I had spent a lifetime watching the Sun King streak across blue skies and float regally in his throne room, so I found it surreal to see the man do something as menial as put one foot in front of the other. And yet there was no tell to mark a lack of practice. His stride was confident and smooth when he accepted Afi's invitation, the girl stumbling over herself to assure him he was welcome, as if this was some place she had been laboring to prepare for him and not the inner chamber of her Mind. I couldn't blame her reflexive obeisance. There was a force to Hestorus's presence, even in death, an Aura of sorts that threatened to make me more child than man, that whispered that I was in the presence of greatness, of something much more vast than I would ever be, and I should act in kind – just as the leaves of the oak yield to the seasons, so too should we yield to him, those whispers said.

Of course it was Hull who broke the spell. Even weak as he was, Soul amputated and bled of vigor, he still had the spit and gristle to look authority in the eye unblinking, no matter how grand.

"Fortune's balls, what are you doing here?" he demanded of his father. I doubted Afi was aware of the familial ties, and a shared look with Esmi was all that was needed for us to both know we should carefully guard our tongues.

"Such a warm welcome from my son," Hestorus exclaimed, stopping in front of the chair Hull rested upon. The King's flesh was as card-real as any I had seen before, glowing with all of the inner vitality Hull currently lacked. Afi had also stopped and was standing ramrod straight, eyes sharp as she digested that royal-sized secret. "I'm so glad I chose to pay you a visit."

I caught Esmi's eye again, and she gave a tiny shrug; it seemed there would be no need to dance around the truth after all.

Hull wrestled himself out of the chair, but even with both of their feet flat on whatever sort of ground it was we all stood on, the King was still half a head taller. That only seemed to make Hull surlier. "Might have been warmer if you had done your job right."

"My job?" Hestorus said, sounding almost amused. "And what do you think that entails?"

My friend narrowed his eyes. "Saving the city, for one. Instead you stood there like an idiot, letting Mother bring rain hell down on your head. Did you think she wouldn't have some way to win? I thought you said you knew her so well."

After living with prisoners, I knew the sound of pain and loss, and heard its wounded tinge in my friend's voice, though I doubted he was aware of it.

"I never doubted your mother's wiles. In fact, I counted on them." The king's reply was calm, his speech resonant and full-bodied, but it was his sheer confidence that struck me.

If he had known… "Then why allow the strike to land?" I asked. Felstrife had been able to Dodge my blows, Armor them and Resist them, and she had only been Mythic to Hestorus's Legendary. If nothing else, the man could have blocked from Hand, but I remembered the culmination of the apotheosis as if it had happened yesterday: Hull was right, Hestorus had accepted the attack.

"While I understand your interest," he said to me before expanding his attention to the rest, "I have other matters to discuss." He waved Afi to sit, and so she did, crouching next to Hull. There was only one chair in the chamber, likely because Afi normally visited her Mind Home alone, but I found the smooth, hard flooring I sat upon no less comfortable than the ballroom that had been my home. I had not expected the King to join us, but he did, managing to look just as regal cross-legged on the floor as he ever had hovering in the sky. He considered us, and I had the sense that he was leaning forward, taking our complete measure, even though he didn't move a muscle. "What have you accomplished in my absence?"

The question was initially met with silence, but I decided not to let it linger. Who knew how long we could stay hidden away in Afi's Mind Home, and even if there was no limit, that would not stop the war raging outside. Surely Hestorus had a reason for being here and for asking such a thing of us. "I killed the leader of the undead armies, the lich Felstrife. With aid," I added, squeezing Esmi's hand.

"That would explain the ruby in your eyes and the angle of your spine," the King commented, which gave me pause. I hadn't realized I had been sitting any straighter, but perhaps my body was still fighting against the weight of that lead-heavy helmet even though I no longer wore it.

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"What else?" Hestorus asked, and with the first answer having been given, the rest flowed freely: Afi eliminating a raised headmaster at Biddlwyn and ferrying information for the Queen; Hull killing an Epic vampire and helping the highest ranked survivors secure a defensible location, not to mention infiltrating the ranks of the demons; and Esmi facing the necromancers and returning to life as an Epic Soul. "With a great deal of aid," she added, squeezing my hand back.

If our stories impressed him, he gave no outward display. If anything, he seemed bored. "And now?"

"We're taking your vault to the Queen," Afi supplied.

He nodded, as if he knew the reason why but didn't bother to share anything more on the matter.

"Cut the all-wise king shit," Hull growled. "Tell us something useful, like how to get through that Twins-cursed mist out there."

"Mist?" Hestorus said, raising an eyebrow, the most noticeable reaction he'd had so far. "Ah, that must be how you perceive my fellow Souls, the ones who wander without any Mind to call home."

We all perked up at that, but it was Afi who spoke first. "There are Souls out there?"

"Of course," the King said with a chuckle. "Where else would they go? Millions of them, drifting and mingling. They get to converse, which is a boon, but it is nothing compared to the comforts of a Mind Home."

I rocked back in my seat. What a Tender would give to hear such a confirmation of their teachings!

"Yet you appear whole…" Esmi said.

He smiled at her. "Unlike the others, I decided to take my body with me when I died."

"You can do such a thing?" I practically choked on the words, so shocking were they.

He turned that smile on me but didn't deign to answer.

Obviously one could; I was staring at the proof of it as we spoke. Was that why his flesh and bones had burned to cinders after the apotheosis? Some sort of transference to this plane of being?

"You did something to your card too," Hull said, poking at a different mystery. "It's giving the demons fits."

Hestorus laughed, as if he had found some true amusement finally. "Trying to break down my card, are they? They'll have no luck with that, I'm afraid."

Again, the man gave us no answers, and I found myself feeling a kernel of that frustration Hull had exhibited. This was someone who had unraveled the secrets of death and beyond it seemed. Surely, he had some wisdom he could impart to us in this time of need.

Instead, he stood. "Well, that was pleasant enough, I suppose."

I could discern the actions of someone preparing to depart, and yet my mind refused to believe such a thing was about to transpire.

"You're leaving us," Hull said, flatly.

"Not without my journal, I'm not," Hestorus answered, lifting a hand to his son. "If you would."

Hull stared back at him for a time, not so much as lifting a hand. "I think it's fine where it is."

"I thought you said you came here for a reason," Afi said, a tinge of desperation in her voice that echoed in me: was our King abandoning us again?

"I did. To take your measure."

"And?" Esmi asked when Hestorus didn't say more.

His gaze swung over to us. "Two Epics." Then flicked to Afi. "A high Rare, and…" His glimmering eyes fell on Hull. "Nothing at all, it seems." He took us all in and sighed, a sound that cut straight through me. "I expected more."

The pain of that cut turned cold, filling me with serrated ice. For him to trivialize what we had been through… even as the King, he had no such right.

"It seems the feeling is mutual," I said each word with precision, to be sure that they were heard.

Even so, when he turned back to me, he said, "What was that, young Hintal?"

I stood so I could better match him, though I was no taller than my friend. "Hull spoke true from the start. You chose to die, whatever your reasons, and left us the pieces to mend. How we choose to do it – or whether we do it at all – is our matter, and not for you to judge."

Esmi rose beside me, and I could feel the heat of her. "If you wish for better, offer a helping hand."

Hestorus chuckled again. "Spoken like a true Rapturist."

"Or maybe," Afi said, popping up, "spoken like someone who was loved enough that others sought a way to bring her back. I haven't seen you make that trick happen yet."

Hestorus considered us, and we all blanched. How could we not? Even an angered seaman knows to ware the storm.

"And you, Hull," he asked, "do you feel the same?"

Hull heaved himself up, so we all stood facing our King now. "I've always thought you were a hateful ass, and I'm done waiting to see if you'll prove me wrong."

The Sun King snapped his fingers, and a slim book flew from Hull's pocket to him, which the King caught in hand.

"Hey!" Hull barked, jerking forward but stopped as his father ripped out one of the pages, handing it to him.

"Put this in the solution with my card," Hestorus said, and this time he spoke with the air of a decree, of a thing that must be seen done for the simple reason that he had said it, "and call for the Herald Hymane when you do."

Hull accepted the page with a frown. "Why?"

Hestorus smiled down at us all, not even needing the extra height of flight to do so. "To trigger an apotheosis, of course. The same one that was used to establish the rule of Charbond. What they got wrong, perhaps you will not."

There was a babble of gasps and questions, but Hestorus strode away, as if they were no concern of his.

It was Hull who finally managed to shout louder than the rest of us, shaking the page his father had given him in the air.

"Why not tell us this from the start?!"

The Mind Home door was already open then, the mist – no, Souls – beyond circling with an ambient light. The King turned, looking back over his shoulder. "I stopped arming the weak centuries ago. Hope is far crueler than death." And then he was gone, the door clicking shut behind him.

We all looked at each other and then that page. What in the hells were we going to do now?

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