Flux stood with the others, trying to be strong. Even though they had been there a few times, his memories of The Concerto were faint. He knew that he should be overjoyed that they were finally going to the mysterious world his father and the others talked about, but as he watched his dad chat quietly with Helm and Boohm, he didn't feel happy.

The fact that the ship was colder than both his father's soulscape and their little town in Smolderball didn't help. He knew it was as hot as it could get, mainly to help him and his siblings, but he still wished it could be a bit hotter. It was a good thing they were allowed to sleep with Heatmum in their father's quarters from now on. Still, he couldn't wait for his first card to be stable enough so he could slot the card his father had made to help him stay warm.

He looked to the side to see Mia, Glow, and Soot standing close together, their usual rivalries gone in the eye of what was going to happen.

I wish I were older, Flux thought, clasping his hands. If he were, he could have gone with his dad. Now, all he and the others could do was watch him set out on a dangerous journey from which he might not return until they were fully grown.

"We can't even sneak with him," Soot whispered, sounding almost as offended as he felt.

Flux didn't answer, nor did the others. He looked up and to the side where his Heatmother was holding Zan. Their young sister had finally stopped crying, but from the way she looked, it wouldn't last. Flux knew it annoyed some of the others, but he'd never really minded. Dad had said that not everyone dealt with things the same way and that sometimes, crying wasn't a bad option.

As long as it doesn't get anyone killed, Flux thought, recalling what Uncle Greldo had said.

He tried to look at it positively. His father had left them all enough cards to get their first heartcard, and he'd said that he would return when he could to make it. That had to mean he wasn't planning on staying away for years… right?

Flux knew he was lying to himself, as he'd heard a few of the conversations between his parents and Greldo. He also knew that there were a lot of good cardsmiths on Eluathar; at least, that's what his dad had said.

The soft whispering of the Blademaidens around him fell still, and he looked around to see them all exude a calm he tried to copy. His father walked forward, towering over all of the others, even Hind and Helm. It still confused him how they weren't the same species as his dad, but Greldo was. They barely looked anything alike! He faintly heard his father say something to Zender and Earila, giving them both hugs before clasping hands with Helm and Boohm.

Then, the moment he'd dreaded their entire dark and gloomy journey came. Dad walked towards them, and Flux saw the sadness and pain in the eyes of swirling and flaming metal.

"Don't look like that, pretty eyes! You're going to make us all cry."

Flux looked up at his Heatmother in annoyance. He wasn't going to cry. Zan's face bunched up, and Flux let go of his annoyance. He had to be strong.

He was almost surprised when his dad knelt in front of him and the others.

"You all behave when I'm not there, alright?"

Flux quickly nodded, then barely heard some of the other things his dad said. It sounded important, but he just tried to memorize the deep voice, the burning pools of fire, and the gentle smile.

"Good, now give me a hug."

Flux jumped forward together with the others, and he wished he could stop time. Clinging onto his father, he felt a sliver of the annoyance Soot had a few moments ago. If they could have snuck along… he would have. But there was no sneaking into a soulscape. He knew that.

After a few minutes, his father began talking to his brothers and sisters, and Flux zoned out. He only snapped out of it when he felt himself being picked up and held by his father.

"Flux… you are the oldest, and although it's hard, I want you to look after the others, alright?"

Flux set his jaw, looking back at his dad. "I will," he said, promising himself that he'd do so.

He saw something flicker in his father's eyes. Worry? Then it was gone.

"Good, though, don't worry too much, and also take very good care of yourself."

"I will," Flux said. He wanted to say more, but had no idea what to say, so instead, he hugged his father until he was put back on the ground.

He watched silently as his father stood before their Heatmother.

"You'd better come back safely. I said I'd not leave you again, and now look what you're making me do!"

"I'll be fine," his dad said, giving his slightly mocking half-smile. "You just make sure you keep all these kids in line."

They huddled closer for a moment, and Flux frowned as they started kissing. He still didn't see why they kept doing that so much, and he doubted Boohm and Greldo's jokes that he'd learn when he was older were true. Just thinking about it made him all annoyed.

He barely heard the rest of what was said until Dad held onto Zan for a bit. Then, something his Dad said caused him to frown in confusion.

What did he just mean… remember our promise? he thought.

He looked to the side and saw Mia look at him in confusion. With a quick frown, he told her he had no idea, and she shrugged back. Before he could think about it more, their father was walking to the other side of the ship, where a small group stood around the tiny sloop. They were still putting stuff in it.

A soft whirring of wings caused him to look up, and he saw Ambraz hover before them. The scar that curled across his top, nicked the edge, and ran down towards his lips was almost as eye-catching as the wound had been, and Flux decided he agreed with Soot. It looked great.

"Okay, you little brats! Remember what I told you. Keep practicing your soulforce resonating, and as soon as you get to Eluathar, practice your smithing."

Flux rolled his eyes but dutifully joined the others in their 'yes, Uncle Ambraz'. He didn't enjoy the metal purifying they had done. Well, or any of the other practices that they'd had to do. The fact that he wasn't really any good at it didn't help. Not like Zan, Ti, or Glow. Those three seemed to do everything right almost the first time… especially Zan.

"One more thing… when you get there, a lot of Ganvils will want to bond with you."

Flux focused on Uncle Ambraz, wondering why he made it sound like that was a bad idea. Having someone like Ambraz with him sounded great.

"The problem is that your potential, even that of the three of you who don't enjoy it," Ambraz said, his gaze moving to Flux, then to Mia and Soot. "It's far higher than that of nearly all of the unbound Ganvils. So, if you do feel like you want the bond, first talk with Juul'rish."

As if on cue, the other Ganvil flitted next to Ambraz.

"He's right, and if you want to know more, you can always ask me."

I wonder why that is, Flux wondered. Perhaps some Ganvils were like people with Quartz and Amethyst cards?

Ambraz kept talking to them for a while when a shout drew him away.

"Alright, enough! We have plenty," Irwin bellowed, his voice drowning out all other sounds and even Flux's internal worry.

His father looked around, eyes blazing.

"Safe travels home, and make sure to stay away from any other ships. Greldo scouted around, and the surrounding area is clear, but you should be able to outrun any ship here. If you do find you have no choice, increase the barrier and head for the storm. There's no ship out there that can follow you," he said, grinning widely before turning to the massive Ganvil nestled at the prow. "I've left all the cards I could for you, Nim'dor. Use them if you have to."

"Don't worry, Captain. I've stored up a lot of energy while we were here," the massive Ganvil rumbled. "Besides, it will be nice having some more people around again. It's been a bit too quiet the last few weeks. Even if it means we need to travel through the broken gallery."

"Good, but don't hesitate to eat cards if you need to," Irwin said, turning to Zender, who was standing beside his sister at the helm. "Zender, you are acting captain, but make sure to listen to the others on anything not related to The Concerto."

"I will, Captain."

"Alright… all of you, stay safe."

Flux saw his father walk to Hind, Nisziz, and Klatzi and ask them something. A few moments later, they all vanished, pulled into his father's soulscape. Then he stepped beside Uncle Greldo and looked at Scintilla and them.

Flux tried to put up a brave smile and not show the fear he felt. His father looked at him, smiled, and then he and Greldo were gone.

For a few moments, silence hung over the ship. Then Boohm's loud voice rang out.

"Well, let's get moving then! It's going to be a long enough trip as it is!"

There was a halfhearted laugh, and Flux heard Zan start to cry again.

"Nim'dor, barriers up," Zender shouted. "Earila, get us on the way!"

A chorus of -yes Captain's- followed, and then Flux felt the ship move away.

"Okay, little ones, let's head down for now. You can go and explore after things have calmed a bit," Scintilla said.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Flux took one last look at where his dad had stood, then followed Heatmother.

Don't worry, Dad, I'll look after the others, he thought.

--

Irwin sat mindlessly in his soulscape, while his otherself was in the shadowrealm with Greldo in case something happened as they shot through the shadows between the mountains. It had been a day and a half since they had left the rest, and he still had a knot in his stomach.

I wish I could have done more, he thought.

Foolishness, he knew. He'd reforged all the cards that would be useful, and there were over a dozen more heartcarded among the Blademaidens now- not to speak of Houzin, who was physically almost as strong as a Fiz'rin. Thinking about Fiz'rin, he looked up at Hind.

She was sitting across from him on the couch while the sound of blades came from outside. Nisziz had been getting restless and was practicing outside, leaving him and Hind alone in the room. She was staring at the table, looking a bit lost.

"How are you holding up?" he asked.

Hind looked up, her face hard to read.

"I got used to having my father around most of the time," she said. "I didn't realize until I woke up this morning just how much I'll miss that."

Irwin's mind flew to his children and Scintilla. He'd been at the gas giant for months, then back a few days, then back for months, and after that, he'd had one day with them. He knew it was necessary, but he wished he could have had another few years of calm.

His thoughts drifted to the Deadpact Mercenaries and whoever was sending them after him. Sensing the burning fury in his stomach, a feeling that never truly left him, Irwin quickly moved his thoughts back to Hind.

"What did Helm say when you said you were coming with me and he couldn't come?" Irwin asked.

Hind snorted, a hint of her normal self peeking out.

"He actually had the audacity to tell me he'd go with you and for me to stay with the children!"

Irwin stared at her, slightly stunned, before he began grinning widely.

"Oh…. that must have gone well."

Hind crossed her arms. "It's a good thing we were leaving, so I had to leave nicely, or I would have shown him who could stay with the children, "she said. "Did I tell you how he got into trouble a few weeks ago?"

Irwin shook his head, happy to hear something to distract him.

The rest of the day went by as they shared anecdotal stories, and when Nisziz and Klatzi joined, they even brought out some of the very little drink they had remaining.

When Irwin was finally lying in his bed, he realized he felt a bit better. Not great, by any means, but the laughter and joking had helped- and he knew Hind probably felt the same.

Still, he found his sleep was restless.

The days passed slowly, most of it spent in his soulscape as Greldo shot through the Graboul's Teeth, heading toward the distant city of Dimarintsia. They knew it would be a trip that would last months, so they quickly got into a new routine. Using the merchant's time, they stopped every evening to give Greldo a break, leaving Irwin in the small ship to keep an eye out while Greldo joined the others in his soulscape. Then, the next day, for the entire day, Greldo would continue ahead.

While he was there, Irwin spent his time examining the ambient soulforce. There was barely any there, but it was enough for him to try and draw it together. However, he quickly found that singing as softly as he could didn't work all that well. The power of the resonance it created seemed to determine how far the soulforce around him reacted, but with no idea who was around, he couldn't risk singing too loudly.

Days began to blur together, and soon, a month had passed.

Irwin was dumbly looking at the mountainous world, dark and gray from the shadowrealm as it flitted by below. Most of his attention was on his otherself, which was practicing inside his soulscape, so it took him a moment to notice when the movement was slowing down. As soon as he did, he pulled more of his awareness into his otherself, creating the normal split.

It's not time yet, he thought, looking around. He didn't see anything but mountains, but that didn't mean there wasn't anything around. Greldo had never stopped over, even slowed down unless it was time to rest, but now they were still hours from that moment. Either he or Coal, who was usually just scouting around, must have found something.

We aren't even halfway to Dimarintsia, and weeks from exiting Graboul's Teeth, Irwin thought.

He warned the others in his soulscape as Greldo began moving along the rough mountain towards the valley below. It was a deep one, and Irwin couldn't see the bottom yet, but as soon as Greldo reached the ridge that led almost straight down, he knew why they had stopped.

Four massive bodies lay at the bottom, crawling with tiny figures that seemed to be digging into them.

Chaos Whales, Irwin thought as Greldo flew within a few hundred feet away from one of the massive bodies.

He felt a slight pain at the sight of the dead creatures as he recalled how gentle they actually were. As they closed in, the number of wounds across them was... disturbing.

Still, Irwin knew his friend wouldn't come this close if there wasn't something else.

Irwin examined the long, familiar wounds that covered the Chaos Whales, showing it had likely fought, if not been killed by, Oculithar. None of them were adults either, but they seemed to be in their growing phase.

It took him only a moment to see what Greldo likely wanted him to see.

A hole large enough for him to walk through sat between the left-side eyes of the Chaos Whale, and as Greldo hovered before it, Irwin saw it led deep inside. The edges were smooth, and the out-of-proportion humanoid addled were constantly climbing through it.

If there had been a heartcard it would have exploded already, Irwin knew. That meant that something had taken the heartcards. Probably the same thing that had created the hole.

Greldo remained there for a bit before he began circling the other bodies. Identical holes sat in the other whales, though not all in the exact same place. Some were above the eyes, others on the side of the head.

Who or what would do this? Irwin thought, feeling his anger flare slightly.

After a short while, Greldo shot away from the valley, back up the mountain. He continued until they reached a narrow ledge, where he slowed again. A moment later, Irwin felt himself reappear in the real world and, with practiced ease, pulled the small sloop out of his soulscape and below him. They barely fell a foot before the ship's rune-controlled soulforce kept it afloat.

"Something is hunting them," Greldo said before Irwin could ask. "Those holes are what killed them. Coal says the wounds around them just weakened the Chaos Whales, but shouldn't have been enough to kill them."

Irwin looked at his friend in surprise.

"What? You know Coal likes to hunt… he always tried to come up with ways to kill the things he encounters," Greldo said with a sheepish laugh. "According to him, the Oculithar wounds weren't nearly deep enough to kill them, and many had already started healing. Also, there was too much blood below the headwounds, meaning they happened when the Chaos Whales were still alive."

"Great…" Irwin muttered, looking around the mountain.

He'd been sick and tired of mountains before when they had to search for a portal, and the last month hadn't helped anything.

"Keep an eye open for what it is," he said. "Whatever can kill four Chaos Whales isn't something we should be messing with at the moment."

"Maybe, but imagine if we can get all the cards," Greldo said.

"That's assuming they weren't slotted or consumed or something," Irwin said.

Greldo sighed, then nodded. "Let's keep going."

They didn't spot anything else that day, nor the next few days, but almost a week later, Irwin sensed Greldo slow down again before changing directions. Looking around the seemingly endless mountains, Irwin saw the two shapes that had slid down a slope, leaving a long, bloody trail in the ice. This time, there were only a few addled, but their behavior was the same. They futilely tried to dig into the massive carcasses or move through the circular holes.

Greldo didn't keep them there long this time, and a few minutes later, Irwin dropped onto a snow-filled flat area with towering cliffs on two sides.

"They are exactly the same," Greldo said. "Coal thinks these were done more recently."

"Just a few addled," Irwin said, staring at the massive bodies and wondering what could even be hunting such things.

"Exactly. Coal is going to send out his shadow clones further from now on. What do you want to do if we find something…?"

Irwin looked back at his friend, thinking for a few moments.

"That depends on what's doing it. I'm not sure about you, but I don't really like something going around killing Chaos Whales," he finally said.

"Neither do I," Greldo agreed. "Besides the fact that they are useless, they also mostly fight Oculithar."

I wonder if they are going the same way as we are, Irwin thought before another option came to him.

"How much of a straight line have you been keeping towards Dimarintisa?" he asked, looking at his friend.

Greldo looked around, his eyebrows raising. "Oh… roughly, you know."

Irwin frowned. "Roughly?"

"Well, Coal was bored, so he has been sending out his shadow clones as far as they can go. This isn't exactly toward Dismarintsia," Greldo said before quickly raising his hands in defense. "Not that it's going to cost us a lot of time! It's just a bit off course, maybe an hour or so!"

Irwin rubbed his head, wondering what their journey on a map would have looked like. He was getting the feeling it wasn't in a straight line at all. His gaze drifted down at the dead Chaos Whales, and he sighed as he recalled the baby Chaos Whales they had saved years before. He really didn't like what he was seeing.

"Fine. If you find what's doing it, and it seems safe enough to take a look, we'll go there," he said. "But no risks. As much as I'd want to stop whatever is doing this, we have more important things to do first."

"Alright," Greldo said, a hungry smile popping onto his face. "Time to go hunting!"

Before Irwin could react, he was pulled back into the shadowrealm. He almost wanted to resist and tell Greldo to be careful, but he held back.

You better not go crazy, he thought.

--

Four days later, they found another couple of Chaos Whales, this time without any Addled nearby.

Greldo didn't bother coming out of the shadowrealm again but continued while Irwin stopped practicing, keeping his full focus on what was happening.

A day later, Greldo stopped so fast that it left Irwin almost dizzy. They were hovering high above a valley. After mentally shaking his head, Irwin was about to go and search for what had drawn Greldo's attention when his friend blasted off, moving as fast as Irwin had ever seen. They were heading in another direction, almost to the right of where they had been going. There was nothing different about the long mountain range ahead of them. The peaks blended with the tens of thousands Irwin had seen over the last one and half months, and the snow was pristine, and it wasn't blown away by the constant freezing winds.

As they flew closer, the cracked hill below the flickering along, Irwin sensed something… heard something… It was on the edge of his awareness, just out of-

Irwin shivered, as a soft song, as much of sound as it was of soulforce resonance, began growing in intensity. Although muffled by the shadowrealm, the soft, haunting quality made his skin crawl and his deeply buried fury burn. The song was a soothing, dangerous hum, high and light but with monstrously dark undertones that Irwin hated as soon as he heard them. An abomination of ability that almost had him jerk himself free of Greldo's grasp.

Greldo must have sensed something because he slowed slightly while diving closer to the ground. Still, the song kept growing louder before turning to a scream as Greldo flew them around one of the mountains.

Ahead of them hung an oddly shaped ship with an alabaster white sail, and even from the shadowrealm, Irwin saw the surrounding soulforce resonate with the song. Three Chaos Whales hung midair, seemingly entranced as their eyes were locked on a blue-haired figure standing on the bowsprit. Waving her hands around, she was singing the deathly, horrible song as two other blue-haired figures hung before one of the two Chaos Whales. They had their hands out, and a bright blue beam of oddly crackling energy was drilling into the Chaos Whale's head. Blood was dribbling along the side, but the giant creature seemed too entranced to notice.

They are killing them… Irwin thought as the burning fury he'd managed to keep contained before began raging inside of him- burning brighter and brighter. An echo rippled from his new card, and Irwin and his otherself seemed to be pulled forcefully together- the distant scream of worry from Ambraz drowned out by a raging in his head.

They are using music… music…

An image of how he and Zan had been singing softly with the small Chaos Whales overlapped the image before him, and something snapped.

A tiny part of Irwin knew something was wrong when the world reasserted itself around him, but he didn't care. The haunting melody, in combination with the lethargic, gentle giant… the blood dripping down caused him to let out a roar as loud as he ever had, then he disappeared across the soundwaves.

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