Apostolic Journey

[Seraphis]

The summit ended without any actual ending. There was no final statement, no carefully staged photograph, no ceremonial exchange between the three traditions represented within the palace  walls. The storm had made such things irrelevant, and over the course of a few minutes, people began to move.

Seraphis remembered watching the Ascendancy disappear into the growing machinery of the emergency. He had spoken with official looking people, issued instructions, and then left the throne room with the unmistakable intention of seeing the situation for himself.

After that, nothing. For the first hour, Seraphis expected him to return. He did not.

For the second, the Kremlin had become a different place. The grandeur remained, but it had been overwhelmed by function. Government workers hurried through corridors carrying communications tablets. Military officers appeared and disappeared behind guarded doors. Emergency personnel arrived in increasing numbers, some covered in snow despite having traveled only a short distance across the complex. Gossip was being passed from one person to another faster than Seraphis could follow.

Outside, Moscow had ceased to resemble a city. Snow pressed against the windows so thickly that the world beyond them appeared almost abstract. The Kremlin towers were intermittently visible through the white, and sometimes not visible at all.

Seraphis spent much of that time with Lucien and she tried to be useful, but there was nothing to do. So she listened to news reports and watched the movements of people who seemed to understand what was happening better than she did.

But beneath it all was an unsettled feeling. She kept thinking about the summit. About Theron.

She had watched Theron stand beside the Ascendancy that morning, had heard him speak to the Pope and the gathered world with confidence. She had felt proud of him. She still did. But now there was something else in the way he carried himself.

He was too quiet. Too deep in thought. She knew him well enough to recognize it.

Theron had spent years learning how to turn circumstances into influence. He understood people. He understood symbols. He understood that history did not merely belong to those who acted, but to those who understood how an action would be remembered afterward.

And this storm was going to be remembered because there was no precedent for it.

Theron could already see what it meant for the Brotherhood. If the world witnessed channelers standing openly against a catastrophe of this magnitude, then everything they had argued about the nature and purpose of their abilities would suddenly possess a different weight.

But there was a danger in that, too.

If they failed, the Brotherhood would be seen as impotent. If they appeared to be exploiting the suffering of thousands for spectacle, they would be condemned.

If they remained safely inside while the government acted, they would look like followers who preached courage from behind walls.

Theron understood all of this. Seraphis could see it in his face. What she could not tell was which conclusion he had reached. Then the rumors intensified.

A military officer speaking to another near the corridor. A communications aide asking whether the route had been cleared. Someone mentioning the Rods of Dominion. Seraphis heard only fragments.

"The Ascendancy is going out."

She turned. The officer who had spoken seemed not to realize she had heard him.

Another voice answered, lower.

"All six?"

"That's what I've been told."

Seraphis stared toward the corridor. The Ascendancy. Going out. Into that. She looked toward Theron. He had heard it too.

For several seconds, he said nothing. Then he looked toward the nearest window. The storm raged beyond it, immense and almost incomprehensible and something changed in his expression.

He turned to Lucien.

“Try to find out where they're assembling."

Lucien nodded and moved away. Seraphis felt a strange tightening in her chest.

"What are you doing?"

Theron looked at her. "Going with them."

The answer was immediate enough to suggest that the decision had already been made.

"You can’t!”

His eyebrow lifted. "Why not?"

She almost laughed at the absurdity of the question. "Because that's the storm."

"I am obviously aware of that.”

"Theron!”

He looked toward the windows again. "I have spent the last two hours trying to decide what I should do." Seraphis said nothing. "I could remain here and issue statements. I could tell the Brotherhood to deploy where we have access. I could make myself available to the emergency authorities. All of those things would be reasonable."

"And?" Seraphis asked.

"And reasonable is not necessarily useful."

There was something different in his voice now. The familiar ambition was still there. She knew him too well not to hear it. He understood what this could mean for the Brotherhood, for his own authority, for the place he had spent years building. But beneath it was something more genuine.

People were trapped out there. Theron looked at her.

"If the Ascendancy is willing to walk into that storm, I cannot stand here and explain to everyone else why I should remain behind."

Seraphis understood. Or thought she did. Maybe he was chasing glory, but he was also choosing to be useful. And perhaps, she realized, that was okay. She took a step toward him.

"Then I'm coming."

Theron stopped. "No."

She stared at him. "I can help."

"I know."

"I can channel."

"I know."

"Then let me come,” she insisted.

His expression tightened, “Seraphis."

"You need every person you can get."

"No. We need the people who are going."

"That includes me.”

"No."

She felt heat rise beneath her skin. "You didn't even ask me."

Something flickered across his face. For a moment, the authority of the Luminar gave way to something more personal. He put a hand on her shoulder as his voice softened.

"I need you to stay."

The words struck exactly where he knew they would. He knew how much it meant to her to be needed by him. He knew that if he told her he needed her here, she would have difficulty refusing. She hated that she knew he knew.

"I could still be useful out there."

"I don't doubt that."

"Then why?"

"Because I am telling you to stay."

Her eyes hardened. "That's not an answer."

His posture straightened. “It is the one you're getting."

She looked at him for a long moment.

Around them, people moved with increasing urgency. Somewhere nearby, someone called for an engineer. A door opened and three officers hurried through it. The whole building seemed to be bracing itself for something.

Seraphis lowered her voice. "I thought you wanted me beside you."

"I do."

"Then why am I not going?"

Theron's expression shifted. He looked almost frustrated by the question, but there was something else beneath it. Concern, perhaps. Or simply the knowledge that he had wounded her.

"Because this is not a place for you."

The words were worse than the refusal.

Something inside her closed. She “opened her mouth to protest but he interrupted, voice terse. “Enough, Seraphis! You are staying with Lucien. That is an order, Veilwarden.”

She went completely still.

For several seconds she could not speak. Then she bowed her head.

“Alright.”

Theron watched her. A moment later, Lucien returned.

"They're assembling on their way to Spasskaya Gate.”

Theron nodded.

“Thank you my friend. Please stay in contact with Quillon if you can, and —” he stopped himself from finishing that sentence, but Seraphis assumed it was about her.

He turned away without finishing it. Seraphis watched him go. She had imagined many things that day. She had imagined standing beside him when the world finally recognized what the Brotherhood could do. She had imagined helping him, perhaps even proving herself indispensable.

She had not imagined being left behind. Theron turned away. For several seconds Seraphis remained where she was, watching him disappear into the movement of the Kremlin. Lucien stood beside her. She looked at him, and he looked at her, and neither spoke.

But something passed between them.

Lucien's expression did not change. There was no approval in it, nor disapproval. Only the faintest suggestion that he understood precisely what she was thinking. Seraphis glanced toward the corridor. Then back at him.

She waited until Theron had disappeared from sight before slipping after him. She kept to the edges of the palace corridors, moving with enough care and confidence that no one thought to stop her. The Kremlin had become too busy for anyone to pay much attention to a single Veilwarden moving through the halls.

She followed the growing current of activity toward Spasskaya Tower.

By the time she reached the outer passage, Theron had already found the others, and he had changed.

The robes and formal clothing of the summit were gone. He had dressed for the storm, pulling on heavy outer layers and securing protective equipment over them. The transformation should have made him look ridiculous against the grandeur of the Kremlin.

Instead, it made him look important.  Seraphis stopped before entering the open area near the gate.

The Ascendancy was there. She was taken aback, being so close. For the first time in hours, she saw him again. He stood near the great entrance to Spasskaya Tower with the six Rods of Dominion gathered around him. They were dressed for the conditions outside, their clothing heavy and practical, their attention fixed on the Ascendancy and the instructions coming through their equipment.

Nikolai looked nothing like the man who had occupied the throne room that morning. There was no ceremony now.

Theron approached him, and the conversation that took place between them was a strange echo of her own. Seraphis watched the exchange from just far enough back that they ignored her.

Something about how easily Theron was accepted unsettled her. She had expected Nikolai to be impressed or perhaps even pleased that the Luminar of a religion that openly proclaimed the Ascendancy a god was asking to walk with him into the storm. If there was ever a moment when that devotion could be displayed before the world, surely this was it. But the Ascendancy did not seem interested in being worshipped in that moment. He did not even seem particularly interested in being followed. He was interested in getting outside and reaching the people who were trapped beneath the snow.

Seraphis found herself watching him instead of Theron.

The doors were ordered open, and for one brief moment, Seraphis thought about stepping out to call for Theron and make one last attempt to go.

Snow swept across the stone beneath their feet, wind breaking around her dress while the men moved into the white one after another.  The Ascendancy went first, without a moment’s hesitation. The six Dominions followed, spreading into formation as they disappeared into the storm, and Theron was among them.

Seraphis watched until the doors were sealed again. Only then did she realize that her heart was beating faster.

She had followed because she could not bear to watch Theron leave without seeing him go. But somewhere between the corridors of the Kremlin and that final conversation, something had changed.

She had expected to see Theron standing beside a god. Instead, she had seen a man who seemed to have forgotten anyone was watching.

Ascendancy was not asking for admiration, or faith or belief. Only to be followed.  And Theron had chosen to follow him. Her throat was tight, and her eyes were warm with the intensity of this moment. She told herself the ache in her chest belonged to Theron. She knew it did.

But she could not stop thinking about the god the Brotherhood worshipped.