#I can't even say Anabella is losing her touch

[bloomandcoffee]

Just because he's alive doesn't mean it never happened tho.

Okay Dion I was on board with the plan until the child murder part??? I understand your brother is kind of a dick, but he's also like eight.

Btw I'm surprised that Anabella simply had Oliver get throne, just asking the Emperor to move him up the line of succession. I was waiting for the elaborate assassination attempt on Dion that never came lol, she kinda disappointed me.

[phoenix-flamed]

There was nothing, only emptiness that seemed to stretch on into eternity. Elwin was drifting, without destination, without end, wrapped in a warm and gentle embrace of nonexistence. His body was heavy, and in truth, he was unsure if he was seeing at all or if his sight had dulled along with touch and hearing.

Where was he? There were memories. Little Joshua, Phoenix Gate, the Shields who had chosen to betray their homeland... A fleeting instant of a blade coming towards him, and --

"You wish to protect them, don't you...?"

The voice echoed around him, resonating not just in his ears or mind, but in his very soul. The distress that the Archduke had felt upon the realization of his fate dissipated slowly, bit by bit. Soon, all that remained in its place was a different desperation: the desperation to return to that place, to Phoenix Gate.

"Yes," Elwin rasped out. He struggled to move, one weakened and trembling arm reaching out, gloved fingers grasping at nothing. "Please, I -- I can't die here. I need to... I can't ... leave them... Joshua... Clive, Jill... Anabella..." He pleaded. There was so much to tell them, so much still to do. To hug the children and kiss their heads, to tell his wife that he does love her and, if nothing else, to say goodbye to everyone.

But above all else, to see that they would all be safe.

There was silence. Just as Elwin was beginning to lose hope, that voice spoke once again, a ripple in the space around him.

"... My power is yours. Now go, and protect what you hold most dear..."

An image flashed before Elwin, visible even behind his eyelids. It was the image of a looming gate, a portal and barrier both that was hewn into a massive rock wall. Then it was gone. The man could feel a surge of magick welling within him, amplified all the more by his confusion and despair, and driven onward by a singular desire: to reach his family. But this was not the work of the Phoenix. It was not the guardian firebird's flames that coursed through every vein and every fiber of his being.

It was something else entirely. It was unfamiliar yet somehow familiar at the same time, and it did not burn -- in fact, it did nothing, at least nothing discernable to his senses. But its power was unmistakable, and it was overwhelming, consuming him so thoroughly that he couldn't take it any longer. It burst outward with such force that it seemed to crack then shatter the very reality around him.

His eyes snapped open just in time to see, in the dull, clouded glow of the morning light, the explosive launch of stone rubble and Imperial soldiers that had been surrounding him moments prior. The burst of vibrant purple magick from within him lessened into a lingering aura, and slowly, painfully did he struggle his way up onto his feet, using nearby debris to steady himself.

That voice's words reverberated within his heart: protect what you hold most dear.