, but Skylar was unable to concentrate on what the tiny brown woman was saying, instead trapped within her own misery and pain.

Bashette watched the young woman standing slumped, sobbing, with binding jewelry on her limbs and in her face. Bashette recognized the jewelry as being Seven Sisters make and design, created to keep powerful young mages who suffered from precociousness from hurting themselves or other people. Bashette narrowed her eyes as her mind clenched a muscle that didn't exist and her vision changed.

Bashette managed to keep from gasping as she looked at the three Xue'nghozi that had been brought into the throne room.

The girl had more mage-fire than Bashette had seen since the end of the Lich King War, and even during that savage century-long conflict Bashette had only seen a handful of mages that flush with mage-fire. The shaved headed male was thick with war-fire that had only been barely tamed and trained. The young man had as much as Bashette herself had seen in warriors with decades of experience or Bashette had witnessed powering Dread Knights.

But it was Jack that caught her attention. Flush with golden titan-fire, it ran and rippled and flowed through him in a sleepy languorous pattern that made Bashette lick her lips with sudden desire. The young man's titan had been lulled to drowsy rest with love-sweat and affection and it showed to Bashette's vision. Bashette had only seen that much titan-fire a few times. Usually in beings that were more legendary figures than mere mortals.

Bashette pulled her attention back to the young woman, fearing to look too deeply into the young man's titan-fire.

The young woman, Skyler from what the phaelani was saying, was bound and shackled by the jewelry, but despite her mage-fire running through her veins, through her body, she was largely untrained beyond the most basics of meditation and power use.

Bashette looked closer, squinting slightly.

There, beneath the mage-fire, beneath the thin skein of wire-fire in her veins, was the steady pulse of titan-fire. Not nearly as much as the two males, not even close to the bemused and sleepy Titan apparently called 'Little Jak', but enough that Bashette could see why the girl had been bound.

Bashette stood up, stretched, and moved toward the young girl. Words were being said, but Bashette ignored them. The words had to do with her younger sister's throne, with the authority of the patron of the house, not what Bashette dealt with.

Skylar jerked when a tall beautiful woman with alabaster skin knelt down next where Skylar had slumped to the floor weeping. The older woman looked at Skylar for a long moment, looking her up and down, and Skylar felt humiliation at her scandalous outfit that had obviously been designed to cater to the male gaze pile onto her pain and misery.

"You are in pain from being bound," The woman said gently, her fingertips reaching out to touch the bracer clamped painfully onto Skylar's forearm.

"Yeth," Skylar lisped, the barb piercing her tongue making speech difficult.

The woman smiled. "I cannot understand your speech, little one, but I understand pain when I see it," she said. The woman tapped the bracer three times and it suddenly fell from Skylar's arm, the barb gleaming in the lantern light of the throne room. There wasn't even a mark on Skylar's skin to show where the barb had jabbed through Skylar's delicate skin and into her muscle.

"You have no need for these beneath my gaze and hand," The woman said, touching each piece, causing it to drop from Skylar's body.

Skylar flinched backwards when the woman reached for her top, then found her muscles locked in place at a whisper from the older woman. Skylar sobbed in humiliation as the older woman opened Skylar's top to expose her small firm large breasts.

"These need removed too, little one," The older woman said, tapping the nipple piercings and causing them to drop to the floor.

Skylar felt a rush of gratitude as the woman closed Skylar's top and hid her breasts from view again.

Skylar held still as the woman removed the piercings from her nose, her eyebrows, her lips, and finally, from her tongue.

The last thing removed was the thick collar around Skylar's neck.

Rage surged up in Skylar as the collar was removed. She had been beaten, starved, electrified, humiliated, and punished for other people's actions. The little woman who had been the architect of Skylar's humiliation, pain, and suffering stood only feet away, holding on to that stupid metal ring and trying to look superior to Skylar.

Didn't that little woman know that Skylar was an Indigo Child, naturally superior to everyone else, with powers and abilities that not only did nobody else possess or understand, but that would lead everyone to a perfect utopia.

Skylar started drawing her power in, turning toward her tormentor as the power around her rushed into her, filling her with burning righteousness. She started to lift her hand as the little woman realized something was happening and started to turn toward Skylar with her mouth gaped open in fear.

"No you don't," The tall pale skinned woman said softly, her voice full of humor.

Bashette saw the baby mage-titan bring up her power, saw the young woman start to gather together power to strike out at the phaelani who had been in custody of the young woman, and shook her head.

She placed her palm on the back of the girl's head and let the arcane fire filling her raven down her arm, into her hand, and slam into the back of the girl's head.

Skylar started to raise her hand when an impact that she felt beyond her body slammed into the back of her head. Her magic was disrupted as raw arcane energy bypassed her body's arcane traceries and safeties. Untamed and unguided arcane energy, the raw stuff magic was woven from, blasted into Skylar's mage-channels, coursed through her body, taking the mage-fire rippling through Skylar's body and absorbing it, returning it to raw magical power.

Skylar screamed in agony as her magefire suddenly turned into burning agony. The arcane burn filled her, raw magical energy untamed coursing through her veins and flesh, through the mystical channels that mage-fire used to control raw magic and channel it into useful magic.

Skylar fell to the floor, her back arcing, screaming as her mage-fire channels, normally lit with red energy, suddenly burned white for a heartbeat before fading away.

She has no protections or did not bother to learn how to protect herself from arcane burn, Bashette mused, holding back a giggle.

Skylar lay on the floor, gasping as the pain subsided. She looked up at the pale woman, who was kneeling next to her, smiling enigmatically.

"First lesson, little one," the woman smiled.

"Wha... what lesson?" Skylar gasped, feeling a tingling burning warmth fill her as her own mage-fire returned to her mage-channels.

Bashette couldn't understand the girl's words, but understood confusion when she saw it.

"You'll understand it eventually," Bashette smiled. She reached out and touched the discarded bronze bindings and looked at Skylar again. "Second lesson is that I don't need these to force you to control yourself."

Bashette held her hand out to Skylar.

"If you do not learn to control your magic, you will burn alive, consumed from the inside by your own power, little one," Bashette said. "Some, sit at my feet, and learn your first lessons."

Skylar wanted to shriek at the older woman to stop treating her like a child. Skylar wanted to scream at the other woman that she was an Indigo Child, she had powers and abilities that the other woman couldn't possibly comprehend.

Except the other woman's skin was covered in an intricate pattern of white fire that burned beneath her skin.

Her fingers trembling with fear and the memory of pain, Skylar reached out and took Bashette's hand.

I will master my abilities so that others can't hurt me and I can punish those who have wronged me, Skylar thought. I am an Indigo Child and everyone would do well to submit to my desires.

Against the wall, Daln watched his oldest niece deal with the mage-fired girl with cold eyes, the House Titan imprisoned within him growling its displeasure at someone of such power entering the house.

In the shadows of the throne room, perched on a dusty chair on a long abandoned balcony, dressed only in a fur halter top and a fur loincloth, Nadrak watched everything with blind eyes and a smile.