Air of Authority

From whales to plankton, the sea creatures here that treated the air like the ocean were the descendants of actual humans from long ago.

“Darwin” was the name given to this Aberration. The very molecules of oxygen in the space around them. The cause of this phenomenon.

Pris didn’t actually do anything. It merely stopped suppressing the polymorphic properties of the oxygen in this space. And right away, the effects of the “countermeasure” were obvious.

Atonia. Total loss of muscular tone. Limbs dangling, about to fall off. Yet, somehow, even in the bizarre, flaccid state Mia and Lynn were in, they were laughing. Laughing even after their bodies turned off. But what happened next, Tim could no longer explain the symptoms medically.

Their bodies shrank. Skin turned to scales. Eyes dragged to the sides of their heads by an invisible force, bleeding and expanding in diameter. But it was what came out of their laughter that truly disturbed him.

Their souls.

Amid their entrails and organs that were ejected with each laugh, bits and pieces of their souls were pushed out. Darwin turned humans into soulless sea creatures. But that was where the science ended. How this Mashar-Class Aberration defied reality and allowed them to swim in midair, not even Pris was certain.

Even Her Majesty kept trying to laugh in her undeath. Coughing blood as she tried to join the laughter. The transformation was noticeably slower in her, given the shortness of her breath. Still, despite also technically being Mashar-Class, the difference between a human and an Aberration could not be any clearer.

At the end of the day, no matter how strong a human grew to be, all the gifts and immortality in the world could not prevent this phenomenon. How do you even defend against a concept that does not exist in your reality? How does one “defeat” atoms? Not even the facility specialized in containing Siraths could contain every molecule, merely suppressing its effects. There were simply too many rule-bending entities, both material and immaterial, that, if not for reality anchors like Pris and the Spire, the world would have fallen apart many times over.

Standing in front of the coffin, he could not heal the queen. The sword stuck inside the stone had to be removed. Slicing his palm with the part of the blade that was exposed, he gripped the hilt with his bloodied hand, letting the fluid seep into the rest of the weapon inside the rock. If he tried to pull it out straight, nothing would happen. In its transformed state, the weapon was impossibly heavy for anyone other than its master.

As his blood turned black, it consumed the Regalia and the surrounding rock. The weapon melted, eaten alive by the poisonous, alcoholic acid. Metal shards fell to the ground as the rocks loosened. And with the structure of the prison compromised, all it took was a solid punch into the stone for him to extract the queen in a single pull.

Punctured lungs. Heavy blood loss. Still alive, but barely. Letting her lie on the ground, Tim placed his hand over the hole in her chest. As the wound closed, another one opened. Not on her, but on him. His rib bones greeted the unwelcome air as his chest collapsed with the sudden appearance of a new, gaping cavity. Even though her injuries became his, discomfort was absent from his tired expression.

If anything, he felt more relaxed. With Her Majesty safe and death’s door shut away from her, he felt confident enough to state:

“Deactivate anti-human countermeasures.”

“Acknowledged. Happy dying!”

Pris suppressed the laughing gas, putting a stop to all the ongoing transformations before it was too late. Shards of ejected souls were forcibly dragged back into the bodies of their hosts as reality corrected itself. Humanity was restored, both in body and mind. Just like the first time they arrived here after they were assaulted by the nonexistent audio frequency, Mia and Lynn regained themselves. Dazed and confused, but otherwise normal.

That didn’t last long, however.

“What have you done?!” Lynn yelled, her voice cracked like a volcano pre-eruption, her eyes in total denial of Glacies’s recovery.

Tim already started to miss the anti-human countermeasures. Turning around, he faced the would-be kinslayer. The hole in his chest repatched itself, hiding the visible stress in his lungs as he spoke.

“Bathroom’s that way.” His eyes nudged her toward the facility. “So go look at a mirror and ask me that again.”

For a moment, the red in Lynn’s face wasn’t just anger, but almost pink in embarrassment. Did she actually need to use the bathroom or something? He found an empty bottle of wine on the way here, so…

“This had nothing to do with you!”

He glanced over to Mia. She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders as if to say, “She started it.” Good. Avoiding responsibility meant she was shaping up to be a normal, healthy teenager.

But before he could reply to Lynn, he paused. There was no point replying to her. Not that there was any in the first place, but doubly so since she couldn’t speak anymore.

Time was frozen.

He only realized this once the queen tapped him on the shoulder. Everything, from the fish up in the air down to Lynn’s flaring nostrils were completely stiff. Forced to stop mid-motion. Except for Her Majesty and himself, with her consent, could move in this semicolon within time.

Yet, even though he was granted permission to move, he was still frozen. Not because of a glitch in her ability, but because he was stunned.

Now back to full health, it only dawned on him how impossibly beautiful Glacies was.

It completely skipped past him when he was focused on healing her earlier, but at that moment, he was at a loss for words. Even after a century of not seeing her, she looked exactly like how he last saw her. A portrait brought to life. She reminded him of what an ideal human being looked like. The human form he had as an Aberration felt like a counterfeit in comparison.

Only after she started waving her hand in front of his face did he snap out of it. Holding her breath, Her Majesty couldn’t speak. Concern was spoken through her face, worried she did not properly unfreeze him at first. And from her eyes and her hands, she made it clear that she wanted to talk. Somewhere away from her meddlesome sister, no doubt.

Coming back to his senses, Tim showed her the way to the hangar, an offshoot of Pris’s main building. It was a short walk, but traversing in frozen time was still something he could never quite get used to. An inexplicable tension filled the gaps in space as his body pushed against the static wind. He could physically touch the silence in the air. And even the simple act of maintaining balance with each step required concentration. The queen offered her hand for support, but he declined. Not out of humility, but out of principle.

Glacies belonged to His Majesty now, no matter the state he was in. And if the king was still capable of thought, then he’d definitely not want his failure of a physician to even touch his wife. Healing her just now was unavoidable, but this wasn't. And he wasn’t in the mood to betray him any further.

He led her to a secluded corner in the hangar, away from the ancient mechanisms and arms protruding out of the walls. Despite being abandoned for countless years, the lingering scent of coffee-like fuel never faded. Yet, not a drop of that bitter propellant could be found. Extinct alongside the Souldroids that consumed it. The traces of magic they left behind reacted ever so slightly to his and the queen’s presence, perhaps mistaking them for the pilots and ground crew of old. Or so he thought. With time frozen, the only other things moving were the tricks playing in his mind.

Funny how he was nostalgic for the time when humans were the inferior species.

Time began to flow once more as Her Majesty exhaled, relief written on her face. But almost immediately, she cocked her head, staring at Tim with furrowed brows.

“You look so… old…”

He felt the former hole in his chest reopen with that jab. “No offense, Your Majesty, but you came down here to The Depths just to tell me that?”

“No I mean, it’s just… I’m not used to seeing you. Like this.”

“I doubt the palace keeps any more portraits of me, so yeah.” He forced a cringed smile, trying his best to look and sound younger. “I don’t think I’ll be winning any pageants soon.”

“Well, I mean, the wrinklier the raisin, the sweeter the fruit, is it not?”

His ears stopped listening after “wrinklier.” His self-consciousness started to tie knots with his intestines. He wasn’t that wrinkly. Right? Just because everyone around her was forever 18 didn’t mean they couldn’t tell the difference between a middle-aged-looking person and a senior citizen. Right?

“Speaking of looks…” His eyes darted around. “Why are you looking for a traitor like me? I thought all I had to do was to work with your sister and catch Vita’s murderer.”

“Ah yes. And what of your progress thus far?”

She flipped from casual to business faster than he could blink. Was she even invested in the small talk in the first place? Now he felt a bit foolish for taking offense at his age and looks. He forgot that the queen was always like this. This ruthless efficiency of hers was how she got him from addressing her with her old name to “Glacies” and now to “Your Majesty” so smoothly in the first place.

“We figured out the perp’s ability. Non-Abberative. And it negates magic altogether.” Tim showed her the bullet and the empty casing inside the transparent bag. “Whoever shot this infused his Acritae directly into the bullet. So not only could it shut down Vita’s Gift, it bypassed all the layers of her immortality straight up.”

“But for the culprit to stoop to using such a primitive tool…” The queen pondered aloud. “Wouldn’t direct contact or even an elemental-based projectile be more economical? Leaving evidence behind like this screams carelessness.”

“Yet there were no witnesses to the crime, right?”

She shook her head.

Tim thought for a bit before sharing. “It’s just my guess, but I think the culprit wants to send a message.”

“That being?”

“I could kill you Immortals in the most primitive way, and there’s nothing you could do to stop it.”

“Fascinating.”

Her Majesty paced around, her eyes drawn to a rack of old emergency hazard suits by the wall. Meant to protect soft human flesh from radioactive spills and other conceptual hazards, it almost seemed like they inspired her next words.

“I’ll be needing you to present this testimony of yours before the entire Council.”

If the small talk from before tied knots with his guts, this sentence felt like it outright severed them.

“But Your Majesty, wouldn’t this be the princess’s duty? I wouldn’t dare steal her thunder!”

“Oh please, Doctor.” She rolled her eyes. “I know you’re not bothered with Lynn. It’s the Council members whom you bear a vendetta for.”

“Then let her do the testifying, and I can do the investigating. Speed things up, you know?”

“You’re not the one with a regicidal sibling.”

“Yeah… but err, no offense, Your Majesty, but shouldn’t you get that sorted out?”

“You do know that you can speak casually with me, yes?” She sighed. “Just call it for what it is! Sibling rivalry, treason, all the other blasted, window-dressing-like words!”

Her facade cracked, but Tim felt like he could breathe again, even for just a bit.

“I know she is… controversial to say the least, but why is she so mad at you?”

“Let’s just say, I was originally meant to be her mother. And since you and I know the king isn’t exactly available, my—our mother decided to take things into her own hands.”

Tim finally connected the dots. It wasn’t incest, at least. But thinking deeper, it might be worse than that.