Victor and I met up with Scott at his house this time.

  He lived a bit out of town—far enough that the city felt like something you visited on purpose instead of something you belonged to. The kind of neighborhood where the streets were too clean, the lawns too even, and every driveway had either a boat, a lifted truck, or a Tesla that looked like it had never hauled anything heavier than ego.

  Scott’s place sat at the end of a short cul-de-sac, modern and angular, all clean lines and big windows. The exterior was dark stone and pale wood, like some minimalist architect had tried to design a “mountain lodge” for someone who would never actually go outside unless it was for content. He had lights along the path that kicked on as we walked up—motion-sensing, soft white glow, not enough to blind you but enough to make you feel like you were being guided into a display case.

  And the garage.

  Three-car garage on paper.

  Home gym in reality.

  The first thing you notice isn’t even the size—it’s the smell. Rubber flooring, metal, chalk, and that faint acidic tang of pre-workout powder that clings to the air like incense in a church. A wall-mounted TV faced a set of squat racks. Mirror panels ran along one side, reflecting the neat layout: dumbbells sorted with obsessive precision, benches aligned like a showroom, kettlebells set in rows. There was a sled track made of turf leading out toward the driveway, and a heavy bag that looked like it had been punched so many times it was developing its own personality.

  In the corner, a whiteboard with a schedule written in neat block letters:

  CLIENT CUTS / CHECK-INS / CONTENT / LEG DAY / COLLAB SHOOT

  Because of course there was a schedule.

  Scott didn’t have to worry too much about work the way most people did. Right out of college he founded an online fitness coaching website— back when it was just a simple landing page and a payment portal and him yelling motivational quotes at a webcam like he was trying to bench press the internet itself.

  Now it was a machine.

  Two hundred clients.

  Five hundred a month per client.

  A revolving assembly line of meal plans and training routines that changed just enough to feel personalized while still letting him scale. He had an Instagram presence that looked effortless until you actually thought about the work behind it—lighting, angles, timing, sponsors. Full influencer mode. Brand deals. Affiliate links. “Use my code” energy that somehow still worked because Scott could sell confidence like it was a product you could swallow.

  He answered the door in athletic shorts and a fitted tee that probably cost more than my last entire wardrobe refresh. Hair slightly damp like he’d either just showered or just finished a workout designed specifically to look good on camera.

  “About time,” he said, stepping back and motioning us in.

  The inside of his house absolutely screamed

  Not in the “dirty socks and pizza boxes” way—Scott wasn’t a slob. It was clean. Almost aggressively clean.

  It was the .

  The living room had a massive sectional that looked like it had been selected by a man who planned on never sitting upright again. A giant TV mounted way too high on the wall. LED strips behind it for “ambience.” A glass coffee table that had no scratches on it because nothing had ever been allowed to exist there long enough to leave a mark.

  On the walls: posters and framed prints of things Scott liked, collected like trophies. A big glossy print of a vintage muscle car. A framed map of some national park he’d visited once and turned into a brand moment. A signed jersey—no idea who from, but it was there like proof that he had proximity to fame. A couple of motivational art pieces that were one step away from being those “HUSTLE” signs you see in finance bro apartments.

  The dining area was open-plan, and the table was this sleek glass slab that looked like it belonged in an Apple Store. It was mostly clear, but you could tell it had recently been used as a staging ground for something.

  Because piled in the corner of the dining room were the spoils of Scott’s sponsor ecosystem.

  Open boxes. Plastic tubs. Shaker cups. Sample packs. Energy drink cases stacked like barricades. Weird little fitness gadgets that no one needed but people bought anyway because Scott smiled while holding them.

  Different flavors of powdered pre-workout and protein with names that sounded like a fantasy novel written by a gym rat:

  Dragon’s Blood (Fruit Punch)

  Norse Magic (Blackberry Lemonade)

  Hellfire Citrus

  Frostfang Blue Raspberry

  Titan’s Wake

  He had a ring light still set up beside the table, camera on a tripod pointed toward the chair like the chair was his co-host. A little wireless mic lay on the table next to a bottle of water with an electrolyte packet half torn open.

  “How do you even sleep,” I asked, nodding toward the pile, “when you have to taste test that many pre-workout flavors in one day?”

  Scott didn’t even dignify it with a real answer. He just waved a hand like he was swatting a fly.

  “Ok, so man,” he said, voice shifting into that tone that meant “I have been waiting all this time to hear what you have to say about this Redmoon thing. So stop stalling and let’s get on with it.”

  Victor came in behind me, already half in analyst mode. He’d brought his laptop like always—like the situation might suddenly require a PowerPoint and he didn’t want to be caught unprepared.

  Victor dropped his bag by the dining chair and nodded. “Yeah,” he said, “I’m ready for it too. He wouldn’t tell me anything—kept saying it would be best to talk with us both at the same time.”

  Scott pointed at the chair across from them. “Sit.”

  There wasn’t a way out of this. Not with both of them staring at me like they were about to interrogate a suspect.

  I exhaled, walked over, and sat down at the glass dining table. The chair was one of those modern ones that looked nice but didn’t feel like it wanted to support human life.

  “Alright,” I said. “I get it. Let’s sit and go over what happened. There is a lot to explain.”

  They both sat across from me—Scott leaning forward with his forearms on the table like he was about to hear the plot twist of a season finale, Victor sitting back slightly but with his eyes sharp and focused, hands already hovering like he wanted to type notes and ask questions at the same time.

  I started at the beginning.

  I went over my day going to the lower ring. Not skipping anything. The lift negotiations. The way the rings changed as you descended. The subtle shift in tone from people who were overly polite to people who were just… tired.

  Then I told them about the cold.

  “The lowest ring doesn’t have the magic,” I said. “Not like the rest of the city. Up top, the temperature is regulated—livable. Comfortable. Even pleasant if you ignore the whole ‘religious tyranny’ thing. But down there? There’s nothing. The mountain is the mountain. The cold is… real.”

  Scott’s brow furrowed. “So how are they not dead?”

  “There’s one place,” I said. “The central plaza. Right by that massive wall. It’s warm there. Not because it’s sheltered. Because Alaric’s magic is there. The warmth is tied to worship. People gather to pray and they get to… not freeze.”

  Victor’s expression tightened immediately. “That’s not even subtle,” he muttered.

  Scott said it out loud, like he needed to hear the ugliness shaped into words. “So if you’re not a believer, you get to freeze.”

  I nodded. “And the guards enforce it. They don’t bother people who are prostrating themselves. They do bother anyone else. They shove them away from the warmth.”

  Scott’s jaw worked like he was chewing on anger. Victor’s eyes were already darting—processing implications.

  I kept going.

  I explained the dungeon.

  “When I went inside,” I said, “I got a notice from my ring. A restriction. Outside viewers aren’t permitted.”

  Victor leaned in. “So Alaric can block… watchers.”

  “That’s what it looked like,” I said. “Like he can designate spaces where the outside can’t see. Which makes sense now why Redmoon was ‘offline’ for so long.”

  Scott’s face changed at that. He wasn’t in influencer mode now. Not smiling. Not performing. Just listening.

  I told them what I found.

  Redmoon. The cell. The corpses frozen to bunks like forgotten inventory. The heavy breathing that led me down the corridor. The wolf king in the dark. Nine feet tall when he stood, forced to stoop just to exist in that space.

  And then the story behind it.

  “Alaric didn’t just capture him,” I said. “He invaded his territory through proxies. His people. His tribe. He pressured them. Took them. Tortured him. They killed him once in combat—he revived at his throne like kings do—and then they captured him at his throne when he came back.”

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  Scott’s eyes widened slightly. Victor went very still.

  “And to get him to give up his national relics,” I continued, “they killed his mate in front of him.”

  There was a silence after that sentence. The kind that makes the room feel smaller.

  Scott’s voice came out rougher. “That’s… beyond. That’s not just war. That’s cruelty.”

  “It was torture,” I said. “Not interrogation. Not strategy. Punishment.”

  Victor’s brain latched onto the mechanics like a lifeline. “So if a king doesn’t willingly part with the relic,” he asked, “it can’t be stolen or taken from them?”

  “As far as we’ve been shown, no,” I said. “The relic has to be freely given. Alaric apparently found that out when the Clockfather’s relics vanished when he died. The moment a king’s gone for good, the relic goes with them.”

  Victor nodded slowly, eyes narrowing like he was mapping threat vectors. “That makes sense,” he said, “but it’s also alarming. The containment rules.” He looked at me hard. “If you guys go back tonight and he just decides to lock you up in his dungeon, there won’t be a way out for you both.”

  Scott’s gaze flicked between us. For once, he didn’t have a quick comeback.

  Victor wasn’t done. “Also, Markus— you need to hide that bag and necklace as soon as possible. He cannot see you have it. It would be a dead giveaway that you were the one who ended Redmoon. The streams going dark was a benefit to you not showing you use the raven form.”

  My stomach tightened. Hearing it said like that made it feel heavier.

  “Yeah,” I admitted, “I’ve been thinking that. But I don’t know where I’d even keep it. We didn’t come with an entourage. I’m not about to leave it in my room for house staff to stumble on.”

  Victor tapped the table with one finger, thinking. “Then go buy a bag. On the eighth ring. Something that belongs there. Keep the relics inside that. If anyone sees you with a bag, it looks normal.”

  Scott pointed at Victor like, “That’s actually smart.”

  I nodded slowly. “Not a bad idea. I’ll look into it when I get back to the villa tonight.”

  Scott leaned back in his chair, arms crossing. “So we are definitely going back to Solomir?” he asked. “Isn’t that a bad idea, knowing he’s probably looking for which king was the killer?”

  The question hung there, sharp and simple.

  I stared down at the glass table for a moment, watching the reflection of my hands. Like if I could see myself clearly enough, I’d find the right answer.

  “Well,” I said carefully, “if we go back to our thrones tonight, it’s safer immediately. But he’s going to find out I have the bag eventually. Watching my stream will be enough for that after the summit. And I still don’t know if he’d go to war with us in our home territory.”

  Scott’s expression tightened. “He knows you and I are aligned.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “If he invades, he has to fight both of us. That might be reason enough to not do it. Or it might make him want to do it sooner. I don’t know.”

  Victor pulled up my stream on his laptop then Sunhome. The throne room. The seat empty. No tetsubo on the throne. No sign of panic. Everything calm.

  “Cast hasn’t signaled you,” Victor said quietly. “So at least your kingdom is safe. Everything looks calm in Sunhome too.”

  I swallowed. “I won’t say you should stay, Scott,” I said, “but I am going back to Solomir tonight. I need to be in that room.”

  Scott’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “Because if he gains ten kings to his side,” I said, voice tightening, “and pushes south with all their power, we’ll be fighting a war we didn’t get to argue against. We need to be present. Listening. Contesting. Swaying. If he presses for war on the rest of Nod, there needs to be a voice of reason.”

  Victor nodded slowly, but his gaze stayed hard. “I think you’re right that you need to be in the room,” he said. “But you both need an exit plan. If he locks you in his dungeon, your kingdoms are kingless. And your nights… are gone. You’ll be trapped.”

  Scott drummed his fingers against the table, then said, “Thalienne is with us.” He glanced at me. “She was with me through the day yesterday and agrees Alaric’s a tyrant. She doesn’t want to align with him. She said she’d side with you and me.”

  That caught me off guard. “She said that to you?”

  Scott shrugged, like it was obvious. “Yeah.”

  I wasn’t expecting her to be so forthcoming, not with him, not that fast. Which meant either Scott was more persuasive than I gave him credit for… or Thalienne was playing a longer game than I understood.

  I sat back slightly. “That’s right,” I said, “you told me you needed to go over what happened in your day. House staff said they couldn’t find her when we were getting into the carriages, but I saw her at the banquet. Did that have anything to do with your day?”

  Scott nodded. “Yeah. She was investigating while I stayed back to wait on you.”

  Victor’s eyes flicked to me. Scott kept going.

  “I know you were saying you didn’t really trust her,” he said, “but I think she’s playing things up with a mask just like I do.”

  He leaned forward slightly, and for once he wasn’t joking. “Can you honestly say you would trust Thalos if you met me in Nod and didn’t know me in real life?”

  I opened my mouth to respond and stopped.

  Because… no. I wouldn’t.

  If I met Thalos cold, in Nod, with no context, I’d assume he was reckless at best and dangerous at worst. The party-hard persona. The unserious grin. The way he walked through danger like the world owed him luck.

  Scott’s point landed harder than I wanted it to.

  “You’re right,” I admitted. “I didn’t think about it that way. I’ll try to be less judgmental on face value.”

  It stung a little, realizing I’d been doing the exact thing I hated being done to me.

  Scott’s expression softened like he’d won something he actually cared about.

  Then he sat up straighter, like the next thing mattered more.

  “So,” Scott said, “to bring you up to speed…”

  He paused just long enough to make my skin prickle.

  “I know who Thalienne is in the waking world.”

  “What?” Victor and I said at the exact same time.

  Scott lets out a breath through his nose and leans back in his chair like he’s been waiting for the moment to finally say this out loud.

  “Yeah,” he says, rubbing a hand over his jaw. “So… Thalienne is a Vtuber. I’m about ninety percent certain.”

  Victor’s eyebrows lift. Mine knit together immediately.

  “A Vtuber?” I repeat. “You’re serious.”

  “Dead serious.” Scott reaches over, flips his laptop around, and wakes the screen. “I’ve interacted with her before. Did a collaboration, actually. This was pre-Nod.”

  He taps a few keys, muscle memory quick and practiced, then clicks into a saved folder. A paused stream thumbnail fills the screen.

  “There,” he says. “Nyxleaf.”

  He clicks play.

  The model animates to life smoothly, polished in that way that only comes from someone who understands both aesthetics and technical presentation.

  Nyxleaf’s avatar is unmistakably elven—but not the medieval, wood-and-leather kind. Her ears are long and elegant, the outer edges traced with a thin neon outline that pulses softly as she moves, brightening whenever she laughs or ramps herself up. It’s subtle, but alive, like bioluminescence responding to emotion.

  Her hair is a cascade of silver-white pulled into a high ponytail, long and fluid, with faint violet streaks woven through it that shimmer as she turns her head. Not flashy—intentional. Controlled.

  Her eyes are a sharp, luminous emerald green, expressive and bright. As she laughs on screen, they flicker for just a split second—glitching into molten gold before snapping back, a deliberate visual flourish that makes chat explode every single time it happens.

  She wears a cropped hoodie layered over what looks like a fantasy bodice—structured, stylized, clearly referencing armor without being armor. Fingerless gloves flash as she gestures, and around her neck is a simple choker bearing a leaf sigil that glows faintly in time with her mic input.

  The stream overlay is a perfect blend of worlds: forest motifs—branches, leaves, soft green gradients—interwoven with clean cyber UI elements. Transparent panels. Minimalist icons. A soft hum of ambient motion in the background that never distracts but always reinforces the theme.

  It’s… good. Really good.

  “This is her,” Scott says, tapping the screen.

  Victor leans closer, eyes narrowing as he takes in the details. “And she claimed she was Thalienne?”

  “Outright,” Scott replies. “Because she already had anonymity built in. Vtuber, no face, no real name—she didn’t lose anything by saying it. Her audience was already primed to follow.”

  He scrolls down, showing viewer metrics. Subscriber graphs. A steep, immediate climb.

  “She told them she was Thalienne, Queen of the Telestra,” he continues. “And her audience—who already trusted her—just followed straight over to her Nod channel. No friction. No skepticism. It explains how she got so big so fast without doing anything insane yet. She hasn’t fought her Apex. Hasn’t done a massive war campaign. But her baseline audience alone keeps her hovering in the high twenties on the Nod ranks.”

  I lean back slightly, letting that settle.

  “That’s… clever,” I admit. “Dangerous, but clever.”

  “I didn’t trust it at first,” Scott says immediately. “Thought it was clout chasing. Someone lying to ride the Nod wave. Wouldn’t have been the first time.”

  Victor nods faintly. “Reasonable assumption.”

  “But then,” Scott continues, “when we met her in Nod, Just… interacting. And it clicked.”

  He shrugs, almost apologetic. “I know how she acts when the camera’s off. The cadence changes. The posture. The way she pauses before answering instead of playing to chat. That’s her. Same person.”

  I exchange a glance with Victor. The pieces slide together faster than I expected.

  “Does she know who you are?” Victor asks carefully. “Because that’s… risky.”

  Scott shakes his head slowly. “I think she has an idea. But trust me—if she knows, she won’t say anything. She’s militant about anonymity. Hers and everyone else’s. It’s not a gimmick for her. It’s a boundary.”

  Victor studies Scott for a moment, then nods once. “Alright. I’ll trust your instinct on that.”

  I take the opening. “On that note,” I say, “I think Sethryn is also on our side.”

  Scott’s head snaps up immediately. “Wait—Sethryn? The mermaid-naga one?”

  Victor lets out a quiet breath. “She’s… formidable.”

  “Well,” Scott says, leaning back with a grin, “how the hell did you swing that?”

  I shake my head. “I didn’t. Not really. She was in the carriage with me back to the villa after the banquet. She initiated the conversation.”

  I tell them about it—about the silence, the tension. About how she spoke quietly, how Alaric had healed something in her arm that she broke in the fight with Galoravad at dinner with barely a gesture.

  “She told me outright she doesn’t trust him,” I finish. “Said she was glad she could talk to me without worrying about it spreading online, since the streams were still off. She gave me a slip of paper with an email address on it.”

  I slide my phone across the table. The address is written neatly in my notes app.

  “I memorized it when she handed it to me,” I add. “Wrote it down as soon as I logged off.”

  Victor frowns. “She wants you to contact her in the waking world?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that a good idea?”

  I meet his gaze. “I know how to do it safely. Burner email. No identifying info. I’ll feel her out. See where she stands.”

  Scott exhales slowly. “That’s a big move.”

  “It’s a necessary one,” I say. “She’s my biggest threat if things go south. The southern ocean border alone is over a hundred miles of basalt coastline. I can’t defend that alone. If she’s on our side… or even neutral… that changes everything.”

  Victor’s expression is wary, but he doesn’t argue. He trusts process when he sees one.

  “So,” Scott says after a beat, “yesterday. You asked what else happened.”

  He shifts in his seat, the earlier humor gone.

  “Me and Thal went out for lunch on the fifth ring,” he begins. “Middle of the day. Public spot. Good food.”

  “We were approached by some people on the street,” he continues. “Beast tribe refugees. They work on the fifth, but live on the second. They came up to me because they could smell Felkas on me.”

  My spine straightens immediately.

  “At first,” Scott says, “they were hostile. Suspicious. Angry. Thought I’d done something to him.”

  “And?”

  “I talked to them. Told them things Felkas had told me. How he speaks. What he misses. It… calmed them down.”

  Victor’s eyes flicker with interest.

  “Apparently,” Scott continues, “a lot of the tribes have come to Solomir. They could smell Redmoon’s scent in Solomir. They’d been looking for him.”

  My stomach drops.

  “And then,” Scott says quietly, “right in the middle of that conversation—I get the announcement.”

  “Redmoon removed.”

  He rubs his hands together, a nervous tell. “I thought I’d triggered something. Thought I’d screwed up beyond repair. Then—streams cut. Mine, Thal’s, everyone’s.”

  Victor nods grimly. “Except Alaric’s.”

  “Yeah,” Scott says. “Only his was still live.”

  I stare at the table, jaw tight. “Alaric stopped me in the street and mentioned refugees,” I say. “Said some of Redmoon’s people had fled here. I was too busy not giving myself away to really process it.”

  Victor leans forward, eyes sharp now. “We can use this.”

  Scott looks up. “How?”

  “I’ve seen beast tribe servants on the eighth ring,” Victor says. “If they’re already embedded in the city, we can leverage that. Information. Assistance. Escape routes.”

  He looks between us. “If we need to get people out. Or if need to get out. Or even redirect refugees south toward Sunhome.”

  I lean back, rubbing my temples slowly as the weight of everything presses in at once.

  “Alright,” I say. “That gives us options.”

  Scott nods. Victor closes his laptop with quiet finality.

  Next time we log in, we will be in Solomir again, and we need to make sure that the two of us walk out of this meeting with more allies than Alaric does.