Swept

Shain stood in the center of a vast circular room of amber-chocolate metallic-wood. The vines in this room were a soft misty grey with multicolored flowers. The scent was musky, and floral, with hints of smoky woods.

His face was turned upwards and deep amber tears streamed down from his eyes. They hit the floor like mercurial, glistening, balls of shimmering amber. The balls collected on mass around his feet.

His thoughts were chaotic and disjointed.

He just stood in place thinking yet unthinking. Being yet unbeing. He felt as if he might disappear from his own realm at any moment; forgotten and lost, wandering dark realms without memory or purpose.

"Why do you seem so distressed brother?"

Rachel's voice was quiet and a bit soothing and still Shain started. He had not felt his sister's presence, or heard her approach, and these were his rooms, his domain.

As the unexpected tension left his body a slow smile creased his lips.

"You do not wish to speak to me?"

He felt his brothers enter and when he sensed Anis he let out a breath he had been holding since Rachel first spoke.

"So we are all here." Shain turned, his smile broadening. The tears at his feet rolling out from his motion.

He looked at Rachel and spread his arms wide. "Should we lie sister or try to speak a bit of truth? I am not sure if I can do either one right now."

Rachel smiled. "Brother you have always spoken your lies within such beautifully flowery truth. Why would you change now?" Her eyes glistened menacingly "Let us just speak as siblings and see what we can learn."

Mis was simmering with anger. Anis stood beside him, always protecting him, always there to comfort and ensure he was OK. And what had he done for her?!? NOTHING!

"I would like any semblance of the truth you could muster please!" He stepped forward. This made Anis do the same which made Struns follow suit.

Rachel smiled at Shain "I suppose we do not have time for sibling pleasantries." She sighed heavily and looked around.

"Shall we sit?"

Shain looked around and smiled. A large veined table of ebon wood appeared with chairs the same golden color as the it's varied veins.

It was oval in shape and had twelve chairs around it.

"I hope you do not mind if we have company."

Rachel raised an eyebrow as she sat. "Company?" She shrugged "These ae your quarters I have no problem with others here as long as our questions are answered. Mis are you okay with "company"?"

Mis sat at the table with Anis sitting to his left. Fine streams of green electricity moved over his body not causing any harm to the area around him but giving off an ominous aura.

"I do not care about company. Bring who you will elder brother and explain to us how you tried to kill my sister."

Shain took on an aggrieved look and looked to Anis. "Sister. Do you think that I tried to kill you?"

Anis shrugged, leaned back in her seat, and crossed her arms over her chest. "You did not come to me Shain. You sent people. They came and took me by force. You even told them when Mis and Struns would both be away." She looked passed him for a split second "I guess I find that rather odd."

"You should sister." Mis put his hand atop Anis' and looked back. "Sit down Struns. We will get answers before we kill him."

Struns sat in the seat next to Anis. His eyes remaining on Shain.

"Calm yourself Mis."

Mis turned his green-grey eyes to Ser. "I am calm." He looked to Rachel who was smiling in a way that gave him a slight chill. She was leaning forward with her eyes fixed on their brother Shain. "I trust Rach to do what is right."

Rachel did not look to her brothers speaking. Rebecca sat to her right and Cranmal sat to her left.

Cranmal leaned over and whispered in her ear. Before he began to speak two small, thin, swirling rainbow cylinders formed around his and Rachel's heads in a tight loop.

They could not use telepathic speech in Shain's quarters due to wards that he had in place

Shain was furious. "It is rude to flaunt your abilities in this way third brother!"

Cranmal looked to his brother once he was finished speaking to Rachel but said nothing.

Rachel tilted her head to the side looking at Shain. "No worries my dear eldest brother. Third brother merely feels that we shouldn't allow company because we would have to kill them after."

She smiled broadly, looked to a door to the immediate right of the table and shrugged. "I feel having everything out now saves time. What is taking them so long? Why have that not entered yet?"

Shain looked to the door and it opened. A tall voluptuous woman and an overly muscular man entered.

The woman was of average height with long wavy black hair streaked with opalescent strands that shined, predominantly green and pink. Her as were almond shaped and colored hazel and she had high cheekbones and a long sharp nose. Rachel always felt that she was an ugly-beautiful woman.

The man had broad shoulders and muscles rippled throughout his body. His deep green hair was in a long thick braid that rested just past his waist. His deep emerald eyes seemed to be windows to distant realms and his wide jaw made his features that much more severe.

He took long strides to the table. He looked to Shain, gave a nod, and set down. His gaze resting on Rachel.

Rachel nodded to each in turn. "Hello Althius. Hello Sublyme."

They returned Rachel's nod but did not speak.

Shain took a seat and looked at Anis.

"First I want to say that I was not trying to kill you." He looked at Rachel for a second before his gaze returned to Anis.

"I just believe that our younger sister is too young to be Milana. Because of her inexperience and age our realm is in peril."

With this Emil, Bre, and Cer sat at the table. "What peril?" Emil asked in confusion with a tilt to his head.

But he hadn't asked Shain; he had asked Rachel.

She did not look at her brother. With a slight shrug she continued looking at Shain giving him an imperceptible nod to continue.

Shain looked to Emil "You are a healer. You can not feel the "wrongness"? You can not hear our realm calling out for help."

Emil looked blankly at his brother and then his brows slowly knitted together; but he did not reply.

Rachel looked at Shain with a smile in her eyes and contempt and confusion on her lips. "And this peril is due to me?" she nodded. "Okay let us say all of this is true and a change is needed. How do you propose to enact this change…. Without killing our sister I mean?"

"Rachel!?"

Everyone, with the exception of Shain, Althius, and Sublyme spoke as one.

Rachel simply raised a hand and gave a small half shake of her head. She subtly indicated for Shain to answer her question.

Shain was quiet for a long minute. He looked to his ceiling. Above there heads was a multidimensional representation of the cosmoi. When he was distressed or needed inspiration Shain always found himself staring up at it.

It swirled overhead. Mixes of colors, silvery stardust swirling in between, and planets and different satellites, of varying sizes and spherical shapes dotted its ethereal landscape.

He looked to its center to gaze upon his realm. The central most aspect of the cosmoi. Twelve landmasses gently glided in the center of a vast blue plane with a thick black streak curving around half the circumference of the blue plane.

Around all this stars and distant planets moved about on their own set trajectories.

Shain exhaled deeply "I do not know."

Rachel set back in her seat and closed her eyes. She spoke to her closed eyelids "You allowed them to manipulate you brother. You decided that working there would be good for the family and the realm. That it would allow us to know what we needed to maintain our realm."

She opened her eyes "When the family agreed we all said you needed to be careful."

The table went silent and Rachel sat forward, looked at both Althius and Sublyme, and abruptly stood.

"You are the current Milana, but…."

"Did you speak with the other commanders before acting!?" Anis spoke loudly, her eyes moving between Althius and Sublyme. They both lowered their eyes.

Rachel walked to the bar and poured herself a deep amber liquid. She downed it in one go, poured another and returned to her seat. She waved her hand and everyone at the table suddenly had different drinks before them.

"We need to stay calm. We are still family and we have all made mistakes." Rachel's voice was ethereal. "The realm has spoke to me." She looked poignantly at Shain. "It wants us to work together. There is chaos brewing and it has eluded all our notice. Who is Milana is unimportant and I have no problem stepping down from it." She shrugged "It is no secret. I love our realm but I will find the realm that poisoned our grandmother and finish her work cleansing it. I can focus on that more if I am not Milana."

There was silence for a long moment. "Let's focus on what we need to do now to subdue the growing chaos within our realm."

Emil sat forward "And if the realm maintains that you are the Milana?"

Rachel pretended like she did not hear the question and asked Emil a question instead.

"What did you see when you were healing Anis?"

Emil silently looked at her longer than needed. "It is hard to describe. It was like the more I wanted to help and repair the more Anis needed; the more things were in disrepair. "

"Chaos." Anis spoke in almost a whisper but everyone present heard her. She stood up and raised her arms, her hands facing palms up towards the ceiling, purple and white tendrils moved from her arms and palms. The tendrils swirled, and twisted upon themselves to form a dense cloud that had a silver shimmer to it. In the center a black speck formed. The longer the fate magic swirled and manifested the lager and more chaotic the black dot became until it was a large sparking mass taking up half of the purple cloud.

Anis spoke words of power in the ancient Azmin language and the cloud began showing different scenes from around the realm. The scenes grew connections between each other, some weak and some strong, and the entire time the black, now crackling, mass was there; in the way. It obstructed some connections completely and others it simply interfered with causing the connection to be frail or inconsequential.

Anis' eyes swirled with deep royal purple light. Tiny specks of grey emerging from the purple as streaks of grey streamed from her and struck different points on the purple cloud.

Rachel stood, her eyes wide. "Anis are these points of chaos origin?"

"Yes. But they seem to be outside the dimensions of our bestowed fate." Anis' voice was otherworldly and seemed to reverberate like a bad connection on a phone call. And the main point of chaos seems to be both fed by them and feeding them.

They all understood what she meant.

Sublyme lowered her head "We were fooled by chaos." She spoke as if condemning herself.

Althius clenched his fists tightly. He prided himself on being loyal and incorruptible.

Shain stood frozen. There was an odd expression of self-deprecation, confusion, fear, and anger on his face. His body was tense for a long moment before he slowly sat down.

"It seems that I have been a fool"