Page 3414

Zeff wanted to choose his next words carefully. “I already told you that I would keep your secrets. If you are lying for our sake, out of some sense or hope that it might protect us from your foes, there is no need. Especially when I am beginning to get the impression that the truth would be of much greater comfort.”

“...What exactly are you implying, Water Dragon?”

Should he just come right out and say it? Hmm. Maybe so. “...Are you a Rainlord?” asked Zeff.

Graves made no response.

“It is either that,” Zeff went on, “or you were a dear friend of the Blackburns, as Darktide seems to believe.” In his head, he kept searching for some recognition of the name Archangel in Axiolis’ memories. It felt like something was there, but he couldn’t quite pinpoint it.

“Even if I were related to you, why would I admit it?” said Graves. “What good would that do, other than perhaps imperil your kin still further? You have worked within the Vanguard for many years yourself. You know our policies. Our ideas. You know the importance that we marshals must place upon our identities. Yet you ask me these questions as if you were plainly ignorant of such things.”

It was certainly true that the marshals all took the secrets of their family history quite seriously, in large part because they knew that many within Abolish liked to make a sport of hunting down and killing any identifiable relatives or loved ones they might still have, regardless of how distant the relation might seem. And even among the marshals, Graves had always been known as the most mysterious, so it would come as no surprise to Zeff if this man took such secrets more seriously than anyone else he’d ever met.

But he still couldn’t help wanting to know.

The Rainlords had lost so many of their kin over the years. And so many close friends, too, who might as well have been kin. The idea that one of them might have survived and been alive all this time... well, that was something that would’ve surely made his ancestors smile.

His ancestors. Yes.

He blinked.

Some years ago, back when he’d finally achieved his first hyper-state with Axiolis, it had been arguably the greatest day of his life. After having so much of his family taken from him when he was only fifteen years old, that moment of merging minds with his family’s ancestral reaper had been... unparalleled in its importance.