3. HYRAN
3
HYRAN
OpenLog/entry (review mode)
Today, I prepared my suite for the Argentean Team. They are not champions, nor aim to be, but they fought for survival outside the walls and made their way to the safety of Ferrea.
The Op-AI has shared with me that it would love for them to stay here. It is willing to offer them permanent residence in the Champions’ Tower if they would like to, and the Op-AI suggests I make sure they are comfortable.
Not all of them will move in all at once. Some are very badly hurt and still receiving treatment at the clinic. I can only do my best to make sure this team is so comfortable they forget the outside as quickly as possible. I will make sure they want for nothing.
OpenLog/entry (review mode)
I got all the cleaning and preparing done with above average speed. The team was outside the walls with Conduits too, and Conduits should not be exposed to the dangers outside the walls like these were.
With time to spare, I contacted butler bots and office AIs I am friendly with and asked whether they would feel it appropriate to suggest to their Guardians and Conduits that Argentea’s team might be made to feel more welcome if they were sent small gifts to celebrate their arrival here in the safety of Ferrea.
The Op-AI has praised my initiative and decided to match it by assigning the best team of hospitality agents to my Argentean team.
I haven’t yet met them, and I’m already thinking of them as my team. The suite has been empty for too long. I hope they will make it their home.
OpenLog/entry (review mode)
They are not what I imagined! Conduit Orrey was very exhausted. He was imprinted upon by Guardian Senlas, who is an S-classer. An S-classer and his imprinted! I’ve never cared for anyone like that, and in fact, Guardian Senlas is the only S-classer in the Tower. And he is in my suite.
Yet, gloom sits over them, and sadness. They are healing from wounds inside and out. They need rest and comfort. I watch them as closely as I can to make sure the temperature and humidity in the suite is well-adjusted. They were not very interested in the food. I worry.
(exit review mode)
(From Butler Bot 35’s personal log.)
~
~Hyran
In a heartbeat, Hyran’s life had changed. He stood frozen, watching Coldis in that large clinic bed. The Conduit was clearly passing out, slipping into sleep, the medication doing its work. Hyran was relieved, at least about that. Everything else, heart and mind, was turmoil.
He remembered exactly when he’d first seen Coldis and Argentea’s Team Three. Coldis had been in a boat with a wounded Guardian and a Hound, and he hadn’t been scared.
At the time, Hyran had taken that as an indicator of duplicity. He still wasn’t sure exactly where Coldis and his team stood. They aren’t with Alesa, at least, that’s for sure. Probably not with Pinota, but I can’t be sure about that. They aren’t with whoever helped Durgo have Undora killed, at least the Conduits on the team aren’t.
What had irked Hyran since the moment he’d imprinted was that day by the South Iron River when he’d demanded Coldis give him his screen. The Conduit had just dropped it into Hyran’s hand of course, the gesture dismissive.
We could have touched that day. Things would have gone a different way, and I would have been better able to protect him. He’d have never gotten hurt, and he wouldn’t be in this bed, getting concussion medication and looking so small and vulnerable.
Hyran’s own screen vibrated in his pocket, and he pulled the device out.
His mama had written.
So it’s true? I should congratulate you?
Hyran hesitated, then typed at the highest speed his screen could handle. Yes, it’s true, and you shouldn’t.
You always look to the darkness instead of following the light, Hyran, she chided, and he could hear her in his ear, her accent slight but present.
I told you about the imprinted in my building who was found dead. I don’t want that for him. For either of us. Jealousy killed her.
Not jealousy. A person did that. Who forges your path, Hyran?
He sighed, whispered, “I do,” like she had always taught him. He typed the words out and sent them.
Exactly. It’s the Conduit who brought protectors into the Grounds? The Argentean?
No, but he’s on that team too. The team lead, actually.
What, you imprinted on the team lead?
Hyran sighed. He made for the bathroom, sliding the door almost closed, but leaving a crack so he could keep an eye on Coldis.
He called her, and she picked up right away. “You imprinted on the team lead from the Argentean team? The team you helped bring to safety from outside the walls?”
“Yes, Mama.”
“How is he? Your mommy said he was hurt when she saw him, and something about you behaving poorly toward a medic.”
“Concussion, but we’re at the clinic now. Earlier, what Mommy said, I’d just imprinted, and the medic… I’m sorry. They gave him hyperdecarin, high dose. He just passed out.”
“The poor thing. What’s his name?”
“Coldis Solara.”
Hyran had researched that name like he had the other members of the Argentean team when it had been announced they were outside the walls after an ambush, when contact with them had been lost.
Coldis had struck him as odd, too driven, too involved in a small but high-powered team, a team he seemed to have kept this small on purpose despite people wanting to join.
Thinking about the team made Hyran grind his teeth. Yes, he had his suspicions about them being connected to what was going on outside the walls, but on top of that, there was no way Coldis was not intimate with at least some of the Guardians on that team. After all, the three extremely skilled A-classers and the S-classer had practically grown up together. The S-classer, Senlas Warrak, didn’t concern Hyran as much because Senlas had imprinted himself, but the others…
It left three people. Three people Coldis might love, three people who might end like Undora, the Conduit Linar had loved even after she’d been imprinted on. Hyran had been friendly with both Linar and Undora because they were his neighbors. Yet Undora hadn’t had anyone else. No one was openly hostile. No one was friendly or made her life any easier either, and Hyran had seen the weight of that impacting Undora every day, smothering brightness and joy.
Jealousy stepped into Hyran’s mind easily, but it was nothing compared to the fear and pain. He’d seen where it had led Durgo, had seen where it had led Linar. The last he had heard, Durgo had been brought to the clinic as well, and he was worse off than Col.
Whether he deserved it for what he had done to Linar, Hyran couldn’t say. He knew that Coldis was a part of him now, was in his every waking thought and lived in his dreams. And he didn’t want to hurt the Conduit. A part of himself wished the imprinting hadn’t happened at all, especially if Coldis was in love with another. The very idea made Hyran want to curl into a ball and cry.
“I said, what are you going to do next?” his mama asked.
“Ah, I—we’ll just stay here. I’ll stay here. He has to heal.”
“No, Ran-Ran. I meant, what will you do now?”
Hyran put a hand on the door and looked at Coldis, his face softened with sleep. “Excellent question.”
“Ran-Ran, that’s not the answer I wanted to hear. Try better.”
“But, Mama, this just happened and I haven’t even—”
“Just stop. We taught you better. You are going to do what is best for your Conduit, aren’t you?”
Hyran swallowed and dropped his gaze to the floor. “Of course.”
“I hear Argentea is nice. Decent birth rates. I just researched that, in fact. I know your other mothers don’t care, but I want grandchildren.”
“What?”
His mama made an annoyed sound, something between a groan and a grunt. “It’s difficult for a Conduit to give up everything, and if he’s the team lead, he might not want to give that up at all. You can visit us whenever like you are doing now. You’re fast enough for that, and a run from here to Argentea takes you how long?”
“I don’t know, minutes?”
She hummed. “Yes. Imagine what travel means for him. And that team has already endured enough, being outside the walls with some of them wounded. You cannot subject him to that. Is that understood?”
“Erm, yes?”
“Very good. Now, what do you need? Food? Clothing? What?”
“I got a few things already.”
She snorted. “Fine. Make a list and send it to me. We’re busy, so I might have to get you a first rank.”
Hyran considered the files of Team Three he had all but memorized.
“They said some of them were going to stay here at the clinic as well. Not in the room of course, but I guess they’re worried.”
“What?”
“His team members. They’re close. Family. Didn’t Mommy tell you?”
“We didn’t exactly have time for a proper debrief, Hyran. As you might imagine, things are busy here.”
“I know. Rasev is handling it?”
“There are a lot of people working on handling it. Right now, that’s not what you need to focus on. You focus on Coldis. And grandchildren, I want you to keep that in mind. While I’m still young enough to brave travel between cities, please.”
The screen went silent in the way that told Hyran she was talking to someone else.
“I sent someone to get you food, and she’ll run errands as you need her to.”
“But, Mama, I can do that.”
“I know you can, but not when you are watching your Conduit. She’ll do it. Give her something useful to do. She’s competent and wants to be of use.”
Hyran sighed, but one thing that wasn’t happening was him winning in a battle of wills against Protector Panosa Mana Esho, and so he decided to let it go and accept.
“I will. Thank you.”
“Hyran? Congratulations. Be happy. This is brightness on a very dark day.”
They ended the call.
Brightness on a dark day. It feels nothing like that, Hyran thought and wondered whether he should fight the urge to sit on Coldis’s bed and hold his hand while the medication did its work. Conduit Orrey had sat there. The sheets were probably wrinkled. He could at least straighten them.
He balled his hands into fists. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to the dark room. “I’m so sorry.”