“The Sacred Night,” Wadaw uttered.

  He leaned against the large wall-length window of the bedroom he shared with Mela, who sat on a small couch mere meters from where he stood. He looked out onto the moonslit river that reflected the blue and red hues of Eiza and Voba. He then watched the twinkling lights of small settlements scattered through the forest on the opposite side of the waters.

  “A Sacred Night, indeed." Mela sighed as she too looked out on the picturesque landscape. She made a V-shape with her forefinger and her middle finger then pointed the fingers at the moons outside in a symbolic prayer gesture that was many times older than her. "Both of the Twins are gazing down at us, giving us their favor. I’m sure that our brothers and sisters down the river are praying to the Twins as we speak.”

  “And what are they praying for, I wonder?” Wadaw turned to look at her with a raised eyebrow.

  “Our success in tomorrow’s battle, silly.” Mela smiled.

  “So you think that our people will still attack Zazi?”

  “The Gospel has never gotten a force this large together in one place. It’s pretty miraculous, isn’t it? No leaders and no generals…this was all done through a chain of mouths. In spite of that, or maybe because of it, it’ll be damned near impossible to manage the rage of those 50,000 revolutionaries.” Mela said. She laughed bitterly and ran her fingers through the long dark hair that she’d let down minutes earlier.

  “Our people won't accept a peace that causes things to go right back to the status quo.” Wadaw stated plainly.

  “That’s why I’m worried. If the Queen really cares about this summit then she’ll come down hard on those who disrupt it.”

  “Either way, the threat we posed to Gusa gets neutralized.” Wadaw nodded to her and wiped his still-disguised face with one slow, downward stroke.

  “We won’t stand for it. Even if we get wiped out, we'll be sending a powerful message to the rest of the Gospel across our nation. The Queen and Gusa will never be rid of what we stand for."

  "So we're to be a mass human sacrifice, then?" Wadaw rubbed his chin and kept his eyes on the river. He looked as distant as the moons above.

  "No, we'll be martyrs."

  "My goodness, Mela. I had no idea you were so fervent in your beliefs. You sound like a bona fide revolutionary." Wadaw turned and looked down at her with kind, warm eyes that hinted at tiredness. "As much as you seem to want to rush into a glorious death at the hands of our enemies, I think you'll find that our allies are uniquely capable of keeping all of us alive."

  "You mean Prism specifically, don't you?"

  Wadaw nodded at Mela and sighed slowly, fighting back a yawn.

  "He's the true second coming of Eizavoba. He must be...its just too much of a coincidence." Mela's passionate speaking dulled only slightly when she started talking about their alien ally. Wadaw's eyes glanced down at the carpeted floor between the two of them. Mela saw his apprehension and added, "If you had faith, you'd see it, too."

  Wadaw did his best not to shake his head at her. He sighed again and prepared himself to be generous in his dealing with his religious friend.

  "Explain it to me. Explain to me why Prism is Eizavoba," he said calmly.

  "His appearance is similar to the description that Ewa gave of the original Eizavoba, "a man with hair and skin as black as obsidian." His features might be more Disdüti-looking than Sguvan, but they're still similar enough to our own."

  "According to Ursun, Prism was bald with light-brown skin when he first appeared on our world. He can change his appearance at will; who knows what he actually looks like."

  "Well, he appeared near our homeland. For all we know, he washed up on that island after first appearing on Sguvi's southern shore.

  "I did some research on that island not too long ago. It's over 1000 kilometers away from our southwestern coast. I really doubt that Prism could have been swept out that far and survived in the weakened state he told us he was in at the time."

  "And instead of finding someone compassionate like Ewa, he was found by the worst kind of queenies, actual Citizens of the Kingdom. Those golden-skinned freaks locked him away to prevent the evidence of the Queen's false divinity from coming to light." Mela went on explaining her reasoning as if she wasn't even listening to Wadaw's rebuttals.

  "Or she had him locked up because she couldn't ascertain what threat he posed to her power from a purely rational standpoint. If he really is an alien, then killing him outright could have disastrous consequence for her and ?ba. Experimenting on him while keeping him alive was the safest bet. If more like him came to our planet then she could simply hand him back over with the hopes that they'd understand her need to learn more about him."

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  "He has powers like those spoken about by Ewa. Prism may be using them for violence, but he's using them to free us, Ewa's spiritual descendants."

  "Wouldn't that make him more like Eizavoba's supposed second incarnation, who was also said to have such powers? She used fantastical powers to liberate her believers from hostile forces all over ?ba."

  "You mean that false prophetess? That faeri?" Mela groaned and flicked her hand at Wadaw while she looked away from him. He'd always had a way of diminishing her faith, she thought. She knew that he'd never triumph over it, even if it wasn't rational. "If he isn't Eizavoba then he's a faeri. I won't believe that I'm putting the future of my people in the hands of an evil, deceitful entity," she said without looking up at Wadaw.

  "Is it really so hard to believe what he told us? Is it really so hard to believe that he's an alien from another world?" Wadaw leaned over and asked her with a pleading hand raised towards her.

  "That's the thing, Wadaw. Eizavoba is an alien when you think about it. Faeri might be aliens, too. You're just saying something that doesn't change the essence of what I'm talking about at all."

  Wadaw closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He knew that he'd reached an impasse with Mela. "She's a true believer..." he thought to himself. It seemed dangerous to him that Prism could inspire this sort of conviction in someone that Wadaw knew so intimately.

  "You're sleepy. I'll let you sleep." Mela said as she got up from the couch and rubbed Wadaw on the forearm. As she walked towards the door, she turned back around to say, "And don't think that I haven't seen the way you look at Ursun."

  Wadaw felt a surge of energy return to him as he crinkled his nose and opened his mouth to argue with her. She quickly rushed out of the room before he had the chance.

  ****

  RED-1, Wadaw, and Mela headed down into the hotel marina before the sun began to peek its head over the horizon. A wispy mist blanketed the river, giving the crisp morning an ominous quality. There was no one else out on the dock at that time; Mela's staff had made certain of that.

  "I'm loving these conditions." Wadaw shared while their group walked silently out onto a pier with several small riverboats.

  "Me too." Prism shared before raising his hands in front of his thighs.

  He tickled the strands of mana that undulated through the air and water until he could feel where the concentration was strongest. His irises became blue when he manipulated the mist, magnifying its presence in the area slowly over time. He formed an invisible spell circle that began to travel along the surface of the river's water to automate the process he'd begun.

  Mela looked up at Prism's face and sighed long and slow. "Your eyes look so gorgeous like that," she shared with equal parts longing and affection. Prism flashed her a smile that charmed her even more before lowering his hands back to his sides.

  "Is that your ship?" Srell pointed at a white, double-hulled catamaran that floated at the end of the pier. The silver lines that ran along its hull glinted as it bobbed under the marina lights. The words Here Comes the Rain were written in shimmering silver across the white hip-level wall that ran around the aft of the boat in clear view of all who approached it.

  "It's a boat, not a ship. But yes, it's mine, young man." Mela shared with a condescending smirk at Srell. She walked ahead of everyone else towards the vessel. Her short legs offered a surprising amount of speed, Prism thought.

  "Young man? I'm 31! You can't be that much older than me." Srell shared.

  "Never ask a lady her age." Leanna put her forefinger up to her lips and shared.

  The catamaran's wooden deck at the forward end of the boat was level with the pier, allowing each of them to simply step upon it. The boat, which was about 10 meters long, had a large deck with a small cabin at the ship's aft. The aft half of the boat had a rigid silver-colored shelter above it in addition to the wall that ran around it. The covering was supported by metal posts that ran along the boat's sleek edges. It had no sails, being instead propelled by electric motors at the end of each hull.

  "Your aunt wouldn't approve of such a luxurious vessel." Wadaw shared with Mela. He was the second to step onto the boat after her.

  "True, but she definitely helped me buy it. The money she left to me when she died made all of this possible." Mela waved her arms up around her to highlight the dock and the hotel it was connected to. "May she rest in peace," she then shared as she lowered her head for a moment and played at solemnity.

  "From child spy to regional organizer. The "Gospel" practically raised you, " shared Wadaw. He emphasized the term that True Twins living in the central part of the Sguvan continent used to describe their organization, never having liked the "Gospel" shorthand himself.

  "From cradle to grave!" Mela gave him an exaggerated smile before stopping in front of the boat's wheel beneath its metal canopy. She then pointed at the ropes that kept the vessel tied to the dock. Lorias and Ursun began undoing the ropes before being the last ones to step onto the boat. "We all ready to go?" Mela asked after looking around at the six others who stood around her near the helm.

  "We're good to go." Ursun nodded to her while Prism gave her a thumbs up.

  "Alright. Let's see if this plan of ours works out!" She shared with gusto before she engaged the boat's engines.

  The mist thickened into a magical fog that obscured all that moved upon the cool waters of their section of the Vines. The fog didn't hide anything from the boat's passengers; they saw through it almost as if it wasn't there at all. Even the waters around the Here Comes the Rain remained still as it picked up speed without a wake in sight. Each of them could feel the sensation of electricity dancing across the skin of their faces when the conjured water vapor moved around them.

  "Contact. They're on the beaches...Sguvan soldiers with pretty scary-looking gear...dozens of them...and...yep, we've got river-skitters converging on our location." Prism, who was standing beside Mela with his eyes closed, shared.

  All of them raised their weapons, prepared to shoot their way out of the river if they had to, all of them except for Mela. She kept her small hands firmly gripped around the dark, brown wood of the boat's large steering wheel. She gritted her teeth, lowered her chin, and began to turn around their first riverbend. "Twins, give us strength," she silently prayed.