Arden stared at Sya’s head of now silver hair as she held out her hand, giving her brother the peace sign. Her veins didn’t glow a shade of otherworldly silver either, unlike what was supposed to be a thing for Blight Walkers. The only physical trait she had that betrayed that she was still one of them were her eyes, which still had black sclera and a silver iris.

  “Huh,” he said. “Alright. I’ll be completely honest, I didn’t expect that.”

  “You’re telling me,” Sya said, pulling a strand of her hair in front of her face so she could see its new color. “Ooh. I like it. What else looks different?”

  “Everything. You barely look like a Blight Walker anymore. Only your eyes give you away.”

  “Do I come with you?”

  “I don’t know. It wasn’t just me and Vera who came here. Some elite members of Miasma were here as well to help with the rescue. They knew that I was looking for you. I don’t think I can just show you off to them, now that you are a Starborn.”

  “I have a solution.”

  Arden watched as the silver color receded from her scalp. In its place, her hair returned to how it once was. Black, with silver streaks running through it. Her veins once again were shown to be flowing with the insidious Blight Essence.

  Arden couldn’t help but smile.

  Back when he first learned about the Spark of Paradox, he wondered if it could be used to turn Sya into a Blight Walker Starborn. He was proven correct.

  “Rounding out our trio of paradoxes, we have the Blighted Starborn. Nice. What’s your protostar power?”

  Sya held her hand aloft, with her palm facing the ceiling. The silver energy moved through her until it reached her hand, where it manifested as a sickly silver blob of pure Blight Essence.

  “Blight Control,” she said, reabsorbing the energy into her body. “I can control the Blight around me. That’s why I can keep looking like a normal Blight Walker.”

  “So you can only infect people if you choose to do so? That’s great for us.”

  They both heard the sound of footsteps rushing over to them. Sya took the initiative and fell to the floor, pretending to be unconscious.

  Vera entered the room, nearly falling over herself when she saw Arden knelt down next to his sister. Her eyes immediately focused on the silver liquid that Arden was drenched in.

  “Are you alright?”

  “Debatably,” he responded. “I was caught in the flood. This was where it was taken.”

  Remembering something, he continued.

  “There was a Blight Walker on the floor below. She expelled a lot of the essence.”

  Vera knelt down next to him.

  “She wasn't the only one. Yaan had a whole operation going on here. We thought that he was just doing this to satisfy his lust but it was much worse than we thought.”

  Arden could imagine what Yaan had done. He was an agent of the Archon Domah. He would help her create a prime vessel for her, and she would help him.

  He looked up to the emblem representing the Blight on the wall.

  A lot of Blight was needed for the procedure.

  Blight Walkers were the only continuous source of Blight, but they were far and few between. So, Yaan chose the easiest method.

  Create more Blight Walkers.

  Those experiencing the worst trauma of their lives easily became Blight Walkers. It was what happened to Sya. When she saw her parents dead, and Arden nearly killed, she broke, and became a Blight Walker.

  Arden and Vera both saw Sya flinch at the mention of Yaan.

  Arden balled his hands into fists. It had been since Nux Valtorin since Arden felt the need to kill someone. He felt it again right then.

  But he forced himself to calm down.

  He just agreed to an armistice with Yaan’s sponsor. He only got out of that fight by relying on the Spark of Paradox. He couldn’t just go and start a fight a second time.

  “What is Chorzo going to do to his hellspawn of a nephew?” he asked.

  “At this point, there’s only one thing he can do. This was far worse than a simple kidnapping or trafficking scheme. This was a crime against humanity. It’s the death penalty for him, no matter what Chorzo wants.”

  Arden nodded slowly.

  “Has everyone already been evacuated?”

  Vera shook her head.

  “Chorzo, Laurent, and Savish are all on the first few floors bringing the Blight Walkers to Santos. There were a lot of them. It’s probably going to be an all-nighter. They sent me up here to find you.”

  Vera’s eyes lingered on Sya’s form.

  “Should we bring her down as well? Or should we let her walk instead?”

  Sya opened her eyes and looked up at her friend.

  She wondered if she should open with a joke, but as soon as she saw Sya next to Arden, tears welled up her eyes. Her facade crumbled.

  They were back.

  She threw herself at them, crying into them.

  “I was so scared. What took you so long?”

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  “I’m sorry,” Arden said, his heart in his throat. “We’ve been searching for you ever since we got back a few days ago. But we’re here now. You’re safe now.”

  Sya continued sobbing into them for a while. When her tears were spent, so was her energy. Arden elected to carry his sleeping sister down to Santos. Sya was a Starborn now, but she still needed a check up. She would fit right in among the other Blight Walkers.

  Vera looked around the room, seeing the emblem of the Blight on the wall. Her eyes stayed transfixed on it as Arden collected his sister in his arms.

  “What happened here?” Vera muttered.

  Arden debated hiding the truth from Vera. After a moment of feeling disgusted, he spoke.

  “...An Archon descended into Sya’s body using the collected Blight Essence as a medium. Yaan was the Archon’s agent.”

  “Another one?”

  “Yeah. I don't want to go into detail right now, though. That can wait until later.”

  Vera saw the familiar pain in his eyes once again. Whatever happened to him this time again took its toll. Only time would tell just how badly he was affected.

  As they began the journey down the building, Vera looked at Arden’s back. She balled her hand into a fist, seeing him walk forward.

  The trial and now tonight.

  ‘I can't let him face the next thing alone.’

  *****

  Arden and Vera returned to the triage tent, each of them holding an unconscious Blight Walker. Naturally, Arden was carrying his sister, and Vera was carrying the girl from floor 19.

  Arden sincerely hoped that Vera was overselling the brutality of what Yaan had done.

  Unfortunately, it was just the opposite.

  The triage tent had been expanded several times. Rows upon rows of suffering Blight Walkers were laying down on the beds. Some of them were broken like the woman in Vera’s hold, and some of them were mostly in one piece.

  Arden tried not to think about what Yaan put the poor women through. He knew first hand how much pain torture could bring.

  Many of the victims were normal people of the newly expanded Ring 4 just a few weeks ago. Now, because of a psychopathic Starborn with ties to a demented god, their lives had been drastically altered forever.

  Santos and Laurent worked side by side tending to each broken Blight Walker. Santos manipulated his ash to heal them, and Laurent fed him his stellar essence to keep the doctor able to work.

  Santos and Laurent finished setting the broken bones of another Blight Walker and approached the two new patients shortly after Arden and Vera laid them down on empty cots.

  Santos wiped his sweat-drenched forehead with the sleeve of his lab coat that was now stained red and silver. He looked between the new arrivals then back to Arden and Vera.

  “Are these the ones from the upper floors?” he asked.

  Arden nodded.

  “The brunette was on floor 19. The other one is my sister. She was on floor 20.”

  Santos checked the two Blight Walkers’ pulses, and gave them a quick physical.

  “The brunette looks to be among the worst ones here. The good news is your sister seems more or less fine. Her wrists and ankles need some healing, though.”

  Arden already assumed his sister would be fine. She was a Starborn now. Looking around the tent, Arden noticed two people missing.

  “Where are Chorzo and Savish?”

  Laurent answered as he gave more essence to the working doctor.

  “Savish is out scouring the building for any remaining survivors. The boss is out back, having a smoke.”

  Arden gave the man a surprised look. Only a short time ago, Chorzo said that smoking was a bad habit. For him to be smoking now told Arden how difficult this whole ordeal was.

  Or how difficult it was going to be.

  Chorzo knew what needed to be done with Yaan.

  “I’ll go talk with him,” Arden said. He looked at his girlfriend. “I’ll be back soon. Stay with Sya or help the others if you can.”

  Vera nodded.

  Arden found the leader of Miasma sitting down on a large pile of rubble outside, overlooking the fallen building. The same one that Arden was brooding on earlier. The large man looked like he had aged considerably in the past few hours. Even the fire that burned in his chest piece seemed dimmer.

  Arden walked up to the quietly smoking man. He didn't say anything, knowing full well that Chorzo would have been able to pick up on his presence with his advanced aura control. At his approach, Chorzo spoke.

  “You seem different. Like your existence is more defined now. Did you find your sister?”

  “Because of you,” Arden answered.

  Chorzo took a long drag on his cigarette.

  “Because of me, huh?” he repeated, not really believing it. “No, you did this on your own. You were the one to defeat the two rogue Starborn. You were the one who negotiated a deal with me. You were the one who brought us here with your actions. I was the one who let Yaan get away with so much. I caused this.”

  There was a brief pause, and then Arden sighed.

  “I’ll be honest, I’m not good at the whole motivation thing. I don’t know you well enough to make a judgement call on how much of this is your fault. Yes, you had a hand in how screwed up everything is because of your lenience with Yaan. But to say that the problem lies solely with you is just wrong. You didn’t torture innocent women to produce Blight Walkers. Yaan did. You didn’t turn my old home into a breeding ground for my sister’s trauma. Yaan did.”

  “You think I don’t know that?”

  “You do know it, that’s your issue. You know that Yaan is to blame, but you’re still making excuses for him by blaming yourself instead. And don’t give me the leadership and responsibility schtick either. Yaan’s been ousted from Miasma for a while now. Everything he’s done since that point is entirely on him.”

  “But still-”

  “But nothing,” Arden cut him off. “Staz told me that all of the negative reputation about Miasma was because of Yaan. Once he was gone, you were able to unify the slums. Now that Yaan is back, he’s ruining the rep of Miasma again. If you are serious about helping everyone here, and I know you are, remember that I’ve seen the before and the after of the slums, the first thing you need to do is cut out the rot.”

  “I am aware. Letting Yaan live at this point is letting a cancer fester. But getting rid of him doesn’t fix everything. It is a positive for sure, but the larger issue is his victims. We have a tent full of people who were forced to experience true terror and pain. We came here with the assumption that Yaan was just kidnapping Blight Walkers. We didn’t know that he would be actively making them.”

  Chorzo took another drag of the cigarette and snuffed it out.

  “Killing Yaan won’t fix their problems. Many of them will be broken mentally after what’s happened to them. What’s worse is that they won’t be able to return to their normal lives, even if by some miracle they were able to get over their traumas. You know it, and I know it. Blight Walkers live as targets. That’s why you lived all the way out here with your sister.”

  “No one said things would be perfect,” Arden said. “The only thing we can do is try to make things better. That is how I’ve lived.”

  Chorzo finally turned around to face the fledgeling Starborn. He saw exhaustion hiding in his eyes. Guilt and fear were also shown to be there.

  “I’ve done the same,” Chorzo said.

  “I know. You’ve done much better than me.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because compared to what I’ve done, everyone else is a saint. I’m not going to tell you what I mean by that. I’m already horrified of telling the whole story to Vera and Sya. But I know I have to.”

  “If you don’t want to tell them, you don't have to. My wife and I keep some secrets to ourselves.”

  “I have to tell them, though. Vera already knows some of it. She knows that I’m hurting. Sya will as well. I’m not the same person I was before my trial. None of us are. But if I’m serious about trying to make things better, I need to start with myself. I don’t want to make the people I love put up with a different person. It’s not fair to them.”

  Arden looked back at the tent.

  “It’s also not fair to let them do most of the work. Smoke break’s over.”