Erik watched Port Landa rise around him through the armored windows of the transport, its skyline cutting into the sky with a confidence that bordered on indifference. Towers of steel and glass crowded the horizon, layered atop one another with no concern for symmetry, only function. Light fractured across their surfaces, not beautiful so much as deliberate.
This was not a city that had grown. It had been designed.
Traffic flowed in stacked currents, ground lanes feeding into elevated rails, transit lines suspended between buildings like arteries exposed to the air. Cargo trams slid along magnetic tracks overhead, each bearing the weight of commerce that did not slow for ceremony, lineage, or history. Beneath it all, the foundations of something far older remained unseen but ever-present, shaping the city's limits whether anyone remembered them or not.
It made the capital feel old.
"We've reached Port Landa, my Prince," Davin said from across the cabin.
Erik did not answer immediately.
Davin sat braced against the transport's vibration with practiced ease. In the dim cabin light, he read as almost entirely human,, by design. His build was unremarkable, his posture disciplined but unobtrusive. Even the cut of his uniform was tailored to reduce notice. Only faint webbing traced the edges of his wrists and ankles, too slight to serve any purpose beyond inheritance.
His skin lacked the rubbered sheen of true deepborn merfolk. It held warmth, flexibility. His eyes were human in shape and movement, precise and controlled, without the reflective depth common to those raised below the waterline.
And yet the sea had never relinquished its claim. Davin could breathe underwater as naturally as any of his kin, his body adapting without effort, without conscious intent. Nothing in his bearing advertised that truth. That was the point.
Erik finally nodded. "Drop the title," he said. "Here, I'm just Erik. Or Captain."
Davin's expression did not change. "Chain of command remains intact, Captain. Regardless of geography."
That was Davin. Precise. Immovable. The kind of officer Erik's father trusted because he did not interpret orders—he executed them.
Around them, Port Landa continued to move.
Dragonkin passed through the streets in disciplined numbers, their scales fine and tight, colored in muted reds, greens, blues—close enough to skin that motion was often the only tell. When they walked, there was a faint rasp beneath fabric, the whisper of scale against cloth.
Golems moved more slowly, their massive forms integrated seamlessly into the city's infrastructure. One stood at a major junction, directing traffic with slow, economical gestures. This was not ceremonial authority. This was utility. A living load-bearing structure.
Mermaids navigated both water and stone with equal ease. On land, their fins folded tight against their bodies, sealing into smooth contours beneath clothing. In motion, the transition from water to street was seamless, practiced, unremarkable.
Above them all, harpies occupied the higher paths—railings, rooftops, exposed ledges. Their wings replaced arms entirely, feathers layered and expressive, hands folded at the joint when not in use. They moved with the confidence of creatures for whom gravity was not a law, merely a condition.
Humans threaded through everything.
Erik watched them more closely than the rest. They were everywhere, clerks, engineers, operators, drivers, keeping the city's systems running through sheer scale and repetition. Port Landa would not exist in its current form without them. No elemental race could have built something like this. They relied too much on native Anima, too much on instinctive limitation. Humans compensated with structure.
"We're approaching the civic district," Margo's voice came from the front of the transport. "Safe house is being finalized. Surveillance will begin once we're set."
Margo did not look back when she spoke. She did not need to. Her fingers moved across the console with efficient certainty, bringing up schematics, transit flows, and jurisdiction overlays. Red and gold scales traced her jawline and temples, smooth enough to pass for tinted skin unless caught by the light. When she shifted, they made the faint, dry sound Erik had grown up hearing—the whisper of scale against fabric. Her hair was pulled back into a tight braid, copper-red, functional. No ornamentation. No excess.
"Good," Erik said. "I'll need transport once I'm finished with the chief."
"Yes, sir."
The transport slowed as they approached the civic district. The architecture shifted subtly here—less glass, more stone. Buildings grew broader, heavier, as if the city itself acknowledged the need for permanence in places where authority resided.
Port Landa Police Headquarters stood out immediately.
It resisted modernity not by neglect, but by intention. Old stone and brick formed its façade, reinforced but not replaced. Arches framed stained-glass windows that filtered daylight into muted color. Gargoyles lined the upper edges of the structure, weathered but intact, watching over a city that had grown far beyond the circumstances that birthed them.
The past, preserved on purpose.
As the transport doors opened, the noise of the city rushed in—engines, voices, distant sirens, the low hum of systems operating beyond any single person's control. Erik stepped out, straightening his coat as the weight of expectation settled across his shoulders.
This is where you prove you belong.
Recognition followed him immediately.
Officers paused mid-stride. Conversations dipped, then resumed more quietly. A few saluted. Others simply watched. The Prince. The word followed him even when no one spoke it aloud.
He hated that.
A title without jurisdiction. Authority without discretion. He was visible enough to attract attention, constrained enough to act only within the narrow bounds his father allowed. Important, but not decisive.
Yet.
Chief Fedor Talion did not rise immediately when Erik entered. That alone told Erik more than any report could have. Talion waited until the door closed, until the ambient noise of the precinct softened into distance, before pushing himself to his feet. The movement was stiff but deliberate, the habit of an old soldier who no longer wasted effort on ceremony unless it mattered.
"My Prince," Talion said, bowing his head just enough to satisfy protocol.
Erik returned the gesture reflexively. "Chief Talion. Thank you for meeting with me."
Talion gestured toward the chair opposite his desk. "I assume you've already reviewed the briefings."
"I have," Erik said as he sat. "Everything your office forwarded. Incident logs, permit requests, customs anomalies. Including the material you marked as speculative."
Talion's expression tightened slightly. "Then we're aligned on the facts, at least."
The office was sparse and functional. Wide windows overlooked the precinct floor below, where officers moved through controlled disorder with practiced efficiency. Behind Talion's desk hung the sigil of Kalindor, three swords piercing the heart of a coiled serpent.
Erik had grown up beneath that symbol. He had memorized its meaning long before he understood its cost.
Talion activated the projector without further preamble. Faces appeared, clerical portraits, surveillance stills, timestamps. Erik recognized them immediately.
"Elara," Talion said, indicating the first image. "Fifth-ranked priestess. Handles outreach coordination, municipal relations, charitable licensing."
"Yes," Erik said. "She's been the Church's primary interface with civic authority for years. Impeccable compliance record."
The image shifted.
"Velyan," Talion continued. "Also fifth rank. Less administrative. More… ideological. He leads sermons across the city, rotates locations frequently."
"And has been present near multiple disturbances," Erik said, "none of which meet the threshold for direct action."
"Correct," Talion replied. "They know exactly where the line is."
That line mattered. The projector advanced again. This time the image lingered, a man in ceremonial white and gold, a deep red sash wrapped deliberately around his leg. A sword hung at his side, not ornamental, not symbolic.
Erik's gaze sharpened.
"This is the individual flagged two days ago," Erik said. "Arrived on a Zao-registered vessel. Cleared under ecclesiastical travel exemptions."
"Yes," Talion said. "Identified himself as an auxiliary. No formal title. No paperwork beyond Church sponsorship."
"And no recorded criminal activity," Erik added.
"Not yet."
Silence settled between them.
"He was seen entering a Church building in the southern district," Talion continued. "Wearing full clerical colors. Witnesses place him inside for several hours. He hasn't been observed since."
Erik folded his hands slowly. "And the weapons."
Talion exhaled. "Smuggled separately. Same window of arrival. Southern docks. We haven't recovered them."
"That's the primary concern," Erik said. "Not doctrine."
Talion nodded grimly. "Agreed. The Church has always pushed ideology through policy. Border erosion. Trade unification. Jurisdictional softening. They lobby. They pressure. They do it in the open."
"And within the law," Erik said.
"Yes," Talion replied. "That's never been the problem."
The projection shifted to a city map, Port Landa segmented by district. Markers highlighted the southern neighborhoods.
"What is new," Talion said, "is this."
Denied excavation permits appeared overlaid in red.
"They've been requesting access to ancient ruins for over a year," Talion continued. "Always framed as academic interest. Cultural preservation. Historical reconciliation."
"And nowhere else in Kalindor," Erik said quietly.
Talion looked at him sharply. "You noticed."
"I did," Erik said. "The Church has never shown interest in ruins, relics, or ancient infrastructure. Their focus has always been contemporary, law, borders, governance."
"That's why we denied the permits," Talion said. "Safety concerns were sufficient. But they didn't back off."
"No," Erik agreed. "They persisted."
Talion leaned forward. "It feels like escalation."
"It is," Erik said. "Just not a loud one."
The image changed again, charts this time. Permit appeals. Funding flows. Church-affiliated charities expanding operations in the same districts as the denied sites.
"They're consolidating presence," Talion said. "Not violently. Not illegally. But deliberately."
"And allowing more radical elements to operate beneath that cover," Erik said.
Talion's jaw tightened. "That's our assessment."
A knock interrupted them. Before Talion could respond, the door opened.
Councilman Dumner Mathes entered with the ease of someone who believed timing itself was a form of leverage. Immaculate attire. Polished gray scales. A smile calibrated for plausibility rather than warmth.
"My Prince," Mathes said smoothly. "Welcome to Port Landa. I wanted to personally extend the council's support."
Erik rose. "Councilman Mathes."
"I understand you're investigating recent tensions," Mathes continued. "The Church has been a stabilizing force for many of our southern districts. I trust that won't be overlooked."
Erik met his gaze evenly. "No one is overlooking anything."
Mathes smiled, unperturbed. "Good. Unity requires patience. Borders, after all, are only habits reinforced by fear."
Erik did not respond to that.
After Mathes left, Talion watched the door for a moment longer than necessary.
"He's echoing their rhetoric," Talion said.
"Yes," Erik replied. "And that's not illegal either."
Talion turned back to him. "So where does that leave us?"
Erik considered the city beyond the window, efficient, layered, already under strain.
"With weapons unaccounted for," Erik said, "and an armed Zao-trained individual moving under clerical cover, I assume hostile intent until proven otherwise."
Talion nodded. "Even if the Church claims ignorance?"
"Especially then," Erik said. "Institutions don't have intent. People do."
Talion studied him carefully. "Your approach?"
"I observe," Erik said. "I don't accuse prematurely. And I follow the weapons."
Talion let out a slow breath. "That's what I was hoping you'd say."
As Erik stood to leave, the city continued its endless motion below, laws intact, borders present, peace maintained by assumption. Something was already pushing against that assumption. And for now, it wore the colors of a Church that claimed to want the world without edges.
By nightfall, Erik began to understand Port Landa's deeper rhythm. The city did not rest. It redistributed.
Administrative towers dimmed as warehouse districts brightened. Traffic thinned in the civic core only to thicken along the ports, redirected with quiet efficiency by systems no single office fully controlled. Cargo schedules adjusted around labor availability. Transit routes shifted in response to demand rather than decree. Even law enforcement flowed, reallocating itself where tension spiked.
From the provisional operations suite, a repurposed tax authority building bordering Old Port Landa, Erik watched the city function with relentless indifference.
Banks of monitors cast pale light across the room. Each screen tracked a sanctioned location associated with the Church of Saints: shelters, mediation halls, food distribution centers, cultural outreach offices. All licensed. All documented. All compliant.
"They're consistent," Davin observed, arms folded as he studied the feeds.
"Yes," Erik replied. "That's the problem."
Margo stood at the central console, fingers moving with precise efficiency. She had been quiet since they returned from the precinct, her focus fixed on pattern aggregation rather than individual incidents. That was her strength. Where others saw events, she saw shape.
"The Church doesn't spike activity," she said. "No surges. No sudden expansions. Everything ramps gradually, inside permitted thresholds."
She pulled up a comparative overlay.
"Here," she continued. "Last five years. Food aid first. Then mediation services. Then education initiatives. Then civic advisory roles."
"And now," Erik said, already knowing the answer.
"Political presence," Margo replied. "Advisory committees. Border harmonization forums. Inter-district cooperation councils."
Davin frowned. "All lawful."
"Yes," Margo said. "Painfully so."
Erik stepped closer to the display. "What about opposition?"
"Minimal," Margo answered. "Where resistance appears, it's reframed as obstruction to peace. Officials who push back are labeled parochial. Outdated."
"Or nationalist," Davin added quietly.
That word carried weight in the Republic.
"Show me the council votes," Erik said.
Margo complied. Voting records scrolled across the screen, motions related to border enforcement funding, inter-district jurisdiction, port security cooperation.
A pattern emerged quickly.
"They never propose removal," Erik said. "They propose alignment."
"Yes," Margo replied. "Shared oversight. Shared responsibility. Shared jurisdiction."
"And when everyone is responsible," Erik said, "no one is accountable."
Davin glanced at him. "That's deliberate."
Erik nodded. "The Church's doctrine has always been clear. Borders are the root of conflict. Peace requires unity."
"Which resonates," Margo said. "Especially here."
She brought up demographic data. Old Port Landa glowed on the map, densely populated, economically depressed, politically disengaged.
"These districts don't benefit from borders," she continued. "They don't see protection. They see exclusion. The Church offers inclusion."
"And asks for very little in return," Davin said.
"Only patience," Erik replied. "And trust."
The monitors shifted again. This time, permit applications filled the screen, formal requests submitted by Church-affiliated organizations.
"These are the excavation permits," Margo said. "Filed over the last fourteen months."
Erik studied them closely. He had already read them, twice, during transit. Seeing them again, contextualized against the city's broader patterns, sharpened the discomfort.
"Note the language," Erik said. "Cultural preservation. Shared history. Reconciliation through understanding."
"Consistent with doctrine," Davin said.
"Yes," Erik replied. "But inconsistent with behavior."
Margo nodded. "We ran a cross-reference. The Church has never petitioned for archaeological access anywhere else in Kalindor. Not once."
"That's the deviation," Erik said.
She zoomed the display.
"Three sites," she continued. "All in Old Port Landa. All denied on structural safety grounds. All appealed. None withdrawn."
"And yet," Erik said, "they didn't escalate publicly."
"No protests," Margo confirmed. "No sermons. No political pressure."
Erik nodded. "Which means they weren't trying to win."
Margo frowned. "Then why file them at all?"
"To normalize the interest," Erik said. "So access never looks anomalous."
Silence settled over the room.
Margo broke it. "That aligns with another concern."
She brought up a customs log. Zao-registered cargo vessels. Ecclesiastical exemptions. Inspection waivers.
"These shipments arrived within the same window as the individual Talion flagged," she said. "No direct link. But the overlap is tight."
Erik's jaw tightened slightly. "Weapons."
"Yes," Margo said. "We believe so. Volume and mass are consistent. We just don't know where they are."
"And that man," Davin said.
Erik did not respond immediately.
"He was seen wearing Church colors," Davin continued. "Full robes. Witnesses place him entering a Church building in the southern district."
"Which does not implicate the Church legally," Erik said.
"No," Margo agreed. "But it does raise questions about internal oversight."
"And ideological tolerance," Davin added.
Erik turned back to the screens. "The Church has always allowed ideological variance within its ranks. As long as the end goal aligns."
"Peace through unity," Margo said.
"Yes," Erik replied. "Which makes radical interpretations difficult to suppress without contradicting doctrine. Or at least as long as it doesn't threaten their legitimacy."
Another feed flickered to life, footage from a mediation hall. A priest spoke calmly to a gathered crowd, emphasizing cooperation between districts, shared responsibility, the futility of borders.
No incitement. No calls to action. Just certainty.
"Nothing here is illegal," Margo said.
"No," Erik replied. "That's what makes it dangerous."
He moved to the window, looking out over Old Port Landa. The lights here were dimmer. Infrastructure older. Streets narrower.
"If weapons are circulating here," he said quietly, "they won't be used for open conflict."
"Leverage?" Margo asked.
"Leverage," Erik said. "Intimidation. Controlled incidents. Enough instability to justify further 'coordination.'"
"And once coordination is normalized," Margo said, "borders become… inefficient."
Erik nodded. "Peace by attrition."
The room fell silent again.
"Your father won't authorize direct action," Davin said carefully.
"I know," Erik replied.
"And the Republic will move slowly," Margo added.
"As designed," Erik said.
"So what do we do?" Davin asked.
Erik turned back to them. His expression was composed, but there was steel beneath it now.
"We follow the weapons," he said. "We document deviation. And we let the Church continue believing they're untouchable."
Margo raised an eyebrow. "That's risky."
"Yes," Erik agreed. "But accusing an institution without proof strengthens it."
Davin nodded slowly. "So we wait."
"No," Erik corrected. "We observe. There's a difference."
He looked once more at the city, at a system eroding not through violence, but through compliance. Port Landa was not under attack. It was being persuaded.
And for the first time since arriving, Erik felt certain of one thing, whatever moved beneath the Church's banners did not behave like something interested in peace.
"Get me more information about the permit sites. I want to know if there is anything important there," Erik directed. "If it is to access the buried city I want to know where it leads. Maybe we can track the weapons that way."
Margo nodded.
Erik let his focus drift to the screens. It was only a decade ago when computers were first introduced to Kalindor, and then the rest of the Republic. He could not believe how quickly the world advanced since then. Zao became unstoppable in technological dominance, and the Republic was playing catch up. Above ground, the city thrummed with human ingenuity more than elemental prowess, computers routing traffic, data networks balancing trade, power grids humming with efficiency. None of it would exist without Zao engineering and human persistence. None of the elemental races could engineer what humans had. It was just a reminder to Erik that time did not stand still for anyone.
Below ground was a different story. An ancient city buried and forgotten, its foundations rooted in culture rather than technology. Where Port Landa bloomed through innovation, this older world endured through design no one remembered.
He did not have to wait long for Margo to find relevant information. She brought up images and documents related to archaeological digs and findings in that area. Through the permits she found everything she needed on what exactly the church was seeking.
"They want to study these three sites," she said. "Under the main church building here, under an abandoned civic center next to the old city hall, and the last under some residential buildings."
The display switched to government documents.
Pictures of an underground room filled the screen. Three images of identical crystals were the focal point. They were enormous, twice the height of an average dragonkin, embedded in stone that curved around it like sinew around bone.
Erik's scales prickled faintly.
"This," he said quietly. "This is what they want?"
"Appears so from the reports."
"What would they want with something like that?" Davin interjected.
The question hung in silence as the trio studied the image of the crystal. Erik felt something familiar surface in his mind. Old legends and tales from their ancient ancestors. How there were things hidden and forgotten of a time long since past them. A single question tugged at Erik's tongue,
"Where did these images come from?"
Margo glanced at him before going through the documents on screen.
"It says it is from an old historical journal, a classified document from ages ago. The photos of the crystal were taken twenty years ago from an expedition sanctioned by the crown. A preservation effort."
"How did the church get this?"
"I don't know. It doesn't say."
Erik was unsure what to do. He was not expecting the church to be looking for such objects. He did not need to know that this was one of the many things that his father had taught him about. What the Republic tried to hide from the public.
This structure was from a time before civilization. One that Erik believed was from a kind of being long ago erased from the world. Demons his father called them, or what they became known as. No one knew what they truly were, or where they came from. Only that their existence was dangerous enough to be controlled.
To the wider world, demons were folklore — disasters remembered because no better explanation survived them. Erik had been taught otherwise. They appeared. They destroyed. And then, without exception, they were removed. No nation had ever learned how. Laws were written instead, older than Kalindor, older than borders, designed not to explain, but to contain memory itself.
The only certainty was that the ruins beneath the world predated every modern nation, and whatever had built them was gone. Whatever their origin, time had erased it so thoroughly that even their history no longer survived. What remained were ruins, misnamed as anomalies, and laws designed to keep it this way, established long before even Kalindor was a complete nation.
Erik kept his expression neutral. None of this was to be spoken outside bloodlines sworn to remember. It was not a good sign that the Church had taken interest in ruins so carefully forgotten.
Silence lingered in the operations suite, heavier now. The kind that followed the appearance of something that could not be easily categorized or dismissed. Davin said nothing. Margo's fingers hovered over the console, hesitating for the first time since Erik had met her.
"These documents," Erik said at last, his voice even, controlled, "should not be accessible."
"No," Margo agreed. "They shouldn't exist anywhere near open archival layers. The clearance trail is… wrong. It looks like the files were never condemned properly."
Erik felt a slow tightening behind his eyes.
Condemned was the word. Not classified. Not restricted. Condemned meant removed from circulation entirely, locked behind authority so old that even the reasons for the lock were no longer recorded.
"Close the files," Erik said.
Margo did not argue. The images vanished, replaced once again by the neutral city grid. Old Port Landa returned to abstraction—streets and blocks instead of stone and crystal.
"Refocus on the weapons," Erik continued. "Storage locations. Transit overlap. Anything that moves."
Margo nodded. "Understood."
Davin shifted his weight. "And the ruins?"
Erik met his gaze briefly. "Are not part of our operational picture."
Davin accepted that without further comment.
They had worked together long enough to recognize when a subject was not meant to be pressed.
Erik stepped away from the consoles and left the room without ceremony. The hallway beyond was quiet, the building settling into its nighttime cycle. When he was alone, he activated his comm.
"Chief Talion," he said when the channel opened. "I need confirmation."
Talion's response came after a short pause. "Go ahead, Captain."
"The ruins beneath Port Landa," Erik said. "Three sites contain crystalline structures of unknown origin. They've been sealed and kept from public record. How did the Church become aware of them?"
There was a longer silence this time.
"I don't know," Talion admitted. "They've been requesting access to those specific areas for over a year. We allow scholars into many ruins. Others are closed due to structural instability. Those sites, however, have been off-limits for generations. I wasn't aware of the crystals until the requests crossed my desk."
"And they're interested in the crystals specifically?"
"Yes. At least, that's what their petitions indicate."
"Who submitted the requests?"
"Elara," Talion replied. "The priestess. She handles all of the Church's formal paperwork."
Erik exhaled slowly. "Then that's where we start."
"I'll forward what we have on her," Talion said. "Residence, movement permits."
"Do that," Erik replied. "And one more thing."
"Yes?"
"Make sure all imagery related to those sites is properly buried. Full condemnation. No secondary access. You have my authority to do what must be done."
Talion did not hesitate. "Understood."
The channel closed.
Erik stood by the window at the end of the corridor, looking out over Port Landa. The city gleamed, steel towers, glass bridges, data relays carrying information at speeds Vigor could never replicate.
Demons were gone. That was what the world believed. They had been relegated to folklore and cautionary tales, to the kind of stories told when the ground collapsed or fire came without warning. But Erik had been raised knowing that some stories survived because they had once been true.
Now the Church was digging where it never had before. Near sites sealed without explanation. Near structures that existed only because no one alive remembered why they were necessary.
Was it coincidence? Or had something nudged them, quietly, deliberately, toward those exact places? Erik did not know.
What he did know was this, Port Landa had been built to forget what lay beneath it. And his task was not merely to police a city, or even to protect the Republic. It was to ensure that forgetting held. That was the duty he had inherited. And tonight, for the first time, he felt how close that duty was to failing.