Chapter 337: New Seeds

Reports on new changes filtered in to the Vampire Realm before the second moon peaked.

Lucian stood in the halls of his central command hall with Zane, Anita, Heron, and a handful of Origin members around as the first messages were recited. The caution was thick on the words, but the implication wasn’t.

On New Earth, Mob had fallen during seemingly routine practice flight and golden wings torn wider than ever recorded. Light that had nothing to do with any known bloodline of angels spilled from him in slow, solid waves powerful enough to require the full evacuation of three city blocks. When the young man rose from the ruins, the pressure in the air was thick with the weight of true progenitor. The Angel seat, which had been vacant since Michael went silent, had claimed another occupant.

From the Spirit Realm, Temmy’s childish aura had erupted and sent the spirit children scattering with waves of solid spiritual authority flooding an entire floating meadow. Ruka had been there to witness it and was still struggling to clear away the aftereffects. Now Temmy’s signature rested unmistakably in the seat Nyxara had abandoned.

The shift in Ken had been more dramatic still. In the werewolf ranges he had dropped to all fours and screamed as his bones knit and muscle grew and feral authority poured out of him. When the transformation ended, Fenrir’s idle howl had been replaced by something else entirely.

Remu’s awakening smelt of burning wards and broken scrying glass. The witch territories took note as a very unorthodox sudden surge of divination and curse authority powerful enough to knock out three monitoring stations flared up in tandem. Elara’s seat was no longer empty.

Francisca’s change had taken place with less fanfare but no less significance. Six golden tails had become seven across the span of only one nigh in New Earth, and the kitsune courts that dotted the connected territories all felt the shift in their bones. The presence of Inari was absent where Francisca’s had rooted itself in.

Dera would not have to come into it as a new progenitor at all - she’d been there all along, but the shift in herself made isolation a factor of great interest to the others. The old names had faded from existence entirely and all the new ones were linked somehow, tangibly or not to the very circle of individuals that had stood with Lucifer for so long.

Daniel and Ruka were left the longest. Both bore the evidence of powerful surges of demon marking that simply refused to hold steady, a sign that they would be the most obvious prospects for the vacancy at the Demon seat that Lilith had left behind.

The very existence of Lucifer had always been an oddity. Vampire Progenitor by right, true divine by rank, and now the strange feeling of something else, like a second unstable frequency, was threading through his veins and knocking against the demon candidate marking.

Zane was the first to finally voice it. "It’s all of them. His people."

Beads of blood curled along Anita’s ribbons. "Every vacant seat is being occupied by someone who had served alongside him or had been under his command. That isn’t coincidence."

Heron’s empty eyes didn’t leave the papers. "None of them were claimed. They were replaced."

"Send word to Dera. I want personal confirmation of Francisca’s shift before proceeding," Lucian ordered, shifting the papers in his hands. "I want messengers out to Ken, Remu, Mob, and Temmy with in the day, and Daniel and Ruka are to be observed but left alone until they’re stabilized."

The orders went out.

On New Earth, Mob stood upon a platform made of solid stone at the highest point and looked at the golden wings unfurling at his back. His wings needed no effort to open; the sensation of the pressure keeping them steady was still unfamiliar.

"I don’t know what it wants," Mob muttered. "I never wanted it."

Francisca, who had stopped not far from the edge of the platform with seven tails swaying uncertainly at her back, tilted her head at the sound of his voice. The new weight upon her shoulders was still unfamiliar magic wrapped in a form she hadn’t yet mastered. "None of us did, really. It just...happened."

Dera, already unpleasant to meet, stood with her arms crossed as she regarded Mob. "...Elara had seen this ages ago. She called it the age of new progenitors. Somehow I didn’t take it personally; it was Elara."

In the werewolf ranges, Ken pressed himself against the cool stone on both palms and willed himself to breathe after the last convulsions of his muscles. Still shaking where the supernatural had fused with the natural, Angel stood nearby with low burns on his skin while Remu sat not far from the both of them with fresh marking burning upon her eyes.

"You can feel it too." Ken closed his eyes. "...Kind of like something inside pulled out and something new took its place? I can still scent Elara’s wards but they’re dead weight now?"

"Nothing was replaced," Remu said simply, watching as the smoke from Ken’s cigarette curls out into the air. "...At least, not something old enough to matter. I still smell it."

Half again the world away, Daniel ran restless hands over the fabric of his discarded shirt and paced the length of the heat-warmed room in the Demon Realm. Ruka sat with her back to the opposite wall and her knees drawn to her chest, her breathing uneven. Neither of the two had yet entered what should rightfully be called the finals before claiming the Demon seat, but the empty seat already twitched at the edges of their senses.

In the starfire realm the fluctuations hit Aeloria and Nyx almost at once.

Aeloria’s head came up. Nyx’s living shadow rippled.

"...Multiple new signatures," Aeloria murmured. "Progenitor rank, and...filling the seats that have gone vacant."

Nyx’s black eyes narrowed. "His circle. Every one of them."

The warm, still air of the chamber shifted as Lucian, still re cooling from the dual domain training session earlier in the day, looked between the two.

"What is it?" Lucifer asked.

Aeloria and Nyx exchanged a glance laced with three years of carefully cultivated half-truths and inconvenient honesty.

"The board is changing," The Guardian announced at last. "...And rapidly."

Nyx said nothing more.

Lucifer accepted this as he had accepted nearly everything that was said to him since the beginning of the slow decline that had led to his selection as a progenitor. He turned away from the two of them and back toward the waiting platform, Divine Blood Core steady in his palm, and waited for the next directive.

Far across the sealed universe the newly awakened progenitors were taking their seats upon the vacant thrones while the old ones remained absent. The age that Elara had foreseen was no longer approaching - it stood at the door.