A Sinner's Eden

Chapter 164 - EVO

***Tirnanog, Mount Aerie***

***Ivonne***

“I was so afraid!” Evanne shook while kneading her fingers, her eyes flicking nervously back and forth between me and the door as if she were afraid our brother could pay her another surprise visit. “Magnus is a psychopath! He might not remember, but he almost killed me during that airship battle! I recognized him when he broke Lukas's back! He wore a helmet back then, but that armour... and his speed. How could I ever forget!”

She shook when I touched her shoulder. My heart ached because of the obvious distress she was in. I bit my tongue, hoping Magnus hadn’t done too much damage with his visit. Couldn’t the idiot have warned me before visiting? I would have been there to prevent this mess.

“Evanne, you have to snap out of it. Magnus might be scary if you don't listen to him, but at the end of the day he is trying to protect us in his own – screwed-up – way,” I argued, not feeling it. “Once you talk with him a little more-”

“More!?” Evanne shrieked. “Please don't let him come back in here. He will kill Lukas right in front of me! And he may continue with me! There is something wrong in his head. He casually gave us a beating, broke my partner’s spine, and then he sat down to have a chat with me as if nothing happened! He forced me to discuss every little detail of our lives on Tirnanog. Even the embarrassing stuff.”

I massaged my forehead, feeling like I was getting a migraine. Although the situation differed greatly from my personal reunion with our brother, there were some frightening parallels.

Like violence being the first go-to solution, though I had to admit much of the initial animosity between us was on me.

Well, going by her recount, if Lukas had not attacked first, but who was I lying to?

I quickly glanced at the groaning man who was lying on the nearby bed, shackled in a full-body restraining harness so he wouldn't hurt his spine any further with accidental movements. Thanks to the starfish mutation he would recover, but it would still take some time for the nerves to reconnect correctly. If Magnus had cut something off it would be a much bigger problem and I was certain brother was capable of doing it.

I shuddered, remembering the first weeks after we arrived at Aerie as I mentally recounted the various infractions which happened almost every time he left the estate. Ripped off Hector’s finger, knocked a priestess unconscious, and threw some guy off an elevator. I feared we wouldn’t get through the first month before the clan elders decided we were more trouble than it was worth keeping us alive.

Still, I had to get Evanne out of her downward spiral and having Lukas's interference out of the picture did not hurt. To me, there was no question our future was with Clan Aerie and with Magnus.

“I am sure once the two of them get used to one another, slowly and under supervision, Magnus will abstain from using violence,” I laughed in a vain attempt at lightening the mood. “I could tell you stories about how long it took him to accept Hector. We had a lot of arguments over that.”

Well, we came to blows too. More than once and I hadn’t beaten him a single time, but I shouldn't mention that. Having super speed was just bullshit and unfair when matched against someone as slow as a normal human. And my skill with Precognition wasn't anywhere good enough to be of much help.

Evanne slowly turned, glaring at me. “Can you hear yourself talking? Evanne, you sound like someone with Stockholm syndrome! Have you been for so long with the Aerie that you have forgotten Thich? This isn't our home, Ivonne. You even took one of them as your partner! A partner!”

I pressed my lips together, irritated at having my relationship with Hector questioned. “I have left you to fend for yourself and I am sorry for that, but you are an adult woman. Get your act together, Evanne. Before you accuse me of mental problems you should look at yourself. You behave like someone with PTSD!”

The door clicked, and both of us turned to find Thalia standing in the doorway.

The psychic furrowed her brows and glanced back and forth between Evanne, Lukas, and me. There was no doubt she was sensing the agitated atmosphere in the room.

Then she looked up at the ceiling and put her hands together as if she was praying. “Gaia, please help me. Why was I this stupid? I promise I will again profane your cleavage. I know I should be the last person to do so. So give me a sign if you can hear me?”

A second later, her expression turned to a frown and then devolved further to a deep scowl as she, judging by her body language, received an unfavourable answer from the goddess.

***Tirnanog, Aerie Flagship***

***Magnus***

I scratched the back of my neck in a vain attempt to get rid of the tingly sensation which came with Precognition. Following the itch, I also turned around to check whether someone suspicious was ogling me from behind, but nobody was paying the slightest bit of attention to me. Everyone on the bridge was focused on their task. Ꞧ𝘈𝐍ọＢЁ𝙨

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Is something wrong, Magnus?” Astra asked, studying me with a curious expression. “You are fidgeting around like one of the kids. Concentrate, we have to be ready in case we are called upon.”

It did not look like the Thich were all too eager to defend the caves, but she was right. The Thich fleet had moved to intercept, even if they were keeping their distance for now.

“It's nothing,” I deflected. “Just a nervous itch. Like precognition, but I can't find the reason.”

“Hmm.” She shrugged and grinned. “Maybe someone is talking badly about you behind your back. I wouldn't be surprised.”

“Would that be enough to trigger precognition?” I asked, sceptical. “I had this itch from time to time since we partnered up, but I never connected it to someone talking about me.”

Astra gestured with a wave of her hand to not take her too seriously. “Don't take my word for it. Of course, there is no definite proof that precognition can be triggered by someone gossiping about you. However, the rumour is persistently running circles. I bet if you asked Thalia, she would say something like: It is not about people talking, but having ill intent directed towards you.”

I thought about it. “Wait, so precognition doesn't work if the source of the threat isn't alive? Then why don't we try to trap people like Gilbert!”

The forge master was always a menace during our sparring sessions. He was fast, but he would be nowhere fast enough to stop me if he didn't seem to know my next move before me.

Astra blinked. “That's not exactly how precognition works, but it is an adequate description for lesser-skilled individuals. The more intention there is behind the attack, the easier it is to sense. But don't get your hopes up. Those who mastered precognition, like Elder Gilbert, would sense even the minute intention behind a trap. Even if it hadn't been aimed at him directly. Plus, what kind of trap would you need to take out an elder?” She shook her head. “It is just not feasible in most cases. We should aim to develop our precognition to that point someday.”

“Bullshit sixth sense,” I complained and thought for a moment. “So, solely out of curiosity, precognition wouldn't help me at all if the source of the threat is a purely 'natural' accident? Like me slipping? Or a rock breaking off a cliff and hitting me by accident?”

Astra pursed her lips in thought. “Yes, and no. You know how strange psychic abilities are. There are rarely two of the same type. Even those which are fairly well documented, like precognition, are hardly understood completely. How would you try to set up a test for such a circumstance? Even if you list all the rare recounts of such events, could you put any significance to them? Did the ability not trigger because there was nothing behind it, or because the individual did not have adequate skill? Did the ability not trigger because the pebble which hit you had no hope of causing an injury? You would have to rely on witness testimonies, likely most of the time incomplete ones, instead of a proper test.”

I scratched my temple. “I see. Though there should be a statistically visible tendency once you have enough data.”

Astra raised an eyebrow. “What of the missing information? What of the various skill levels at using precognition? Most things in the wilds which do not trigger precognition are either harmless or leave you dead. No data from those who do not return to give their recounts.”

“Survivors bias.” I grinned, reminded of an old story about the Second World War. The military surveyed the damage to their returning planes. They concluded that the most damage was done to certain areas of the planes – which therefore had to be reinforced. The thought behind it was that those would be the areas where planes were most likely to be hit. Nobody thought about the fact that those areas having no significant relevance to flight was the very reason why those planes returned at all. After all, the planes which were hit everywhere else were the ones which crashed and therefore were not part of their statistics.

Our musings were interrupted when the bridge turned more active.

The Thich fleet was now actively moving to intercept us. They had realized where we were going and what our plan was.

Faced with the threat of being cut off from an essential resource to keep their airships afloat, they decided to throw everything they could at us.

Astra’s father, Etan, nodded once he and the other commanders had listened to the entire report. “Someone over there did the math and decided to hurt us while they still can.”

“Can they? Hurt us, I mean,” Astra asked.

Etan shrugged. “Their fleet still rivals ours in numbers, sans the reinforcements we expect in the next few days. We didn't come out of their trap completely unscathed at the last engagement, even if they threw away their allies to do as much damage as possible. If we are lucky, they have no clue about the second fleet. And our airships are better. Judging by their reaction to our course, the assumption about those caves containing their glowmoss farms was likely right. It comes down to the question of whether they have more of those rockets. If they don’t, I would be inclined to take the fight now and begin the siege on their city as early as possible. But if we wait and join up with the reinforcements, we could reduce our losses.”

He looked down at the tactical map with a conflicted expression. “I would rather give them as little time as possible to prepare their city for a siege. Every day counts and judging by their strategy so far they rushed their blitzkrieg tactics and failed, meaning they might not be properly prepared for having a war at their doorstep. Their glowmoss farms being so poorly defended is a strong indicator for that.”

“What could they do within a few days?” I asked. “Would it make that much of a difference?”

“It might be the difference between Thich City folding within the year, or holding us off till winter,” Etan explained. “Right now, we can’t move our forces around freely to prevent them from leaving their city. Which means each day their fleet remains active is a day they can funnel resources into their city.”

“But then… shouldn’t they hold their ships back?” I wondered, confused.

“Not necessarily.” Etan shook his head. “Those ships are another drain on their resources, in particular, their crews. The maintenance staff eats and drinks while providing relatively little combat power. If they hold those ships back till their glowmoss runs out, they keep the crews. Someone must have run the numbers and decided throwing away those people and doing as much damage as possible is worth the risk. And it is entirely possible that they can do enough damage to prevent us from taking Thich City. We will have to fight smart.”

So it was a gamble. “How do you see our chances?”

“As I said, those rockets they got from the old Earth ammunition depots are the deciding factor which levels the playing field with our forces.” Etan shrugged. “If I knew for certain that they have no more, I would take the fight without hesitation. Although everything hints that they used up most of their stock, I learned long ago to never fully trust in things I haven’t verified with my own eyes.”

“I say we take this chance and go for the win,” Vanya inserted herself into the discussion. “If we want to make sure we can use the little surprise Gunnar left behind, we can’t waste time. Each passing day increases the chances of discovery.”

I nodded, reminded why Gunnar had taken his sweet time with locating Evanne.@@novelbin@@

Etan turned to Skye Rumen, who was currently in charge of the fleet. “I suppose we need a slight course correction if we are going to meet them.”

Skye regarded the map for a few more moments before he gestured at one of his adjutants to relay the order.

The clans would fight one more battle.