They were lounging in the Starcrest tower penthouse when Gabriel finally arrived. Ibrahim had his shirt off and was doing some sort of martial exercise where he moved around slowly. Rostal had mentioned it, but Mirian had forgotten the name of it. Liuan Var was sitting primly in a chair sipping tea. Jherica had become fascinated by one of the paintings and was muttering about different schools of art under their breath.

They all turned as the door slammed open and Gabriel strolled in. “Ah, we’re all here. Another beautiful—”

Ibrahim turned, and his eyes narrowed. “You,” he growled.

“Yes, me. Look, I’m really sorry about what happened. I’m done with the RID and—”

Ibrahim was in the form of the Dusk Waves combined with the Last Fires in an instant. When he moved, it was almost too fast to follow. He flowed like water though the room. Gabriel didn’t have time to draw his wand before Ibrahim’s fist was firmly planted in his chest. There was a terrible CRACK! of his ribs shattering, and blood splattered out from the crater in his chest.

Gabriel fell over, dead. His soul vanished, taken by the temporal anchor.

“Ibrahim!” Mirian shouted.

“I will not work with that murderer,” he said, face still twisted in rage.

“You’re also a murderer,” Liuan said lightly.

“He’s part of the group that killed my family. Responsible for the massacres in Mahatan. There can be no forgiveness for him and his ilk.”

Five hells, Mirian thought, grinding her jaw.

Jherica was looking at Gabriel’s corpse, wide-eyed.

Liuan set down her tea cup and said, “And how many families will you slaughter?”

“As many as I need to. If they wanted peace, they shouldn’t have grown fat off sucking the marrow from Persama’s bones.”

“Well, it’s a good thing they all know and understand that, and none of them will want any vengeance themselves,” she said, and punctuated that by taking another sip of tea.

Ibrahim stalked toward her. He jerked his head at Mirian. “That one spoke of Akana’s thirst for gold and blood. When I’m finished with Baracuel, do I need to build a navy?”

“Stop,” Mirian said. “We’re not here to make the conflicts worse. We have an opportunity to resolve them. And as many chances as we need to set things right.”

Ibrahim whirled on Mirian. “I said I’d listen. You don’t command me. I will do as God wills.”

“As interpreted by you? Because the Ominian’s been quite ambiguous about Their desires for me,” Liuan said.

Everyone began talking at once. Jherica said something about everyone settling down while Ibrahim began saying something about Liuan daring to question his piety, while Liuan sarcastically remarked that it was a good thing he was the only pious person in the room.

STOP! Mirian commanded, not with her voice, but with her soul. Jherica stumbled backward into the wall, while Liuan dropped her teacup in surprise. Ibrahim turned to look at her.

“When has the Ominian commanded us to kill?” Mirian asked. Silence greeted her question. She continued. “To be human is to be full of base emotions and desires. Greed. Vengeance. Fear. We must overcome them. We are Prophets. Chosen. Each time loop should bring wisdom. That is why we are here.”

Ibrahim examined her much the way Jherica had just been inspecting the painting. “Hm. You do have fire in you. Good. We’ll need that too.” He sat down and took one of the teacups.

That man, Mirian thought, annoyed. And what is Liuan playing at? “Welcome to the Council of Prophets,” she told Jherica.

They gave a nervous laugh. “Or should it be ‘Council of Chosen?’”

Ibrahim shrugged. “The word is not important. The faith is.”

“Good. Now… the matter of the membership of the Council.” Mirian had discussed the council with her father two cycles previously, and had come up with a strategy. “We are not a governing body. We are beyond the ability of laws to contain us, and only have each other to answer to. Participation in the Council can only be voluntary. But we aren’t a Parliament or an Isheer Council. I don’t propose we have a particular set of rules and procedures, but rather, a guiding philosophy. The Ominian has chosen each of us for a reason. Each of us may have different paths, but they will lead to a single destination. Enteria must be saved. That is why we are here.”

“That seems reasonable to me,” Jherica said, glancing worriedly around the room.

“Yes, of course,” Liuan said amicably.

“Hm,” Ibrahim said, and took a sip of tea.

Mirian had planned the last part. Now she had an addendum. “Coordination and peace will be impossible if we’re killing each other. It can’t be tolerated.” She didn’t like the Council proceeding without Gabriel, but she also abhorred wasting time. The two Prophets that both needed to be updated on their plan were here.

“I’ve made my position clear,” Ibrahim said.

Mirian figured that might be the best response they’d get out of him. “Very well,” she said. “If we can agree on the overarching goal, at least, then our work is clear. Let us get to it.”

***

The next few weeks were an exercise in testing Mirian’s patience. Liuan seemed resolved to poke at Ibrahim. Ibrahim, in turn, was not used to anyone disobeying him. He’d spent years becoming and then acting as an absolute power, and seemed to constantly forget that he was dealing with people who both were not his subordinates and could remember the loops. Twice, Mirian heard him mutter “won’t do that next time” under his breath.

Liuan had made, as far as Mirian could tell, no progress at all in the leyline conduit research or the leyline repulsor research in the past seven loops. She had begun to map out two different Labyrinth entrances, but was still exploring the third floor. So far, Liuan had discovered no Vault entrances. Part of the difficulty was the Labyrinth in Akana Praediar was shifting every few days, likely as the Labyrinth tried to discharge the overflow of arcane energy. Mirian had seen the Frostland’s Gate Labyrinth do something similar, but not so frequently. Finding more Vaults wouldn’t be easy.

As for Gabriel, Mirian would have to talk to him later to assess his progress. Hopefully, she’d be able to prevent the conflict between him and Ibrahim from escalating. Ibrahim continued to refuse to give any sort of guarantee he wouldn’t just do it again, much to her annoyance. Perhaps the warrior would settle down in a few years. Until then, their meetings could be infrequent.

Jherica, having only been conscious again for one previous cycle, shared their older work on locating the Mausoleum. Since Mirian had already told Ibrahim, Liuan was the one left stunned. “But how do we get to it then?” she’d said.

No one had an answer for her.

Then, they went over a map and planned out their next steps. They agreed to tentatively set the next meeting to be in twelve cycles. With the addition of a second temporal needle in the Ominian, the cycles now lasted all the way through Duala until the 1st of Merisheth, sometime just after midnight.

There was brief discussion on attempting to contact Celen. Jherica would try, since they were closest, but unless Celen was waiting several hours to kill himself at the start of each cycle, it was unlikely they’d succeed. Liuan had checked up on the man several times, and each time his corpse was in his Mercanton home, head blown off by a fire wand. It was possible that only a few hours had passed from Celen’s perspective since he’d made his gruesome decision.

Ibrahim would first look for an Elder Gate in his region. Based on Mirian’s data, it was unlikely there was one, but he’d also look for obsidian anomalies and historical records. Then, he’d look for Labyrinth entrances and Vaults.

Mirian wondered if he’d actually do that. Chances seemed good that he’d move north into Baracuel and look for separatist groups he might be able to use to split the country. Or, head south to Urubandar and hunt Gabriel. She hoped it wouldn’t be the latter.

Liuan would continue to prevent the invasion of Baracuel and get one of the leyline repulsors to bring to Vadriach University. She’d also help Jherica establish a proper research effort on large conduits at that University; they’d already been a wizard for years, so having someone who was an experienced researcher would be invaluable. While Jherica worked on that, Liuan would investigate what was happening in Tlaxhuaco, bringing several leyline detectors to try and figure out why the leyline energies that far south were lowering as the cycles progressed.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“And what will you do?” Liuan asked during one of the sessions.

“After talking to Gabriel?” Mirian shot an annoyed glance at Ibrahim, who still hadn’t even begun to consider apologizing for his actions. “Head the research efforts in Torrviol. Without a way to control the leylines, nothing else will matter. Talk to the arch-necromancer if my research dead-ends. He’s more than just an army, you know,” Mirian said, glancing at Ibrahim. “He has extensive knowledge of runes that even the priests have forgotten.”

“And what did you have to promise him to get his aid?” Ibrahim asked.

“Does it matter? He’ll forget.”

Ibrahim smiled. “So he will.” The dervish paced around the room briefly, then turned. “And what of the Mausoleum?”

“If you can figure out how to get there, make it a priority. The later Prophets seemed to think it was important. But I don’t think any of them ever made it.”

What she didn’t say was that she already had an idea for getting there, and a good reason to get there first.

There were several things she left out of her reports. She left out Atrah Xidi’s chthonic needle that anchored his soul, and left out her theory that one of those needles might be able to take the place of a temporal needle. She still didn’t mention relicarium or Apophagorga’s catalyst. Nor the holy relics she’d pilfered from the Grand Sanctum of the Luminates. Most of all, she kept secret that she had the power to remove any of them from the loop, while they had no such ability.

The secrets, it seemed, were piling up.

They ended the Council session after only three weeks. Mirian had done her best to instruct Ibrahim on artifice, but became incredibly frustrated teaching the basics. “Find an artificer to tutor you,” she finally snapped, after watching him cause another explosion because he’d forgotten a tylun glyph destabilized when close to a melgon glyph. To her, was like forgetting a sword was sharp. She left him with a pile of gold.

Liuan stayed in Florin City with him. “To vacation,” she said simply, though Mirian was sure she would be doing more than that.

Jherica insisted on following Mirian. “I want to see what your research efforts look like,” they said. That evening, the two of them took the train north, and Mirian hoped Liuan and Ibrahim didn’t try killing each other.

***

As soon as they were on the train heading north, Jherica started talking. “She’s having me followed. I know it. He also had me followed. Whenever I look at her—I get this twisting feeling in my gut. But I don’t remember why. Was it her? Or him?”

Mirian looked at the wizard, startled. “What are you talking about?”

“Liuan. Liuan! Why is she following me?”

“She’s paranoid because of Sulvorath.”

“Sulvorath. Who is Sulvorath?”

Mirian ran her eyes over Jherica, trying to determine what was going on. They’d known Sulvorath’s name when they first woke. They looked genuinely frightened. But then, so had Liuan when Mirian had first seen her. “The Prophet we discussed who had you cursed. The one removed from the loop. By the Ominian, we think.” Certainly not by me, she thought.

“Troytin?”

That gave her pause. “So you do know his real name. Does Liuan?”

“She must. She has to. Celen found it, and confronted him. Is that what made him turn?”

“Do you have…” Mirian hesitated. Jherica’s memory was clearly impacted by the curse that had lingered on them so long. Whether or not that was intentional, she didn’t know. Knowing Westerun and his project on mind control, maybe the RID had tried to manipulate Jherica’s mind first. She already knew Liuan liked to spy on everyone. “Do you have reason to believe she means to attack you or another Prophet?” she finished.

“Maybe. Would she? Or was that him? I don’t want her following me. I don’t like people following me.”

Mirian clenched her jaw. They had just talked about this in the Council. They had all agreed not to spy on each other. “Where’s the agent following us?”

Jherica began fidgeting. “I don’t know.”

“You should learn soul magic. Makes it a lot easier.”

“Necromancy?”

“That too. Right, let’s find out how competent this agent is.” Mirian retrieved her spellbook from her soul. She was still telling the other Prophets it was hidden in the arcane fourth dimension. She didn’t know if they actually believed her.

She cast detect life to better see the souls around. A person walking around with a soul binding would be a sure sign of an agent. Aside from a few people like Professor Marva who practiced soul-binding in secret, it was the purview of the Deeps in Baracuel and the RID in Akana. However, since Liuan knew Mirian could detect such disguises easily, if she had any operational control over the spies, she would have told them not to use those techniques.

Next, Mirian went through several divination spells, looking for any wands or devices that used runes, rather than glyphs. Liuan would know that would be her second way of finding agents, though, and Mirian wasn’t at all surprised that her divination turned up nothing.

That left her third trick, which was to look for the things they’d be using to observe them. Her next divination spells targeted glyphs related to detecting sound energy. Inevitably, an eavesdropping spell would need them. That finally produced a hit. She closed her eyes. Two cars over. Set up in one of the sleeper cars. With detect life, she could see the souls of those casters.

“I’ll be right back. Nature calls,” she said to Jherica.

A moment later, she was in front of their door. No one was in the hall, so she prepared the area with veil to darken the area and zone of silence to suppress sound around their room, but not inside it. It was locked, so she tore it open with force blades

, extending her aura out to suppress their spellcasting abilities. The two agents, a man and a woman, fell back.

The woman screamed.

“Did Liuan put you up to this herself, or is there a chain of command?” she asked in Eskanar.

“Who are you? What are you doing in our cabin!?” the man exclaimed.

“You already know who I am,” Mirian said, bored. She used lift object to snatch a pistol off the woman and a wand off the man. She used shape metal to tear open part of the gun. Examining it, she said, “It’s disguised as a Rosen Model 5, but it’s using a different glyph sequence to launch the projectiles, one that wouldn’t come up on standard divination checks. Standard issue to the RID.”

“What? RID? I think you’re mistaken. This is my wife, and we’re on a trip to—”

“Spare me the cover story. Your force dagger wand is using the same trick. Do you think I don’t know basic RID operations?” She’d dug through several Republic Intelligence Division safe houses when she was still trying to stop Kinsman’s assassination several years back. And one of the first things she’d had to deal with was Akanan spies in Torrviol.

“Someone help! We’re being attacked!” the woman screamed.

Mirian took a deep breath to calm the anger that was bubbling up in her.

It didn’t work at all.

She cast light of the Prophet, her own little spell she used for intimidation, and cast a raw force spell to blast them back in their seats. Illusionary wings bloomed from Mirian’s back, the eyes on them swirling with orange and violet energies. The wings looked like something an Elder creature might have. It also gave her voice a booming quality. On top of that, anyone with even the slightest spellcasting ability would be able to feel her mana buildup.

“I cannot tell you how tired I am of you people lying to me,” she snarled. “You are trailing a Prophet of the Ominian. I could crush this entire train if I wanted to. I can do far worse to you. Tell me the truth now, or perish. Painfully.”

TELL ME THE TRUTH NOW! she thought at them.

The man started shaking uncontrollably, eyes wide. He was pushed back up against the wall. The woman, who had previously been pretending to be scared, had a real fear in her eyes now, but she hadn’t become incapacitated. She started babbling. “I—I’m sorry, we—we didn’t know who you were. I don’t—I haven’t heard of a Liuan. We were just following orders!”

“Is anyone else here part of your operation?”

“N-no! It’s just us, I swear!”

“Who’s in charge of the operation?”

“Aldworth!”

Mirian ended her intimidation spell and made a disgusted face. “Isn’t she supposed to be leading Theodoro around with a leash?” Gwenna Aldworth was part of the operation to assassinate the Akanan Prime Minister. She was also working closely with Silou Westerun on mind control magic.

Neither of the agents seemed to know what to say to that. Mirian was no longer thinking about them. She was thinking about Liuan. Was that just the easiest operation to commandeer? There’s a huge number of RID operatives involved. But Aldworth… so do I let Liuan know she’s crossing a line? Or keep her unaware that I know?

It had been easy to decide to remove Troytin from the loop. He was clearly interested only in dominating the other time travelers, and was an active detriment to any solutions to Enteria’s fate.

With Liuan, it wasn’t so straightforward. She was stopping the Akanan invasion. Helping acquire an Elder artifact that might be a key to controlling the leylines. Helping find Vaults deep within the Labyrinth. She’s no threat to me. But to Jherica…

Mirian realized the woman was talking to her. “—going to do?”

She looked at the two. She thought about killing them and disintegrating the bodies. “You’re getting off at the next stop and taking a train back to Florin. Go to Starcrest tower and ask for Liuan. Tell her directly that if she fucks with Jherica using mind magic or has me tailed again, we’re going to have a big problem. Those words. Repeat them back to me.”

The woman did, and then, after taking another moment to calm himself, the man did too.

“Good.”

She mended the door behind her with shape metal. When the next stop came, she watched them get off and head to the opposite platform.

Back with Jherica she said, “I need to instruct you in soul magic. Your first task isn’t to check on Celen, it’s to find a way to get a celestial focus so you can do soul magic. You’re right not to trust Liuan. Establish your own power base in Vadriach University you can rely on. Better yet, see if you can get Sylvester Aurum to ally with you at his gala. I also know how to defend against the mind curses if they’re deployed against you.”

“You thought of all that while you were in the bathroom? By the way, you were in there for quite some time. Are you alright?”

Mirian sighed. “The two agents who were eavesdropping on us are taken care of. We’ll be in Palendurio in a few hours. Then you get to see what an Elder Gate looks like.”