Chapter 539: The Elder

One week later, after Hendrik turned the meeting into a controlled military operation, Victor produced enough medical restrictions to fill fourteen pages, and Arion had rearranged his schedule until missing an afternoon no longer threatened three committees and an infrastructure vote; they returned to the restricted forest.

Dean remained home.

Not because anyone had forbidden him this time, although several people would certainly have tried, but because Theodore had entered an increasingly opinionated phase regarding the geographical distribution of his parents.

One parent could leave.

That was apparently acceptable.

Both parents disappearing from his immediate environment had recently become grounds for outrage.

Consequently, Dean sat in the private family room with Theodore propped against his chest, one hand supporting the baby while the other held a tablet displaying four synchronized feeds from the northern perimeter.

Theo was already suspicious.

His gold eyes kept moving between Dean’s face and the screen while his tiny fingers gripped the front of Dean’s sweater, as though checking periodically that at least one parent had not escaped.

"You know your father is coming back," Dean murmured.

Theo made an unhappy noise.

"Yes, I know. Appalling treatment."

On the screen, Arion stepped from the armored terrain vehicle and looked toward the forest.

Dean smiled despite himself.

His husband had spent the previous week pretending that the operation was simply another controlled investigation, something requiring caution, medical observation, and very tedious documentation afterward.

Dean did not believe him for a second.

Arion had missed this.

Not the danger itself, perhaps, and certainly not the part where Victor shouted instructions through an earpiece while Hendrik prepared enough firepower to destroy a small fortress, but the forest had become something Arion understood in a way nobody else did.

Something that answered him.

After several months spent almost entirely between Theodore, palace work, and Dominic’s archives, Dean suspected Arion had missed standing somewhere that did not require him to explain what he was.

Theodore squirmed.

Dean adjusted him higher.

"Your father has wildlife issues."

Theo yawned.

"Exactly."

—

The old service station had disappeared.

Arion knew where it should have been because the coordinates remained marked on Hendrik’s tactical display, but the structure itself had long since vanished beneath nearly a century of forest growth.

Only one fragment of concrete remained visible beside the old road, cracked open by roots thick enough to resemble structural beams.

The clearing around it had been secured before their arrival.

Hendrik’s teams occupied positions along the southern and western approaches, while aerial drones monitored several kilometers of forest in every direction. Elias stood near Arion in a dark field jacket supplied by the military, looking considerably more comfortable this close to the forest than anyone else appeared to be.

Victor was not present.

He had announced that he was too old to stand in freezing woodland waiting for something ancient and infected to appear when cameras existed.

Arion suspected he simply enjoyed giving orders from somewhere warm.

"You understand," Victor said through the communication channel, "that if this individual appears physiologically unstable, you do nothing."

Arion looked toward the trees.

"You have said that seven times."

"And I will say it an eighth time if necessary."

Hendrik checked his weapon.

"He is not the person I am concerned will ignore instructions."

Arion glanced toward him.

Hendrik did not look remotely apologetic.

Elias almost smiled.

The forest remained quiet.

Wind moved through bare branches overhead, small animals disturbed the undergrowth somewhere beyond the perimeter, and one of the transformed wolves had appeared briefly on a distant drone feed before deciding the gathering of humans was not interesting enough to approach.

The elder had not come.

Arion waited another ten minutes before looking toward Elias.

"You said he would understand."

"I said I could ask."

"That sounds increasingly different."

"He may already be here."

Hendrik’s posture changed.

"Where?"

Elias looked toward the forest.

"I don’t know."

"That is not useful."

"I spent eight years with senses that no longer work the same way. I used to know when they were close."

Arion looked into the trees.

Perhaps Elias’s message had failed.

Perhaps an elder who had survived decades inside the restricted territory had decided that obeying a newly returned controller was less appealing than everyone assumed.

Arion could hardly blame him.

Then Dean’s voice entered his private channel.

"You look disappointed."

Arion glanced toward the small camera mounted near his collar.

"I am not."

"You are."

"I am standing in a forest."

"Yes. Looking at it like it has personally failed to meet an appointment."

Elias looked away, clearly pretending he could not hear enough through Arion’s speaker to understand the exchange.

Arion lowered his voice.

"How is Theo?"

"Offended."

"Why?"

"You are gone."

"I was gone yesterday."

"For forty minutes. Apparently that was within tolerance."

Arion smiled faintly.

Dean continued, "Try calling."

Arion’s attention returned to the forest.

"We don’t know whether that works."

"You apparently spent years not knowing half the things you can do before doing them anyway."

Arion considered it.

He still did not know how any of this functioned, which was becoming an irritatingly consistent problem. He could control beasts, restore human bodies, alter corrupted eyes, and apparently receive thoughts from transformed people, yet every action still began with instinct rather than technique.

Perhaps calling would be no different.

Arion stepped farther into the clearing.

Hendrik immediately noticed.

"Do not leave the marked perimeter."

"I’m not."

"You are approximately two steps from doing so."

Arion ignored him and released his pheromones.

Vetiver spread first, moving low through the cold air and between the trees, familiar enough that none of the soldiers reacted.

Then Arion reached deeper.

The darker undertone emerged beneath it.

Thin black channels surfaced beneath the skin of his wrists and climbed beneath the sleeves of his field jacket as his pheromones moved outward through the forest.

Arion closed his eyes.

He did not know the elder’s name.

He did not know where he was.

So he called the only way that made sense.

Come.

Nothing happened.

Hendrik remained motionless behind him.

Elias stared toward the eastern ridge.

Victor began asking for readings.

Then the ground moved.

Arion opened his eyes.

At first, his brain refused to understand what he was seeing.

A low hill sat perhaps eighty meters beyond the clearing, covered in dead grass, moss, fallen branches, and enough accumulated soil that several young trees had taken root across its upper surface.

The hill shifted.

Hendrik swore.

Weapons rose across the perimeter.

"Hold fire," Arion said immediately.

The mound moved again.

Earth slid from its side.

One of the young trees tipped and fell as something enormous beneath the soil lifted itself slowly upward.

Dean’s voice went completely silent in Arion’s ear.

Elias exhaled.

"Oh."

Arion looked toward him.

"That is the elder?"

Elias did not answer immediately.

The creature continued rising.

Long limbs emerged from beneath decades of accumulated forest debris, too large and distorted to belong to anything human, while thick black armor covered its back beneath layers of moss and roots. What Arion had mistaken for exposed rock was hardened tissue.

A hand appeared.

Five enormous claws sank into the frozen ground.

Then another.

The elder dragged itself upright.

It was taller than any infected human Arion had seen, its body bent beneath an armored spine broad enough that vegetation had genuinely begun growing across it.

Two completely black eyes opened beneath a face barely recognizable as human.

Every weapon around the clearing tracked it.

Arion felt the attention hit him.

Ancient. Heavy. And unmistakably aware.

The elder looked directly at him.

Then, slowly, the enormous creature lowered itself to one knee.