The splinter fleet drops from their beyond-lightspeed cruise less than a light-year away from their destination coordinates, just under an hour’s flight away if they’d maintained their speed. Emily sends out a message to all ships, telling the crew to gather near their crafts’ exits and await further instructions.

As the ships hum with activity, the crew moving to comply with the command without question, Emily and her children step into The Blade’s airlock with Silvia and Rotwin. Pod follows them in as an airtight door seals shut behind them, wearing an armoured, skin-tight protective suit with a sleek, visored helmet. He’s left his usual weapon-carrying backpack behind for now, but there are several utility modules fixed around his waist to maintain his suit's internal environment, and one of his rifles is magnetically attached to his back, just in case.

The outer airlock door slides open with a hiss, the air inside rushing out as they’re all exposed to the vacuum of space. Mensacus and Silica both shiver and push more mana to their skin, the cold creeping in, but are otherwise unaffected thanks to their mechanical and magical bodies. Emily, Silvia, and Rotwin don’t bat an eye: their innate barriers protect them completely as they step out of the ship’s artificial gravity, holding themselves steady with their energies.

They float out to stand in the void at the front of the gathered fleet, looking back over the ships. Emily raises both arms and begins casting, weaving a blend of air, metal, and lightning together into a massive magic circle that encompasses the fleet. A thin film of metal spreads under their feet, forming a magnetically-charged ground, and a bubble of air rises above it. The magic circle burns itself into the metal surface, sustaining the spell with only a steady trickle of Emily’s mana.

Satisfied, she turns to Pod and nods. He reaches up and detaches his helmet with a gentle hiss, trusting her completely and pulling it off, breathing in her artificial atmosphere before grinning.

“Seems good,” he says. “The oxygen balance is perfect, no shortness of breath or light-headedness or anything.”

“Thanks.” Emily nods, already confident in her spellcraft but grateful for his willingness to play test-subject.

She sends out another instruction to the crew, telling them to meet them outside their ships without the need for life-support apparatus. This time, there’s a moment of hesitation before they comply, but when tens of airlocks open as one, the people who step out have their helmets held at their hips or their protective barriers disabled. They clear the ships’ exits for others to follow, walking along the magical surface lightly gripping their metal soles to hold them down and approaching Emily and Silvia with murmurs of curiosity.

They don’t answer any of the questions that they can hear being quietly tossed around just yet, waiting for everyone but Lethia to be present first. They applied the Mental Lock to the head gunner the moment their announcement of revolt was done, giving Mensacus time to recover the mana he spent doing so and reducing the number of heads he has to cast on at once.

Rotlith tries to break from the crowd and take up a position behind her pack leader, but Rotwin silently shakes his head and gestures for her to remain at the head of the other group instead.

“I know you’re all curious as to why we’ve stopped before our destination,” Silvia calls out once the last crewmember steps clear of their ship’s airlock, instantly plunging the crowd into silence. “We’re here to put a few protections in place. I’m sure you’re all aware that while Emily here’s unique constitution offers us promise of a powerful ally, it’s also likely to draw attention and hostility from those more powerful than we’re currently equipped to deal with. To combat that, from now on she’s simply a talented mage who has a strange proclivity for mechanical enhancements, and that’s all anyone outside this crew will ever know.”

A few chuckles spread through the crowd, and several crewmembers nod in understanding, but several of them still wear worried frowns.

“Obviously,” Silvia continues, before any of them can voice their concerns, “That will only work so long as none of us are ever captured, encounter those dabbling in the mind arts, or choose to change allegiances. That’s a risk I’m not willing to take. To protect us against this, Emily and her son are going to place a spell on all of your minds that will wipe your memories of her nature should they ever risk exposure outside of our crew: willing or not.”

Chatter breaks out immediately among the crowd, with tens of people complaining about exposing their minds to a barely-trusted mental mage. However, before their discontent can grow too loud, Silvia releases a sliver of her presence, letting her qi wash out over them with a bloody iron scent and enough pressure to bring the unawakened among them to one knee.

“Enough! This isn’t up for debate, and you have nothing to worry about. Rotwin here has already undergone the same process, and he’s completely fine.” Silvia gestures for the chimaeric hound to step forward.

“The spell only affected my memories related to her nature, and the Vice-captain checked for any other abnormalities or subliminal controls and found none,” Rotwin explains.

“Even if you don’t trust Emily, trust me.” Silvia takes over again, withdrawing her qi. “This is for all of our safety, and I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to you all. I know I may have said that she can give me a good spar, but I can still take her, so don’t worry.”

A few in the crowd laugh as their tension bleeds off, and though some still bear sceptical expressions, nobody else complains aloud.

“Besides, if they were strong enough, I’d let them place the same spell on me.” The vampire glances over and flashes Emily a challenging grin. “We may have to wait a little while for that, though.”

“It’ll come sooner than you think,” Emily responds dryly, before gesturing for Mensacus to step forward, placing a hand on his shoulder, and turning her head to address the crowd. “We’ll make this quick so we can continue on our way, but I need all of you to work with us. The spell we’re about to cast, Mental Lock, doesn’t fall within my area of expertise, so my son will be taking the lead in casting, and he isn’t as strong as some of you. The spell is also not aggressive in nature, so we’ll need all of you to relax any mental defences you may have and try not to resist. Please make direct eye contact with his third eye without any extra barriers between you, such as a visor. It will help if you’re able to focus on the memory of our reveal a few hours ago.”

Nods of understanding spread through the crowd like a wave, and several crewmembers glance towards Silvia before steeling their nerves and relaxing their defences as asked.

Mensacus takes that as his cue, opening his third eye and pouring mana into it. Emily activates Mother’s Blessing, following the same process as they did to apply the spell to Rotwin and pouring her energies and stamina into her son as he begins weaving a massive magic circle that encompasses the entire gathering.

Milky-white mana washes over the crew, and Mensacus mutters in a guttural language that helps delicately guide hundreds of glowing strands that stretch out from his eye, delving into the heads of the crew to bind the target memories. To their relief, no one resists, not even those who tried to contact Yorn before changing their minds.

Emily can hardly understand what her son’s saying, his words sounding more like the incoherent background whispering of The Abyss than any structured language she recognises, so she lets the chanting slip past her focus, trusting him to do his job and focusing on boosting the strength of his casting as best she can, taking on some of the strain of binding so many minds at once.

After only a few minutes, the soft glow enveloping the crowd fades, and Mensacus shuts his white eye before sagging in exhaustion, his mana reserves drained to near empty. Emily severs her active skill, this time having only spent a little over half her own reserves, much closer to the expected expenditure from a single activation.

“Is it done?” Silvia asks, looking over her crew and reaching out with a few threads of bloody qi, probing those closest to her to check on their conditions. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

“Yes.” Emily nods, glancing at her son for confirmation.

“Their memories are sealed,” the mechanical chimaera agrees. “They should be completely secure against unwanted intrusion now, but there’s still a small risk if they themselves work with another mental mage to try and break the spell from inside and out. I wasn’t able to completely fix that aspect of the spell in our limited time.”

“That’ll do,” Silvia reassures, flashing him an impressed glance as she retracts her qi. “I hand-selected this fleet because I had confidence in them. A few may have disappointingly shown more loyalty to Yorn than I expected, but I still doubt any of them will run to another force any time soon. You’ll have more time to refine your spell before correcting it in the future. I’m sure it will help if your mother’s able to delve into the mind arts as well.”

Emily meets her challenging smile with an unimpressed flat stare.

“I’m working on it. Whilst I have the affinity, Mental magic is one of the few I’m having trouble connecting with. Space was the same at first, and I only needed a single moment of realisation to fix that, so I have no doubt I’ll get the hang of mental soon enough.”

“How interesting. I was under the impression that, as long as a mage has an affinity, they should be able to understand and even cast weak spells that fall under that umbrella, even before establishing a solid connection with the element. Can you not aid with his spellcraft at least?”

“Yes and no,” Emily explains, looking over the gathered crew as they slowly regain their bearings, shaking away the daze the spell lulled them into and using their own methods to confirm the sanctity of their minds. “I can look at what he’s designed and give pointers on inefficiencies I can spot based on my own experiences and reading on others’ mental magic work, but I can’t fully understand or improve upon the intricacies of what he’s made without examining the spell form in the Spellweave. All other mages I’ve met and trained with either could or couldn’t access an element from the start, but I’ve found I need to at minimum reach the point of manifestation to do so. I’m not quite sure why yet, but I also always achieve a full, solid manifestation the moment I make that initial connection, so it seems like a fair trade-off.”

“How strange. I’ve never heard of that happening before, either. Maybe you should ask Elwaine about it once we’re sure he can be trusted,” Silvia suggests. “He has a vast breadth of magical knowledge and frequently exchanges information with parties outside our crew.”

“I’ll consider it.”

***

After loading back onto their ships and setting off again, it doesn’t take long to reach the edge of the coordinates their questionably trustworthy informant gave up.

“There’s definitely something here,” Lethia says, pulling up a scan of the space ahead and pointing out the greatly elevated energy readings. “I can confirm that there’s a lot of unstable qi here, but the spread is a little too uniform to confidently call it a natural qi storm.”

“Okay, drop us from lightspeed and approach with caution,” Silvia instructs her, looking at the readings before turning to Emily with a raised brow. “Can you work out what those mean?”

“Not confidently,” Emily responds, connecting to the ship’s scanners with a steady stream of machina and drinking in the data feed directly. “These readings are all unfamiliar, and I’m not yet used to the differing properties of qi from mana and machina. If I had to say, though, it looks a little similar to the feedback I received when resonating with a mana vein feeding an out-of-control, large-scale array. Maybe a qi formation gone wrong?”

“Tsk.” Silvia clicks her tongue. “It would help if we had a formation master to consult. Unfortunately, none we’ve met has shown an interest in joining us.”

The ship shudders and rapidly drops in speed until the world outside the bridge turns from a blur of distorted stars into a stable dark expanse. The rest of the fleet drops into formation around The Blade, and they all immediately spot the source of their abnormal readings.

Spread throughout the darkness ahead is a thin, undulating haze of shimmering colours, pulsing with different frequencies of light in a seemingly random pattern.

“It’s beautiful,” Pod mutters in awe, standing at Emily’s side and admiring the sight.

“That it is,” Silvia hums in agreement. “Open up the energy vents and pump up the concentration in here. We might as well enjoy the fruits of our journey while we look for whatever’s causing this.”

“Aye aye, Captain,” Lethia responds flatly, without a single fluctuation in her mechanical tone as her fingers dance across her controls.

The glistening mist begins flowing into the bridge at once, and Emily gladly breathes it in, tasting the slight differences between the thick qi and the atmospheric mana she’s most used to. She converts it to usable energy as it flows through her, feeling some loss of energy thanks to the change, but waiving it off as negligible.

Silica purrs in satisfaction as she draws in the thick qi, but both Pod and Mensacus have a little more trouble, their absorption speeds but a fraction of what they’re capable of in the energies they’re used to.

“It looks… familiar,” Emily murmurs, reaching out a hand and letting the mist flow between her fingers, pulsing in response to her movement. “Almost alive.”

“Is that a good thing?” Silvia asks, narrowing her eyes at the pulsing pattern herself.

“I don’t think so. The last time I saw something similar was-”

“The darkness of The Abyss,” Pod finishes for her, his tone laced with sudden concern. “Should we be breathing this stuff in so confidently?”

“It’s not doing us any harm,” Silvia responds with a shrug, looking to Emily with a raised brow, asking for an explanation.

“The Abyss was a natural magical phenomenon on Ulea, that I suspect comes from a greater whole elsewhere in the universe, based on how it spoke, that existed somewhere in the border between fourth and fifth circles before I broke the planet’s mortal barrier,” Emily begins. “It was the source of the cursed object I used to create my son, and it spread its influence beneath a good tenth of our home continent. It wasn’t innately malevolent, but it certainly wasn’t friendly to most, being seeped in darkness and death by nature. This might not be the same, but I don’t think these density patterns are completely random, since they seem to be responding to-”

“Shit!” Lethia’s hissing voice cuts her off as a warning pops up on one of the screens in front of them. “We just lost communication with one of our ships.”