Memory Bonds

It felt like blood had flooded Wren's ears. There was the sound of roaring liquid, and the word 'daughter.' Repeating over and over. 'Daughter. Daughter. Daughter.'

'Focus,' Fleck thought at her.

But she could tell through their bond that he was shocked too.

And so he was, but he also knew they had to listen. They couldn't afford to miss anything after that.

He was right. Wren tried to focus back in. Looking at Anvon again, she could unfortunately see some resemblance. The similar face shape was probably the most damning. Her rounder features certainly hadn't come from the elves.

Pauth was talking to him, and thankfully, she didn't seem to have missed much, by the time she could focus on the words.

"-don't understand. Don't you want her back?"

"Of course," Anvon said. And he did genuinely sound insulted at the insinuation. "But what did you tell me? She has amnesia?"

He glanced at her like she could confirm it. Wren shifted her weight and stared at him with wide eyes. Anvon turned back to the group like that was an answer to his question.

"Someone could be tracking her."

Well, technically that was literally happening.

"She might even be letting someone track her."

Yes, that was also happening, wasn't it?

"Because she has amnesia. Because she doesn't know any better. And you decided to bring her to our biggest base of operations. Do you realize how incredibly dangerous that is? Do you realize it's a threat?"

He stepped further into the room, almost pushing the rest of the group into one section. His shadows, multiple shadows cast by multiple light sources, seemed to loom over them. And he was absolutely keeping an eye on her with his peripheral vision, light flickering across his red eyes.

"I remember some things," Wren said.

The room fell still. Even natural things like shadows and light felt like they'd stopped moving, even if they couldn't really have. She was well aware that had been stupid. The cult members had made assumptions about her, and she'd been doing best by coasting along on those assumptions.

Even if she was in danger, which was likely, that was a pretty bold faced lie. Would she be able to back it up?

"Well yeah. She clearly remembered something when she talked to me," Murv said. "I wouldn't have brought her along otherwise."

"Oh really?" Anvon asked. He was clearly speaking to Wren, not Murv.

He spun back towards her. Really, his movements were impressive. It was like he was made of shadows, or the cloak he was wearing, instead of legs. Humans weren't a species that were naturally good at that, and it wasn't magic. Wren would sense if that was being used.

And now Anvon's full attention was on her, and she did her best to keep her face neutral, like she hadn't told a lie. Whether it had been a good idea or not, she'd done it. She had to stick with it now.

"There was another name you were going by. Harmoni. Who was she?"

Harmoni was someone else? And she'd better know who, before her own silence became damning.

Her mind went about twenty places at once, Fleck gave some input, and Wren spit out, "My mother."

Anvon deflated, taking a step back so he was no longer looming over her. She'd gotten it right.

She held herself carefully still, to avoid showing relief.

Pauth shuffled, then spoke up. "I was casting some detection spells on the way in. If she was being tracked by magic, I would've noticed."

No, she was being tracked by soul bonds.

And a good thing too, because Wren had not noticed he was doing that.

Anvon cleared his throat and stood up straighter. "Very well. Wren, if you could come with me? I can check and see if you're being tracked through any technological means."

He extended a hand. Wren hesitated, but just for a moment. This was her father, and she got the feeling if she was reluctant, he wouldn't take it well. She took his hand, and let him lead her out of the ballroom.

Anvon was her father. From the sound of it, her mother was also in the cult. And so was she.

It wasn't a shock, in fairness. She'd known since Iva, since blowing up Cyep, since she'd first heard of the cult on Xentron. She'd known, or suspected at least, but this was worse than she'd imagined. Her father was the leader of the cult. And now she was in the cult's base with him, and it was no longer a detail to be ignored.

~~~

They had their disguises. The dragons were up ahead. They should get going. They had some idea which direction they were going thanks to the dragons. Cooper could get the specifics with his eyepiece.

That did not mean it was easy. There had been very little technology on Iva, and a grand total of zero internet. He could connect on Xentron, of course. But Xentron had a small population and only so much technology his eyepiece could. . .bond with.

Morivon was, by comparison, all technology. Even before he started looking things were going off in his eyepiece. He had to find a way to block ads before he gave himself malware. Some information was not available to him, and he'd never tried hacking before. And when they stepped out, his eyepiece offered to translate one of the signs in front of him. It had its instructions in Standard, but also had what appeared to be Elvish and Dwarfish underneath.

Cooper got rid of the suggestion. Standard was the language of Morivon, and most signs and speakers would probably know it. And he doubted his eyepiece translation would be very accurate anyway.

There were also a lot of cameras. Just, so many. And they were just what his eyepiece could detect.

But that was enough of that. They'd exited the spaceship. He was the one who'd wanted to. And while no one was saying it, or outright staring at him, they were looking to him. He was the one who was supposed to know what to do next.

"Right then," he said. His left eye twitched from all the information streaming past him, but the sunglasses hid that. "This way." He tried not to sound tired.

It was hard to keep an eye out on both the internet and the area around them, but he did his best.

He led them out of the sterile white walled spaceport, by taking them down the stairs into a sort of subway area in the basement. The stairs going down had a dark carpet. The walls were a dark blue and the floor a slightly lighter blue tile, but you could only see so much of the walls. There were a lot of posters, screens, or projections on the walls, advertising all sorts of things. Cooper saw ones for musicals, food, a zoo, and the subway itself, to name a few.

The blue and purple lighting down here reminded Cooper a bit of the indoor bowling alley he'd been to.

Moon preferred the partially outdoor bowling alley they'd been to. If you messed up, you risked your ball rolling off into the yonder, but chasing it down when you were really bad was part of the fun, and the sand meant it wouldn't go too far.

Well Cooper agreed, but bowling really wasn't the point right now. 'And I really don't need any more distractions.'

'Sorry.'

She was outside with no one but Fleck, and had much less going on. She arguably could use the distraction.

'Well, just keeping half an eye on us,' Cooper suggested.

The subway building had multiple rows of tracks, and multiple layers. They took another staircase down and suddenly, aside from the rails on this floor, there were train-cars going both above and below them. They moved at high speeds too. They came to a complete stop when they reached this station, of course. But they took off like bullets out of the station, flying off in almost every conceivable direction.

He heard Rasha breath a quiet "woah" behind him.

Cooper really wanted to grab the left side of his face. But he didn't. This was fine. And it was, genuinely, pretty cool.

"I know which one to go on," Cooper said. He'd, admittedly, been figuring it out as he went. He'd just lucked into finding the right one on time. "Wesles, can you pay for the tickets?"

He was the only with any money to speak of.

"Cando," Wesles confirmed, flipping a coin in the air.