Grisha watches in horror as Pasha disappears into smoke. How did he not notice the warning signs? The way she placed the crystals, the colors they were emitting, and the location were all pointing to one thing. He let his little brother go to near-certain death. He has to save Pasha. "You can't send him there!" He shouts.

"Relax Grisha, we must all go eventually," Kir says, unnervingly calm.

Grisha ignores Kir and rushes at his mother, grabbing her by the shoulders. "He's a child. There is no way he can survive in there."

She stands undaunted, and explains, "we don't have the time to wait for him to get older, we have to..."

Her words deafen. Only seeing the movements of her lips, Grisha goes deeper into his worried thoughts. How can they be so calm? Pasha is in danger.

He turns to his siblings, hoping to get any amount of support. "Zmey, you have to agree with me on this. We have to save him, right?"

Zmey looks down. "I worry for him, But I trussst mother to only make uss do thingsss she believesss we can."

Grisha looks desperately to Kazimir, his voice cracking, "Kazimir?"

Kazimir turns his head away, letting out a low grunt.

Grisha yells out, "I can't believe you. Any of you. He is our family. If none of you are going to do something, then I'll go save him myself." Grisha marches towards the door, his brow furrowing further at each step.

The mistress speaks to him as he passes, "I sense the war will come soon. From the looks of it, we have about a year."

Her words force him to stop.

She continues, "I understand how you feel, Grisha, but I have no other option. From what I learned, those assassins were just the beginning of the demons of sunlight's plans. We need to be as prepared as possible. I must send Pasha through the trial of blood now."

"How do you know if he can even survive?" He asks, the anger fading from his voice.

"I made sure Pasha's chance of survival is as high as possible. If he gets out, we will be at our strongest, our chance at victory against the light empire will increase immensely. If he loses his life in there, I will be regretful for having sent him, but if I hadn't, we would have all died soon after, anyway."

Her argument is sound. It always is. Grisha has no choice but to stay and listen to the plans his mother has for them and pray for Pasha's success.

The mistress summons a long table from the dirt, and five chairs to surround it, leaving a spot open for Zmey's serpentine throne. Each sibling takes their respectful spot and turns to their mother, waiting for what she has to say.

"If what I believe is accurate. We were all attacked by a group of mercenaries, correct?" Grisha, Zmey, Kazimir, and Kir all nod, while Adrik reaches into the collections of bones in his grass skirt. Grabbing something, he hands it to his parrot. The bird flies over and drops it in the center of the table. "That is what's left of him."

It's an amputated finger, a ring with a marking of a half sun stuck on it. Zmey grabs the finger and examines the marking. "This seemss familiar. Where have I ssseen it before?"

Adrik explains, "It's the sign of a mercenary group called the rising sun. They're known for burning rings onto their followers as a sign of loyalty. They caused some problems for me in the wastelands a while back, but I haven't seen them in a while, so I thought I had scared them off."

Kir responds, "It seems not. They've returned, and with seemingly unfounded confidence."

Zmey leans forward. "The demonsss of ssunlight attacked Grisha, the rissing ssun attacked Adrik, and a renegade cssentaur troupe attacked Kazssimir and me. None of thossse groups are known for working well with otherss. How did their attackss become ssso coordinated?"

"You're correct in thinking they wouldn't think of working together by themselves, Zmey," the mistress says. "I believe that the light empire is controlling them all behind the scenes."

"How would they get the funding to do that?" Grisha asks. "They'd have to be to be spending a fortune on their negotiations alone."

"I believe that it all stems from the light army's Holy Commander, Ambrosio." She creates a photo of Ambrosio and places it on the table. "Ambrosio has a deep connection with the Great Oracle Manteio. The people see Manteio as the primary way to speak to the gods, so they donate hundreds of thousands of pounds of gold to fund whatever project he believes the god's support."

Grisha finishes the thought. "Which he, of course, believes the gods want to support the man who has spent the past years making an enormous amount of propaganda against us, giving Ambrosio however much money he needs to fund his plans."

"If Mantieo was working with them, that would also explain how they knew where we were. His omnispective abilities rival my own." Kir says, turning to face the mistress. "So what is our plan, mother? They will be difficult to handle with Mantieo's support."

"We are going to switch the focus from training the shades to diplomacy and recon." The mistress answers.

The response was unbelievable to Grisha. He could understand recon, but diplomacy is going to be challenging for them to accomplish. "How would we get anything done through diplomacy? Ambrosio set us up to fail at any attempt of alliance with his defaming campaign. The only way we could convince them to join us is if we could somehow show that the light empire has been using underhanded tactics."

She responds, unworried, "which is why diplomacy is only part of the plan. We will split our forces in two. When they see our attempts at communication with the neutral parties, they will believe we are trying to beat them at their own game. While they focus on keeping their advantage in formal discussions, we will hunt down the organizations that work under them, collecting the evidence we need to gain the support of the kingdoms around us."

"That could work," Kir says, his head stopping in place momentarily before going back to inconsistent twitching.

"I have no plans to reposition, so I hope your plan doesn't involve moving me," Adrik says, the dracula parrot squawking in agreement.

"No, your position in the wastelands is a vital spot. If we move you, it would both raise suspicion and weaken our defenses at the border by a large margin." The mother responds, placing a world map onto the table. She marks the map and says, "I will need someone to contact Damien. We need him to stir up the pro-shadow army citizens in the kingdom of flames."

Her gaze falls on Grisha, who shakes his head in resistance. He has no desire to go talk to that womanizing narcissist again. Thankfully, Kir sees the distaste in his brother's face and speaks up before their mother chose for them. "I will go."

"Perfect." She responds, looking back down to the map. "Zmey, because of your connections to the Gorgons, we'll send you to scout the Forest of the Ancients, we need to find out if there is anything left in there that could support us."

"Very well," Zmey replies. "Though, I wonder if it iss alright to leave Kazssimir without watch, mother." Kazimir grunts, wondering the same thing.

The mistress ponders for a second, before saying, "leave two snakes to guard the lock. That should be enough to prevent anyone from accessing it and will allow him to accomplish his own mission without resistance." Then marking a small island on the coast of the mainland, she continues, "we need you two to separate so we can send him here. Tengu Temple."

"Why Tengu Temple?" Grisha asks. "Don't they have a strong policy against joining sides between violent disputes?"

She responds, "We don't need them to join our side. Because of the trading they do with both sides of the border, they hear a lot of what's going on, and I believe they hold information on where we can find the leaders of the mercenary organizations. Since Kazimir has trained as a monk, he is the most likely out of us to get information from them."

Kazimir nods, grunting in consent.

Standing up, the mistress paces around the table. "There is one problem, though. The final two pieces of my plan are vital, but for some reason, my clairvoyance becomes cloudy whenever I attempt to figure out what they are. To unveil those missing pieces, I'll need someone whose abilities surpass my own." She pauses above Kir's seat. "I'm sorry to ask you this, but may I have your help, my child?"

"If it is your desire, mother, I will do whatever you ask." Pleased, she strokes his face, sliding her hands to the top. After marking his forehead, she steps backs. His eyes immediately roll back into his head, his horns sticking straight up. As the mother pulls the horns back, his eyes spin as his mouth opens, letting out a thick smoke into the air, his body quivering. He jolts up… then stops. The smoke reenters his throat.

Speaking in a loud echoing voice, he declares, "The great god of smoke and darkness, Kawa, has answered your question. The two beings you need to survive the war of dark and light, are the ones known as Kyoki, the god of madness, and Pasha, the last shade child. If they follow the path of dark, fully believing its cause, you will get your victory, but if their faith falters even slightly, the world will be thrown into an age of never-ending light, bringing an end to the shade race." Kir's eyes roll back down as he regains control over his body.

"He didn't lie about that at least," the mistress whispers to herself, barely audible.

"Keeping the god of madness under control will be difficult by itself," Kir says, "but it must also be willingly. This situation is quite troubling."

"Our little brother musst survive, ass well..." Zmey adds. The siblings sit in silence, contemplating the grim words of the god.

After a moment of quiet the mother raises her head to address her children, "It seems our survival is based on two factors that we have little control over..." Her voice regains confidence as she continues, "but we have no time to worry about that. If we plan to succeed, we must begin immediately." Her children all nod in agreement.

"I agree that we must act quickly, but before we leave, I have to ask," Adrik says, feeding the parrot a fig. "What is so special about that shade-ling? I keep hearing you speak of his importance, but he seems like a normal child to me."

"Fair question, we have had little time to show off his abilities," she responds, placing her arms behind her back and circling the table once again. "My knowledge is limited to what I've been told myself, but already I've seen he has spectacular intelligence and memory. Along with that, from what I've heard from Grisha, mere hours after he was born, he already learned how to use an ability without direction."

"That is impressive, but there's a difference between a genius and a child of prophecy," Adrik says, always skeptical of the words of a god.

She smiles at him. "It seems the only way for you to tell, is to just wait and see."

"Very well."

Rolling up the map, she brings the meeting to a close. "Now then, we must be off. I will tell you of Pasha's fate in a week's time. If he succeeds, you can finish your duty with renewed vigor, but if he fails, we will adjust our plan accordingly." They all stand, and after bowing to their mother, they leave their separate ways, leaving Grisha and his mother alone in the dark circular room.

"You speak as if Pasha dying is a likely possibility," Grisha says, his half-closed eyes staring accusingly at his mother.

She stares at her palms. "It might be hard, child, but we must accept that it is a possibility." She sighs, a deep sadness filling her eyes as she stares at the lines in her pale hands. Breaking away, she forces a smile and puts her hand on Grisha's cheek. "But he is not dead yet. Let us get to work, we can worry about problems when we get to them." Even when she forms her words poorly, the kindness in her voice when she tries to cheer him up always makes the situation seem... at least... better.

"Yeah," he responds, putting on a smile and following her outside. As he steps out the door, he whispers to himself.

"He will survive."

"He has to survive."

"Please... survive..."