"I'm the only one that could freely move in Belius thanks to my mother, just like you. Solus was scared that Lith might do something crazy and asked me to bring her here. She's still waiting for your answer." Phloria replied.

"I'm sorry, permission granted."

A wisp of light came out of the ring, growing in size until it became a humanoid figure. Then, light turned into flesh and Solus appeared.

"Thank you so much for bringing Lith here! Belius is the perfect place to force his life force to rest."

"I don't mean to be rude, but I had a terrible day and an even more terrible evening. I understand that you are worried about Lith, but Protector already checked on his life force. Couldn't this wait until tomorrow morning?" Kamila asked.

She had nothing against Solus, but getting inside her house at this hour and with a trick at that, felt like a home invasion to Kamila. Just by being there, Solus was invading a space that Kamila considered private.

"No. I have no time for explanations now, where is Lith?" Solus looked around the apartment with a familiarity that reminded Kamila how messed up her relationship with Lith had been.

"In the bedroom." She replied, quickly gesturing to the coach once the other two women looked at her awkwardly. "I was sleeping there."

Solus moved with a haste that left Phloria and Kamila confused, exchanging a silent question they replied to each other with a shrug.

"A little help here!"

"Oh, shit. I had completely forgotten about that." Kamila rushed inside once she heard Solus's voice and the thumps.

The bedroom was soundproof so she hadn't heard a peep until the door had been opened. Lith was having a fitful sleep which wouldn't have been a big deal if not for his mass and his shapeshifting.

His claws and talons had ripped the mattress open and shredded the sheets. His wings flapped furiously, throwing around the fabric scraps with enough strength to incapacitate an adult man.

None of it was a problem for Solus, but his struggle and constant shapeshifting made it hard for her to cast a spell. Kamila hushed him before stepping inside and Lith stopped long enough for her to grab his hand.

He calmed immediately and once she started lulling his head gently his form stabilized to human.

"This always happens after Lith has a bad day." Kamila said in a whisper, with the soothing tone she used to tell a fairy tale to the kids.

After Solus finished performing a full check-up with Abyssal Gaze, Kamila covered the now calm Lith with a new set of blankets and the three women safely left the room.

"What the heck was that?" Phloria asked, still shocked from what she had seen.

"When Lith sleeps alone after something bad happened, he always trashes the room." Kamila sighed. "That's why I always tried to come back for the night when we were still together."

"Yeah." Solus nodded. "Ever since you broke up with him, he always sleeps in the tower with me to not scare his parents in the morning."

A long awkward gaze forced her to elaborate further.

"I mean that the tower can safely support his weight and since everything at its inside is made by me, I can repair everything without spending a dime. We each sleep in our own room."

"That was very brave of you, Kamila." Phloria said.

"What do you mean brave?" She asked with a puzzled look.

"Even before gaining the mass of a Tiamat, Lith might have killed you with one of his wings or claws while he slept. Even a pillow could be lethal for a human if thrown with his strength, yet you stepped in without fear." Phloria replied.

"Because there's nothing to be afraid of." Kamila chuckled as if Phloria had just said something nonsensical. "Lith would never hurt me. Even tonight, when he was completely out of it, he held back for me.

"Just like he calmed down after hearing my voice. Besides, I always wear my armor, just to be safe." Her pajamas shapeshifted into a Scalewalker and back.

"Yeah. As you can see Lith didn't hurt me either." Solus nodded, showing Phloria the flawless skin of her exposed arms even after being so close to the trashing Tiamat. "I couldn't calm him down only because our mind link made our pain worse."

Solus wiped from her face the tears that their combined grief had made her shed.

Phloria listened to their words without really understanding them, feeling like the only sane person in a mad world.

"What were you saying about his life force?" Kamila asked.

"It's easier if I show you." Solus offered her and Phloria her hands, establishing a mind link that replayed the whole conversation they had had with Manohar in the Desert.

"Good gods! How is Lith now?" Phloria asked, turning pale as a ghost.

"We're lucky. His life force didn't deplete further this time." Solus replied.

"I don't understand, Lith didn't fight nor did he use spells. He just lashed out. How could that possibly hurt him?" Kamila asked.

"Kami, I mean, Kamila, that wasn't just lashing out." Solus shook her head. "Lith darkened an entire city, conjuring Demons for kilometers and used them as amplifiers to support whatever he was doing.

"That was a feat that I doubt any regular violet core Awakened can perform and it put a massive strain on him."

"What did he do, exactly?" Phloria said.

"Beats me. The problem with a new life form is that no one knows what it can do." Solus shrugged.

"What I do know is that if Kamila stopped him even one minute later and if she hadn't brought him under the effect of Belius' arrays, he would have lost another piece of his life force. We're lucky that whatever that blackness was, it didn't last enough to damage him further."

"Would you like some tea?" Kamila asked. She could use both some company and a hot beverage after receiving another piece of dreadful news.

"Yes, thank you." Solus noticed that the Camellia was nowhere to be seen and that all the items belonging to Lith had disappeared, feeling guilty for it. "Let me know how much I owe you for the mattress and the blankets."

"Don't worry about that." Kamila put the kettle on the stove. "Recurring problem, remember? Lith bought them in bulk exactly for cases like this."

"More like to get a big discount." Solus chuckled. "He is as stingy as he likes to be prepared."

"That's so true." Kamila laughed, remembering the shocked face of the mattress store clerk having to haggle with an Archmage.

"For someone who never spent time together you sure sound like old friends." Phloria said, making the other two women look at each other like it was the first time.

***

Griffon Kingdom, at the same time.

Thrud had no time to lose so the moment Orpal had killed Manohar, completing the first step of her plan, she moved on to the second phase. Now that the Kingdom had a spell to smoke out her Skinwalkers, it would take the healers less than one day to single them out and ruin months of preparation.

She had to wait only for a few hours until the panic and mass hysteria reached their apex while the forces of the Kingdom spread thinner by the second.

First, they had to recover Manohar's body, then they had to hunt down Orpal before his trail went cold, and finally, they had to deal with the unrest that Thrud's shapeshifters instigated.

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