Chapter 62: Children of No One
Dinner was served in the communal house’s main dining room.
Nathan and Liaraen sat on one side of the long table. Vera at the head. Sella beside Vera, still with the broad smile she’d maintained since the roadside attack. Kalen beside Sella, his staff leaning against his chair, his hands in his lap.
No one else at the table.
Other settlement residents had eaten in their homes, apparently by Vera’s instruction. This dinner was, specifically, private.
The food was better than Nathan had expected. A meat stew with fresh herbs. Fresh bread. A small portion of goat cheese. And a pitcher of light wine that Vera poured without asking.
They ate in silence for the first few minutes.
Vera was the first to speak.
"Hunter Voss."
"Vera."
"Selene’s letter was specific on some points and vague on others. Before we continue with the purpose of your visit, I want to confirm that we know approximately why you’re here. And that the conversations we have tonight can proceed without you pretending not to know things you already know."
"I appreciate the clarity."
"Likewise."
Vera drank from her wine.
She looked at the twins.
Then back at Nathan.
"Sella and Kalen aren’t my biological children. They’re my niece and nephew. I’ve raised them since they were three days old. Their mother was my younger sister. Her name was Ariel."
Nathan nodded.
Vera continued.
"Ariel was, until the age of sixteen, a specifically prominent member of House Vaelinor. A major elven house. Lesser than Sael’thoryn, but of ancient blood. One of the four houses residing in Aelthoren’s second circle."
Liaraen looked up from her plate.
"Vaelinor," Liaraen repeated. "Line of direct descent with secondary Yeva."
"Correct."
"I know the house. My father has diplomatic relations with Lord Vaelinor."
"Your father has diplomatic relations with Lord Vaelinor. Yes." Vera drank from her wine again. "But Lord Vaelinor never speaks of Ariel. And there’s a specific reason for that."
Kalen lifted his head. He didn’t look at anyone. His white eyes pointed toward the ceiling. Sella leaned slightly closer to her brother and placed a hand on his arm with the specific delicacy of someone who’d made that supporting gesture a thousand times.
Vera continued, her voice specifically lower.
"Ariel was considered, inside and outside the house, one of the most beautiful women of her generation. It wasn’t just her appearance. It was her presence. Her way of moving. Her voice. Everything about her was specifically notable."
"Understood."
"At twenty-two, she began receiving nighttime visits."
Nathan set his glass on the table.
Very slowly.
Vera noticed. She continued.
"A man. Tall. Golden-haired. He arrived at dusk, left before dawn. He never gave his full name. Never agreed to be formally introduced to the family. Ariel said his name was Aelric. A common human name, with no apparent Seal or verifiable lineage. She didn’t question it."
"Aristocratically unusual," Liaraen commented.
"Aristocratically extraordinary. Yes. But Ariel was in love. And women in love have a documented tradition of making decisions families can’t veto."
"She was pregnant?"
"She was pregnant three months after the first visit."
Vera took another sip.
"Aelric congratulated her. Told her he would return. He left that night. And didn’t come back for four months."
Nathan and Liaraen went very still.
"At seven months pregnant," Vera continued, "when her belly was unmistakable and Ariel had to undergo the house’s formal scrutiny for the first time, Aelric returned. But this time he didn’t arrive at dusk. He arrived at midday. With sunlight directly on him. And for the first time, Ariel saw him clearly."
Sella lowered her gaze.
Kalen kept his white eyes pointed toward the ceiling.
"He wasn’t a man," Vera said. "He never had been. The golden hair wasn’t dyed. The presence wasn’t charisma. The light he produced at mid-distance wasn’t an optical effect. It was a partial manifestation of a Pantheon god. One of the sixteen. One specifically recognized in official catalogs."
"Which one?" Nathan asked.
Vera looked at him for a moment.
Then she said, her voice specifically low but clear:
"Solrath."
Silence.
Liaraen brought a hand to her mouth.
Nathan stared at Vera for a full moment.
*Solrath.*
*The sun god. One of the three Great Ones of the Pantheon. The most revered in the human kingdom. The central signature of the Temple of the Three in Greywall. The most specifically registered, most specifically political, most specifically watched god.*
*And apparently he feigned love to an elven noble of House Vaelinor.*
*Apparently he impregnated her with twins.*
*Apparently he returned when the evidence was going to become public.*
*And apparently he did something afterward that Vera is about to tell me—and that I’m already anticipating.*
Vera continued.
"Ariel confronted him. Demanded explanations. Aelric—or Solrath, or whatever he calls himself in intimate conversations—told her the complete truth. That he had wanted to produce offspring with a bearer of a secondary Yeva Seal. That he specifically needed the combination of elven divine lineages with his own blood. That the twins she carried were going to be useful tools for purposes he never fully explained."
"Tools," Liaraen repeated.
"The word he used was ’instruments.’ But the concept is equivalent."
"Understood."
"Ariel refused." Vera set her glass on the table with more force than necessary. "She told him that her children weren’t going to be anyone’s instruments. That they would be born, raised, and choose their own path like any other elf. That if Solrath wanted the twins for purposes, he would have to accept them as people—not as resources."
Nathan processed that.
"And him?"
"He looked at her for a moment. Smiled with the calm of a god unused to being told no. And told her that in that case, the twins wouldn’t be born. He would personally ensure that."
Sella closed her eyes.
Kalen lowered his head for the first time.
Vera continued, her voice specifically lower still:
"Ariel ran. She fled the house that same night. She came to me. I, as her younger sister, was the only person she trusted absolutely. I had already left Aelthoren four years earlier due to religious differences with the official Church. I was already in the Veil. I already had contacts."
"Selene?"
"Selene, among others. Yes."
"Understood."
"Ariel arrived in Sareth at seven and a half months pregnant. With Solrath pursuing her."
Vera paused.
She drank from her wine.
Then she continued.
"But Ariel had an ability Solrath hadn’t calculated well. A secondary Yeva Seal. Barrier manifestation ability. High B-Rank. Enough to hold a partially manifested god for approximately ten minutes."
Nathan felt his stomach tighten.
*Enough to hold him until the twins were born.*
*And until Vera could get them out.*
*And not enough for Ariel to survive afterward.*
"Ariel held out," Vera said. "Solrath arrived at the settlement approximately an hour after she did. Ariel activated the barrier. I was with her. The twins were born approximately two hours into the barrier. Premature. Weak. But alive. And with active Seals from the moment of their first breath."
"You saw the Seals appear at birth?"
"We saw them appear at birth. Yes. Sella with the light mark on her left collarbone. Kalen with the closed-eye mark on his right temple. Neither mark matches any official catalog or any known manifestation of Solrath."
"They’re not Solrath’s Seals."
"They’re not."
"So."
"So they’re Seals from gods that don’t appear in the official sixteen-god Pantheon. And that apparently react to mixed divine blood in ways the Church has never documented. Or perhaps they’re their own gods."
"Understood."
"When Ariel’s barrier fell, she died from vital reserve exhaustion. I took the twins through an inner passage of the communal house that Selene had prepared over the previous months. Solrath found Ariel’s body and assumed the twins had died with her. Apparently he didn’t verify. Rage probably prevented him from thinking clearly."
"How long ago was that?"
"Eighteen years."
Silence at the table.
Sella opened her eyes.
Kalen raised his head again, his white eyes pointing at Nathan.
Nathan looked at both of them.
"You’ve lived eighteen years knowing Solrath would kill you if he discovered you."
"They’ve lived eighteen years knowing that. Yes."
"And yet you’re specifically here. Smiling. Living. Functioning."
Sella looked up.
And with her specifically broad smile as always, now with a different tone behind it:
"Nathan. The only alternative to functioning is giving up. And I don’t like giving up."
"Understandable."
"Besides." Sella turned to Kalen. "My brother sees the paths. He knows which ones end badly. And we avoid those."
Kalen inclined his head.
"Not always," Kalen said. "Only approximately."
"Something is something," Sella replied.
Nathan nodded slowly.
He looked at Vera.
"Why did Selene send me here?"
Vera looked at him for a moment.
"Because you carry a Seal of the seventeenth. And the twins carry Seals of gods that don’t appear in the catalog. And Selene calculates that in the coming years, it will be useful for people with unofficial Seals to know each other."
"Understood."
"The twins and you aren’t formal allies. No contract. No obligation. But now you know each other. And in the future, if any party needs refuge, information, or support, the possibility of alliance exists."
"I suppose that works."
"Selene also wanted you to know, specifically, that your Seal isn’t unique in the category of unofficial Seals. There are at least three types she’s documented so far. The seventeenth. The divine-mortal hybrids. And a third category she hasn’t shared with anyone yet."
"Third category?"
"Third category. Yes. But she’ll discuss that with you personally when you return to Greywall."
"Understood."
Silence again.
Nathan drank from his wine.
He looked at Sella and Kalen.
The two twins—children of a god who’d wanted to use them as instruments, raised by an aunt who’d lost her sister in the process, with Seals of unregistered gods, living in a Veil settlement that officially didn’t exist, waiting for the day someone bigger than them would find them.
And smiling. Both of them.
With the specific calm of people who had accepted long ago that the conditions of their existence were what they were.
Nathan raised his glass.
"Vera. Sella. Kalen."
All three looked at him.
"I appreciate the story. The trust. The food." Pause. "Anything I can do in the future, if the moment arises, apparently you’ll be able to ask."
Vera nodded.
Sella smiled wider.
Kalen inclined his head.
"Likewise," Vera said.
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